Last night the Cubs signed their second-round pick, James Triantos from James Madison High School in Virginia, to a well- above-slot bonus. The Cubs have now signed all 10 of their picks from the first ten rounds and 15 players overall.
2nd-rder James Triantos signs w/@Cubs for $2.1 million (pick 56 value = $1,276,400). Virginia HS 3B, had late helium as @MLBDraft approached, upside of plus hitter w/possible power to match. North Carolina recruit.
— Jim Callis (@jimcallisMLB) July 23, 2021
The Cubs entered the draft with an available pool of just $6,779,400, meaning they could spend about $7.12 million (105% of the pool number) without triggering any penalties. By my math, the above-slot signings of Triantos and 18th round pick Dominic Hambley take the Cubs just a few thousand bucks shy of that threshold.
The Cubs have spent 104.9% of their $6.78 million bonus pool.
They have $5,070 left below the threshold that triggers a penalty.
The below list doesn’t include Day 3 signees Rodriguez, Scalzo, Murray, Olivo. Look for 1-2 more to join that list. pic.twitter.com/OkZk7ipcX9
— Cubs Prospects – Bryan Smith (@cubprospects) July 23, 2021
With the Triantos signing official, we can now step back and begin to appreciate the Cubs draft in its totality.
Yes, they still could sign another couple players before the August 1 deadline (particularly Zach Leigh and maybe Daniel Avitia), but the meat and potatoes of this class are now officially members of the organization. And I think we can now see and appreciate how Scouting Director Dan Kantrovitz organized his draft and ultimately chose to deploy his $7-plus million, one of the smallest available bonus pools in MLB.
In an absolutely fantastic interview with Ivy Futures, Kantrovitz discussed how the Cubs prepared to use their first-round pick on an underslot draftee to save money for the middle and late rounds. However, Jordan Wicks was one of 10 players the Cubs were prepared to snag if he fell, so the Cubs immediately ripped up their plans and re-worked their strategy to figure out how to make the money work with a full-slot first round pick.
In rounds 2-4, which I wrote about after the Draft, the Cubs felt it necessary to take players their area scouts had really strong opinions on. Billy Swoope, area scout for the Southeast coast and winner of the 2020 Stan Zielinski award, is a big believer in Triantos’ upside potential with the bat. In the interview, Kantrovitz credits Florida scout Tom Clark with the Drew Gray selection, saying he was Clark’s “gut feel guy all spring.” And in the fourth round, the Cubs were shocked that Christian Franklin was still on the board, someone Kantrovitz, himself, had really liked during the scouting process and a player that scout Ty Nichols believed was a really good defensive center fielder.
With those four in tow and eating up nearly 90% of the Cubs available money, the Cubs had to go into cost-saving mode for rounds 5-10. The goal was leaving enough money to find at least one high upside and above-slot player on Day 3, so the Cubs had to find college players with a mix of low bonus demands and Major League upside in the rest of round 2. I think Arkansas catcher Casey Opitz is a really good example of that.
While the Cubs are likely to lose out on their 11th and 12th round picks due to strengthened commitments to their chosen colleges, the Cubs ultimately found their high upside player to take a $200,000 bonus in Hambley, a Canadian right-handed pitcher that participated in the inaugural MLB Draft League this summer. Hambley, who was set to attend Oregon State, is rough around the edges but has reached the mid 90s and has some feel for a slider.
Finally, more kudos goes out to the Cubs scouts for finding some players with upside on Day 3 that would fit in with the $125,000 cap for that day. I love Georgia right-handed prep pitcher Erian Rodriguez as a guy to throw in the Cubs strength-and-conditioning program. Grand Canyon University closer Frankie Scalzo Jr has been up to 97 mph and could fly through the lower levels of the system. And I like the fluidity and simplicity of Christian Olivo’s swing, the Cubs 17th round pick from Puerto Rico, who was one of the Draft’s youngest players.
Some great color in here on 3 Cubs draftees: Chase Watkins, Dom Hambley and Christian Olivo. Cubs were clearly paying big attention to the Draft League.
Watkins is a big-time spin guy and I like seeing those numbers already on Hambley’s slider. https://t.co/vzYuVQuLRy pic.twitter.com/y8TFGdPkGp
— Cubs Prospects – Bryan Smith (@cubprospects) July 20, 2021
The unique limitations of Major League Baseball’s draft makes it impossible to compare teams’ drafts to each other, but I feel really good with how the Cubs played the puzzle of spending $7.1 million. They were very aggressive with their first four picks, trusted their draft models in the middle, and found upside at the end. Impressive work by the entire scouting department, and I look forward to seeing how the development staff handles these prospects.