The Cincinnati Reds officially signed their 1st round draft pick Tyler Stephenson on Friday. According to Jim Callis or MLB.com, Stephenson got the slot signing bonus of $3,141,600. The 2015 Draft Tracker has been updated with 11 signings and several signing bonuses if you are looking to keep track of how the Reds have been spending their draft bonus pool money.
On top of signing the deal, the Reds also announced that he will head to Billings to play for the Mustangs, the high rookie affiliate. That is a bit unusual as the Reds have sent their high school 1st rounders to their complex level rookie affiliates in most cases. With that said, they haven’t had too many 1st round position guys in the recent history that were high schoolers, so we are working with a limited sample. Going back to 2005 the team has drafted Jay Bruce and Devin Mesoraco as 1st round high school position players. Jesse Winker was a supplemental 1st rounder back in 2012. Bruce began in the Gulf Coast League with the Reds and got a call up to Billings for the final three weeks of the season. Devin Mesoraco spent his first season with the Gulf Coast League Reds, never playing for the Mustangs. Jesse Winker spent the entire season in Billings.
As a top half of the 1st rounder, Stephenson should be able to handle the jump up against mostly college guys that will make up a majority of the Pioneer League rosters. He won’t turn 19 until the middle of August, so he will be one of the youngest players in the league if history tells us anything about the general roster make up (last year had fourteen 18-year-olds get 100 PA in the league). The Mustangs had two 18-year-olds last season: Alberti Chavez and Shed Long.