Although the 2020 MLB Draft was drastically shortened, Los Angeles Dodgers vice president of amateur scouting Billy Gasparino spoke highly of the crop of pitching talent that was going to be available throughout the five rounds.
The Dodgers wound up capitalizing on that, using four of six draft picks on a collegiate pitcher, including doing so with their first three selections. The Dodgers’ final draft pick was used on Gavin Stone in the fifth round at No. 159 overall.
“We’re fired up. We just got a lot of velocity, a lot of pure stuff. It’s big, it’s right handed,” Gasparino said of the Dodgers’ haul of pitchers. “It was a strength of the Draft, and we just took advantage of it.”
The next stop for the Dodgers was coming to terms with the 2020 MLB Draft picks, and that appears to be the case with Stone, who reportedly signed for below slot value, per Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times:
According to source, #Dodgers fifth-round pick Gavin Stone, a RHP from Central Arkansas, signed for $100,000, which is well under slot value of $327,200 for the 159th pick in draft. Stone went 3-1 with 1.30 in four starts this season, striking out 31 and walking six in 27 2/3 IP.
— Mike DiGiovanna (@MikeDiGiovanna) June 15, 2020
Stone was 3–1 with a 1.30 ERA, 31 strikeouts and six walks in 27.1 innings this season. In his last start at Central Arkansas, he struck out 13 batters in a no-hitter. The right-hander went 9–6 with a 2.42 ERA, 109 strikeouts and 33 walks in 101.1 innings over three seasons.
The Dodgers went into the process $5,928,400 in bonus pool money at their disposal, which can only be used on players taken in the five rounds. With a normal draft, a team’s bonus pool is determined by calculating the sum of the slot values for all of their picks in the first 10 rounds.
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Signing bonuses from those rounds, plus any amount spent over $125,000 for players selected outside of that would count toward the bonus pool.
“There’s just those six picks, and if you don’t spend the money, it doesn’t get spent,” Gasparino said of this year’s bonus pool, adding that it eliminated some of the creativity in how teams handle signing bonuses.
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