In addition to reportedly agreeing to terms with fifth-round draft pick Gavin Stone, the Los Angeles Dodgers also appear to have signed Robbie Peto out of Stetson University. The fellow right-handed pitcher, who went undrafted in the 2020 MLB Draft, made the announcement on his Twitter account.
Including selections made during the Draft, Peto becomes the fifth pitcher the Dodgers have added to the organization within the past week. “We’re fired up. We just got a lot of velocity, a lot of pure stuff. It’s big, it’s right handed,” Dodgers vice president of amateur scouting
Billy Gasparino said of the haul of pitchers.
“It was a strength of the Draft, and we just took advantage of it.”
Peto went 3-0 with a 1.78 ERA, 41 strikeouts and 13 walks over 25.1 innings pitched across four starts in a shortened season this year. He was selected by the Tampa Bay Rays in the 26th round of last year’s Draft.
Ready to get to work! Let’s go @Dodgers pic.twitter.com/AXlyzL6nma
— Robbie Peto (@Robbie_Peto) June 14, 2020
Peto originally signed with the University of North Carolina after high school. He redshirted during the 2017 season, then played as a redshirt freshman at the State College of Florida in Manatee the following year.
He went 3-2 with a 5.23 ERA and averaged 10.23 strikeouts per nine innings over 10 starts. Peto’s first season with Stetson was 2019.
As part of the shortened 2020 MLB Draft, the Dodgers — and all other MLB clubs — have the option to sign an unlimited amount of undrafted players. However, signing bonuses are capped at $20,000.
Gasparino suggested the organization was possibly going to involve part-owner Magic Johnson and manager Dave Roberts to assist with recruiting pitches. “I haven’t seen the final version of the recruiting video but we’re going to pull out all the stops,” Gasparino said.
“We’re going to go after college juniors. There’s a few different arguments you can make, where I think college baseball, given the COVID-19 conditions, is kind of up in the air as well. And there is some advantage to coming in with us in a smaller draft class.
“If you’re one of 10 or 12 guys we end up signing, instead of 30, that helps your cause. I do think we’re going to be able to play some baseball this year, we just don’t really know what. We have a couple seniors that we’ve identified as guys we want to go after, but we feel good about the players we have in our system.
“So there is a line of talent that it’s going to have achieve for us to make a signing. We’re just not going to go randomly sign guys. There’s no real need.”
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