The Cincinnati Reds have officially signed competitive balance round B 2nd round pick Jackson Miller. The high school catcher was the lone remaining draft pick who hadn’t signed with the Reds from the 2020 Major League Baseball draft. It was Miller himself, who announced the signing earlier on Saturday.
Officially a Cincinnati Red! Beyond excited to start my professional career. Thank you to everyone that has helped me along the way. GO REDS?? @Reds
— Jackson Miller (@Miller24Jackson) July 11, 2020
Jim Callis of MLB.com reports that Jackson Miller signed for $1,290,000 – an overslot deal. The Reds had additional money to offer, though, to the Mitchell High School product to put his name on the contract. The team cut it close, but stayed under their pool allotment by $6,100 after signing all six of their picks.
Here’s what we wrote on draft day for his scouting report:
There’s not one tool that really jumps off of the scouting report for Jackson Miller. But all five of his tools are at least average, too. As a catcher you always look at the defense first. He’s got good hands and shows the ability to receive pitches well at times, though like nearly all high school catchers he will need more reps and experience to fine tune things. His arm plays out as average and is noted to be accurate to the bag.
Offensively is where you will see a little bit of split among scouts. His hit tool grades out as average on most boards, but it’s his power potential where the split comes in. Some will put down slightly above-average power in his raw power column, while some will be on the other end and mark down slightly below-average power. That may come down to the fact that right now his swing is more of a line drive oriented swing and you have to buy into him learning to use his power as he matures and figures out when the right time is to use more of a power swing.
Overall the package for a catcher looks good. The offensive expectations for a starting caliber catcher tend to be a bit below-average overall because their focus is on the defensive side of things. For Miller, he could be an above-average hitter for the position and the defense may not stand out, but it’s not expected to lag behind either.
While there was no reason at all to think that Jackson Miller wasn’t going to sign, it’s good to see that he’s now in the fold. Teams had until August 1st to sign draft picks this year – a date that was pushed back for 2020 compared to other years.
What this also means is that the Reds have now signed all of their draft picks, and on Monday, I’m going to be updating the Cincinnati Reds Top 25 Prospects list for the first time since November. With the offseason, some spring training that brought new information, and the 2020 draft, the list has seen a few changes. If you support the site on Patreon you saw the list last month. If you don’t, well, you get to wait until Monday – unless you go drop a few pennies at Patreon for that early access.
Glad they got the whole class signed.
The kid is interesting, not sure why he would need to be over slot, but does seem solid.
I mean he’s a high school kid drafted a little later so it’s more expensive to sign them away from college.
He may not have needed over slot money. I was simply saying that the money was there if it was needed.
Updated with signing bonus information.
Thanks for the Info Doug. The Reds must really like this kid. Hope he does well.