I love being wrong about things like this, but the Phillies handed over the money and got the deal done. Per Baseball America

There were two above-slot signings of late-round picks. The Phillies landed Washington high school righthander Julian Sampson (12th round) for $390,000, while the Rangers locked up California prep righty Kyle Ocampo (13th round) for $250,000.

MLB wants picks after the fifth round to receive no more than the last slotted bonus in the fifth round, which was $123,300 this year.

So far, so good. If it was only going to be one of either Sampson or Workman, I wanted Sampson, so this is a good start.

UPDATE: There was a question as to compensation for the lost 3rd round pick, and I have confirmed that we’d get a pick in a new compensatory round between the 3rd and 4th round if we didn’t sign Workman, we wouldn’t get the same pick (ie, the 12th) in next year’s draft.

That’s the big question we face, with the signing deadline tomorrow. It’s nothing new at this point, our two best unsigned prospects are Brandon Workman and Julian Sampson, both RHP. Workman is a 3rd round pick, and if he doesn’t sign, the Phillies receive a compensation pick in next year’s draft, which I believe will come between the 3rd and 4th rounds. If Sampson does not sign, the Phillies receive nothing but a thank you note from the Commish. If you’ve been following my blog and my writings, you know where I stand on this. As a front office, you have two decisions; you either play by the unofficial rules, or you do what you want. The Commissioners Office makes recommendations on slot bonuses, but if you follow the proper path, you can sign a player for whatever you want. A lot of teams do not go against the wishes of the Commissioner, but some teams do, and the most notable team of late is the Detroit Tigers.

Continue reading One day to go, will they or won’t they? →

The August 15th deadline is just 2 days away, and the Phillies two best unsigned prospects remain Brandon Workman and Julian Sampson. An article in the CourierPostOnline this morning said this

Phils work to sign players: In terms of the big picture, the Phillies have been very successful signing their top 30 draft picks in each of the last two seasons. This year, with the August 15 deadline looming, they are six short of a perfect 30-for-30 with a pair of big prizes still on the board.

The Philies No. 3 pick Brandon Workman – a 6-foot-4 right hander – and No. 12 pick Julian Sampson – a 6-foot-5 right hander – remain unsigned with college commitments in their back pockets. The two high school pitchers could push this draft over the top but that remains to be seen as the deadline will strike at 11:59 est.

“I think the best way to put this is we’re working on multiples,” assistant general manager Mike Arbuckle said. “In the end, it comes down to who is willing to sign.

“(Scouting director Marti Wolever and his staff) are prepared to work right up to that final minute. You’d like to sign every draft choice but, for example, a third-round talent has to be willing to be paid third-round dollars. We have to decide to direct dollars to get the most done.”

Workman is set to attend the University of Texas and seemed to be picked higher than most teams would have been willing to go. Sampson meanwhile according to one scouting report has “a good arm, good mechanics and the kind of projection scouts look for in high school pitchers.”

The Phillies have labored in the lower end of farm systems and have attempted to replenish a very thin system over the past two seasons. To that end, they drafted 31 pitchers in their 52 selections.

It looks like we’ll just have to see how much resolve Workman and Sampson have. 3rd round money is in the $500k range, and my gut tells me that Sampson wants more like $750k. The Phillies would be best served to take the money for Workman, plus a few dollars, and give it to Sampson. If they do this and don’t sign Workman, they get another 3rd rounder next season as compensation. We’ll see what happens, stay tuned.

The dust has settled a bit, there are a few big unknowns remaining. How would you rate or grade this draft? You can give two assessments;

1. We sign no one else

2. We sign either Workman, Sampson, Moncrief, etc etc, or we sign a combination of them.

Feel free to explain your answers. It’s impossible to really know how things will shake out for 3 or 4 years, but we can assess what we know so far.

Thanks to SQUIRE for posting this article in a previous post.

With the signing of Savery, the Phillies have now signed 17 of their first 19 picks and all but seven of their first 33 selections. They also expressed confidence that they will be able to come to terms with right-hander Brandon Workman (the No. 3 selection), right-hander Julian Sampson (No. 12) and center fielder Cedric Johnson (No. 19), but all three high school players need to be signed by Aug. 15.

I’m going to try to get a bit more info on Johnson, and if I can hunt it down today, I’ll update this post. I’d be happy with this haul here, and I’d upgrade the draft to a solid B.

Before we look at some of our draftees, I wanted to give everyone a heads up. Yesterday’s Bill Conlin post has prompted some great discussion. I feel like I should clarify a few things. I do stand by my description of Bill. He is an old, angry, bitter man. Just take a look at some of the responses he sent back to people who e-mailed him….what kind of professionalism is that? The reason I brought up the article yesterday is because it was focusing on Kyle Drabek, and failed Phillies pitching prospects. Drabek was unfairly labeled as being “finished” and tossed in the trash bin with guys like Pat Combs, and I felt that was grossly unfair. Conlin had an idea, he spouted off about it, but I have a feeling he didn’t even bother to look up the facts. So, over the next few days, I’m going to go through the first round of the June draft for every MLB team over the last 35 years and take a look at the fate of the pitchers taken first by their teams. Then we’ll see how “bad” the Phillies track record really is. And one more note; I don’t really write things just to get people to come here. I don’t have any ads on my site, I don’t make a dime off of this, I only do it because it’s fun. Over the last 4 months, I’ve been averaging about 2,000 hits a day. If someone links to me on another board, I get a few more, but I rarely even look at it. I enjoy writing about the Phillies minor leagues, I say my piece, and I’m grateful for those who come and read. However, I don’t try to create controversy to get more hits, and I’m not trying to sell anything, I just speak my opinion.

Now, let’s look at the performance of a few of our draftees…

Continue reading 2007 Draftees Update →

The Phillies two picks remaining of their first 15 to not sign are 3rd rounder Brandon Workman and 12th rounder Julian Sampson, both RHP prepsters. I wouldn’t be overly concerned just yet, even though we are less than a month from the signing deadline. Half of the first round has yet to sign, and the general consensus is that teams wait as long as possible, as to not anger the Commissioners office. If you’re going to bust slot, you generally wait till the end, as to not set a precedent for other prospects who haven’t signed. The rumored numbers are about $600,000 for Workman and $250,000 for Sampson. Personally, I feel like the former has a very good chance of happening, the latter, I’m not so sure. If both guys sign, it will turn this draft into a B- in my book. I’m still not thrilled with how rounds 3-10 played out, but signing Jiwan James and Jacob Diekman is a definite plus, and if they grab Sampson as well, that’s a nice haul. We’ll see…

It’s been an eventful month or so since the draft. The Phillies have done some nice work in signing their college guys taken early in a rather quick fashion, and they wrapped up their two top prep guys in d’Arnaud and Mattair quickly. They’ve also nabbed Jiwan James, one of their best flier prospects taken after the 20th round. But, we’re now only 6 weeks from the deadline, and a few important guys are yet to sign.

Continue reading Draft pick signings; crunch time approaching →

Here’s a nice article on our 30th round pick, Jacob Diekman. Diekman is reporting to the GCL squad, and reportedly got something “close to 7th round money”, which is probably between $50,000 and $100,000, if I had to guess. He seems like a good kid, and you can never have enough live arm lefties.

Less than 12 hours after deciding to pass on pro baseball for now, Jiwan James changed his mind and signed with the Phillies. The article talks about James going back and forth, including attending an orientation session at Florida, but ultimately deciding to sign. The Phillies had contacted James on draft day and offered him the money if they took him in the 6th round, but he said he wouldn’t sign for that. Within the article linked above, it mentions the Phillies visiting him and upping their offer. My guess? Between $250,000 and $350,000, around 3rd-4th round money. We’ll know eventually, as Baseball America normally gets all the bonus amounts right. This leaves Julian Sampson as our prized prep prospect, as the Phillies already came to terms with 30th round pick Jacob Diekman, a live armed JuCo lefty. Mark Adzick is 99% committed to Wake Forest, leaving Sampson as our main target. I’m not sure how the signing of James will affect the latter, time will tell, but for now, this is quite an exciting development.

Want the skinny on James? Check out the writeup on PhilliesDraft.com