Signing day

With the Pirates’ big league season tanking in the last couple of weeks, today is arguably the most important day of the season for the Pirates. The signing deadline for June’s draft is midnight, which means that within 14 or so hours we should know if the Pirates get Josh Bell and Gerrit Cole under contract.

Cole is honestly pretty much a given. He can’t raise his value by going back to school for another year and the Pirates have had no problem paying for their first round picks, Scott Boras clients or otherwise, since Neal Huntington and Greg Smith took over the drafts. Boras will take this negotiation down to the last second, but as far as I’m concerned the biggest question around Cole is how much money the Pirates will give him and whether or not he gets a big league deal. Bell is obviously a bit harder to get a read on, but I don’t think that it’s a foregone conclusion that he won’t sign at this point. The fact that there hasn’t been any sort of official announcement that he’s going to Texas makes me think that he (through Boras) is willing to negotiate with the Pirates right down to the end. I’ll stand by what I said on draft day here: if Bell is willing to sign for a reasonable bonus (say, under $5 million), the Pirates will sign him. If he doesn’t sign, the assumption should be that he wanted to go to school and not that the Pirates were too cheap to sign him (I would take him not signing and having asked for a $6 million bonus as a sign that he wants to go to school, not that the Pirates are too cheap), unless we hear differently. 

Beyond that, Tim’s got a good preview of the other names to watch for today and what the Pirates’ contingency plans might be if they think they can’t sign Bell. Also, ninth rounder Clay Holmes, who was one of Baseball America’s Top 200 prospects is expected to sign today for what will almost certainly be an over-slot deal. He’ll probably get more than fifth rounder Tyler Glasnow, who signed earlier this month for a $500,000 bonus. As one of the higher-ceiled guys to be drafted after Bell, it’s good to see the Pirates get him under contract. 

I’ll try to post updates through the day as warranted, though I’m expecting the big news to not break until quite a bit later tonight.  

UPDATE: Tim is reporting that Kody Watts, the Pirates’ 15th rounder and also a BA Top 200 guy, is in Pittsburgh taking a physical with the Pirates, which makes it seem like the deal is imminent. Getting deals done with him and Holmes is good news for the Pirates. That leaves Bell and Cole, who, again, will probably go down to the wire.