I've been searching for some time for a good topic for my first post here, and then I got caught up in the Mark Appel speculation. Will he sign? Won't he? Will agent Scott Boras try to use him as some kind of example to buck the new system put in place by the most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement?
To really conjecture properly, you need to understand how this new system works. I don't pretend to be an expert on this topic (I don't think any of us really do; perhaps Jim Callis?), but essentially each team is given a slot amount for all picks in the first 10 rounds of the Rule 4 (amateur) draft. A team may exceed the slot for an individual pick, but not the collective slots through round 10. If you go over the slot by a small amount, you pay hefty fines; if you go over by any significant amount, you forfeit draft picks. If you fail to sign one of those picks, you lose the slot money.
So, long gone are the days of $5 million bonuses for the Josh Bells or $8 million bonuses for the Gerrit Coles. Naturally, this makes it tough for a small-market team to invest more heavily in amateur talent and stock their farm systems with high-end prospects by going over-slot in later rounds of the draft.
That brings us to Mark Appel. Appel was expected to go first overall to the Astros, but they instead balked at his bonus demands and took high-upside shortstop Carlos Correa. Other teams, scared off by both bonus demands and over-slot penalties, passed on Appel as well. He slid all the way to the Pirates at eighth overall. The Pirates, however, do not have a terribly large slotting pool for their 11 selections through round 10. The slot recommendation for the pick is around $2.9 million, but Appel was said to be seeking a bonus in the neighborhood of $6 million. The Pirates, like other teams, went conservative with high school seniors in the latter half of the first 10 rounds to free up slot money, but as of this writing, Jim Callis of Baseball America projects the Pirates could only spend about $3.84 million on Appel, assuming the rest of their unsigned early-round picks sign at slot value and they're willing to pay significant fines (but not give up a draft pick). That is well below Appel's expectations and it could cause him to rebuff the Pirates' offer and return to Stanford for his senior year. Indeed, there was been speculation recently (by Jon Heyman of CBS Sports in particular) that it was the direction Appel was leaning.
So, how does all of this relate to Derrek Lee? Well, as you may recall, the Pirates offered Derrek Lee arbitration in the offseason. Lee declined, so the Pirates were due a supplemental draft pick in this year's draft, assuming Lee signed a major-league deal with another team. He did not. Had Lee signed and had the Pirates been granted an extra supplemental round pick, it would have added about another million dollars or so to the pool. The Pirates could have used that pick on a safe, below-slot sign and applied a portion of it to a deal with Appel to sweeten the pot.
Now, I have no idea whether $4.25 million would have been any more appealing to Appel than $3.84 million, but it might have enabled the Pirates to offer him a deal that would have placed his bonus in the top three in the draft class. That could have been a meaningful "win" for Appel and his agent Scott Boras. Obviously, Appel could still decide to sign with the Pirates, but if he doesn't, I'll always wonder if Derrek Lee made the difference.
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