Two days ago the Cincinnati Reds made seven new signings of draft picks. Today the club is adding to it, picking up two more players by signing 12th round pick Will Cannon – a right-handed pitcher from Auburn – and 17th round pick Trent Hodgdon – a right-handed pitcher from South Carolina Upstate. Update (3.35pm) The Reds have signed two additional players today – 2nd round competitive balance pick Luke Holman – a right-handed pitcher from LSU – and 5th round pick Tristan Smith – a left-hnaded pitcher from Clemson.
With those four signings, Cincinnati has signed 15 of their 21 selections from the 2024 Major League Baseball draft. They are still looking to bring in 2nd rounder Tyson Lewis, 11th round pick Edgar Colon, 14th round pick Adrian Areizaga, 18th round selection Jalen Hairston, 19th round pick Owen Pote, and 20th round pick Mason Russell.
Some of those seem more likely than others. With the bonus pools and slot values tied to picks, the Reds have never failed to sign a player in the top 10 rounds since that system was implemented. Teams know going into the pick whether or not they have an almost guarantee that they can sign the player they will be selecting within the top 10 rounds. That makes signing of Tyson Lewis highly likely.
The players taken after the 10th round get a bit more dicey. They can only sign for up to $150,000 before any of their bonus goes towards the draft pool amount. Cincinnati has some “extra” money right now that they could apply to those players if they are looking for more than that to sign, but they may have that earmarked for guys still in the top 10 rounds that are unsigned.
As things sit right now the team has signed their group for $713,900 under slot. On top of that, they can spend up to 5% beyond their pool allotment before they would have to give up next year’s 1st round pick. That leaves them plenty of money to work with to try and bring in much of the unsigned, remaining players.
Have the Reds signed any UDFAs?
None that have been reported thus far
I watched some videos about Lewis telling he is going to sign with the Reds. Although, I think he will be a bit overslot. I don’t see Holman refusing to sign even I guess he will do it underslot. Tristan Smith is likely going break even I guess.
Is it possible the Reds is trying to save money as much as they can to sign Russell?
Anything is possible, but I’d say that even they believe the odds of signing him are about the same odds as me dating Anna Kendrick.
Uh! When I read Anna just crossed my mind the name Ana De Armas…
So if Lewis signs for about $2 million, which would be pretty much the same as Stafura last year who was drafted a little higher, and then Holman and Smith sign for slot money, that leaves the Reds about $1.35 million for all the HS kids taken rounds 11-20. If you want to swing for the fences with Russell, about the most they can offer him is $1.5 million. That would also mean telling Colon, Areizaga, and Pote to take $150k or go to college.
I think the far most likely scenario is that Russell goes to college and we likely sign all three of Colon, Areizaga, and Pote for around $500k-$600k each. Given we had a night to talk over the 11th rd pick I bet the came to an agreement with Colon on a number before the 11th rd started.
I wouldn’t hate going all in on Russell if $1.5 million would get it done though.
Unfortunately, I think it’s going to take quite a bit more to sign Lewis than 2$M. There are several 2nd round/comp round high schoolers who have gotten back end of the first round money to sign. The first comp round salary slot is about 3.3$M. I would guess that’s what Lewis’ agent wants. He was ranked as high as 31st I believe.
If he gets, say 2.8$M I would say it’s going to be hard to give anything much over slot to the others. The rest of the signees really hinges on what Lewis signs for.
That’s a pretty big split between slot for where he slid to (1.8 mil) and the 3.3 mil at the height of his draft projection. Almost double. They’ll sign him but that seems high for a kid from Nebraska which isn’t the baseball hotbed if baseball.
This has been updated to include two more draft pick signings this afternoon.
Of the draftees still unsigned, I am drawn to the two left-handed pitchers Tristan Smith and Mason Russell.
Oh, I see that Tristan Smith has signed now
Drew Mount released
One of a bunch to come… I wonder if the Reds have given up on Austin Hendrick
Edwin Rios re-signed for Bats. Vin Timpanelli released.
Edgar Colon looks pretty good in the videos and it seems to have upside not so far than other quality prospect…
MLB.com draft tracker indicates Tristan Smith signed for $600K, about $150K over slot value.
Excited for both Smith and Holman. Getting Floyd and Hollan back full time next year, with Smith and Holman is like getting two drafts for the price of one.
The pitching prospects doesn’t seem to be a problem in the Reds farm system
Holman comes in at $997,000. By my calculation they have $1,506,505 over slot. If they give Lewis $2,500,000 they could offer Russell $961,405. Don’t know how it will work out but it is a good figure to work with.
There is a video out there from July 15th of Tyson lewis himself saying “I think we’re going to sign, the Reds gave me a pretty good chunk of money and they met what I was looking for and I think we’re going to get the pro career going here. The next few days I’ll be sent down to their spring training place I will sign my contract and we’ll get going”
That’s 9 days ago. Any reason this isn’t done that anyone knows?
Could be a lot of reasons, but very few worth worrying about. The odds that he doesn’t sign are slim and none.
There is no doubt that Lewis will sign. The question is how much is left. Enough for Russell? By this time last year their highly ranked 20th round pick had announced that he was going to college. So far no public comment from him for what it is worth. If they can’t sign him they hopefully have enough to sign Colon and Arejzaga.