The Cincinnati Reds seemed like they were the only team out there not announcing that they had signed draft picks from the 2021 Major League Baseball draft. The draft ended on Tuesday afternoon, and until last night just after 10pm, the team had not announced the signing of a single pick. There was, and still is no reason to think they won’t get their players signed, but the announcements – of lack of – was strangely missing. That changed last night as the team released that they had indeed signed six of their 22 draft picks. Update: The Reds have announced the signing of nine more draft picks today, and a non-drafted free agent. Another Update: The Reds have announced that they’ve also signed 1st round (35th overall) pick Mat Nelson. Another update (June 21): The Reds have also now signed 6th round selection Justice Thompson.
While I have been keeping the 2021 Cincinnati Reds Draft Tracker up to date, and it’s something you should certainly check on a daily basis, let’s look at the picks that they did sign.
- Jay Allen – Outfield, John Carroll High School (1st round – comp)
- Mat Nelson – Catcher, Florida State (1st round – comp A)
- Andrew Abbott – Left-handed pitcher, Virginia (2nd round)
- Jose Torres – Shortstop, NC State (3rd round)
- Ruben Ibarra – 1st Base, San Jose State (4th round)
- Thomas Farr – Right-handed pitcher, South Carolina (5th round)
- Justice Thompson – Outfielder, North Carolina (6th round)
- Kevin Abel – Right-handed pitcher, Oregon State (7th round)
- Hunter Parks – Right-handed pitcher, Florence-Darlington Tech (8th round)
- Jack Rogers – Outfield, Sam Houston (9th round)
- Donovan Benoit – Right-handed pitcher, Tulane (10th round)
- Julian Aguiar – Right-handed pitcher, Cypress College (12th round)
- Michael Trautwein – Catcher, Northwestern (13th round)
- Blake Dunn – Outfield, Western Michigan (15th round)
- Owen Holt – Right-handed pitcher, Alvin Community College (16th round)
- Austin Callahan – 3rd Base, Hutchinson Community College (18th round)
- Ryan Cardona – Right-handed pitcher, Marist (19th round)
The team also made it official that they had signed catcher Hayden Jones out of Illinois State. Baseball America reported this agreement last week.
We still don’t know the signing bonuses for everyone who has signed, but more are beginning to trickle in. As soon as I see them they are added into the Draft Tracker (linked above).
The signing deadline is August 1st. The only exception is for college seniors who are eligible to sign after that date.
Can’t wait to see Ibarra get to work. Like to see him get some time in either level of A before the year is out. And he signed for well under slot, which is nice too.
Might be nice for you, but not so much for him.
I mean, from a Reds standpoint, reallocating that money to another draft slot may be nice.
And I don’t know anything about the guy, but i figure he probably has an agent and this was their negotiated price and he was agreeable to it. It looks like he could be a redshirt senior next year, and bet on himself to go first/second round for more $$, but decided to sign.
Just yankin your chain Matt. It is good for the team and I’m sure he is happy or he would not have signed.’
Whoops – my bad. It would be nice for me though. I wouldnt turn down multiple thousands of dollars if someone offered me.
You are looking at this incorrectly, Matt. If you felt your working ability was worth, say, $50,000 a year, would you agree to do it for $22,000 a year? I bet you wouldn’t. Nor should you.
Preface this by saying yes – I agree and think a player should be paid his worth, what ever that may be. If he felt he could have gotten more, he should have held out and tried for and negotiated for more.
At the same time, if I had been doing a job that I did well, but for free, and then you told me my salary was going from 0 to 22k, even though I knew I was worth 50, I’d still have to think about it.
Advice to future Matt: Don’t do that to yourself and get what you are worth from the get go because you can never get that back and it also makes it far tougher to ever get your actual worth in the future, too.
As a professional educator, I think I already messed that one up. But, thats a discussion not for this website.
Also, unrelated to this post, but Reds minor leagues related…Following the Bats game on gameday, and wondered who they replaced Alaniz and Garcia with. Cionel Perez was one. Scrolled down to their bullpen, and Nick Howard has reached AAA! Great to see after the journey he’s had. Hopefully he’s as successful there as he has been in Chattanooga. Not just for the Reds sake, but it’s just genuinely nice to see his comeback.
Re Nick Howard, I am also glad his return to baseball is with us.
I don’t understand the Abbott sign for $1.3 M. That seems a bit rich for a senior 2nd rounder who seems destined for the bullpen. I was hoping they could save some $ from that draft pick and use it to sign some of the juniors taken in later rounds. There a a couple guys (Abel, Thompson, Parks) that could easily go back to school and improve their draft stock. With Mccain rumored to be going above slot, its going to be touch to make those 3 a substantial offer to sway from going back to College.
my bad, I didn’t see your latest update Doug. I’ll be interested to see what they signed for compared to slot. Maybe we will get all of our top 12 picks signed….
I’m very confident everyone in the top 10 rounds will sign.
Doug, can you explain to us why they signed Nelson at slot value? You have stated that the top 3 picks would probably go at or above slot, but did Nelson or Abbott have any leverage?
Of course they had leverage. They’re 1st round caliber talents. You aren’t getting them if you don’t pay. Someone else would be willing to pay them, so you have to pay them. The slotting system means that almost every deal for a Top 10 round guy is agreed to before the name is read aloud. You can’t try to play those games with guys truly in demand like you can with seniors who may go 300th overall in a non-slotted/pool system and get them to take 30-40% or less.
Only McClain and Thompson from the top 10 rounds left to sign… Maybe McClain will be signed above slot …