Cleveland Sports Forum

Due to lack of remaining talent, Indians are shut out in this week's Hot Prospect Report from BA. At least no one appears on the "not so hot" list either.

Stuff from Lastoria:

That Law mention of a $3M asking price for Tarpley is not right....it's the agent trying to pump up his value.

Also, I have no confirmation on this, but it looks like the Indians may have signed 19th round pick Shawn Morimando.

SHAWN MORIMANDO

Ocean Lakes, senior pitcher/first baseman/outfielder

A left-hander, set school records this year with strikeouts in a season (115) and game (15).
Batted .379 with a school-record six home runs.
First-team All-Beach District and All-Eastern Region at Utility.
A 19th-round draft pick of the Cleveland Indians.
Signed with East Carolina.

Another high schooler from a round in the 'teens signs for 3rd round money.


The Indians have signed 19th round pick left-handed pitcher Shawn Morimando. Sources early yesterday morning indicated that both sides were closing in on a deal. While the Indians have yet to announce anything from a signing standpoint, both Baseball America and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com have reported the signing as official and say it is for $350K.

Morimando is a prep player who was committed to East Carolina University, but will now head to Cleveland to start his pro career. He is an athletic pitcher with a good fastball-curveball mix from the left side, and was also a pretty good hitter in high school.

BA has no bio on him

Tribe seem to have blown a lot of their bonus budget signing low rounders over slot. Maybe they know that the top round guys aren't going to sign. Looks like quantity vs quality.

Have to wait and see and what happens. They seem to have signed a lot more HS and Juco players than they have in the past.

There are only 3 guys in the Indians top 10 that have yet to sign. (Lindor, Howard and Tarpley)

Going by rumors Lindor is a potential non sign and Howard is expected to sign.

If the Indians signed the remainder of the top 10 plus Dillon Peters and/or Cole Pitts I`d be more than happy.

There are reports that the Indians have signed 13th round pick Zack MacPhee.

Sign here: The Indians have signed catcher Eric Haase and infielder Zach MacPhee.
Haase was their seventh-round pick from Divine Child (Dearborn, Mich.) High School for $580,000. MacPhee was the 13th-round pick from Arizona State and signed for $150,000.
The Indians have signed 13 of their top 16 picks. The deadline for signing draft picks in midnight Monday.

I agree TDU, we see to be bringing way more high school kids into the organization. New strategy, I guess. Arizona team will be full of these guys next year; not sure where they'll place the Dominican League graduates.

I hope that they can sign both Dillons and Tarpley. Obvously they don't want to lose Lindor, but at worst a team gets another 1st rounder next season if they fail to sign this year's guy.

Second baseman Zack MacPhee was the Pacific-10 Conference player of the year last year after batting .389/.486/.664, the first year he started switch-hitting. He hit just .232/.377/.283 in conference games this year with college baseball's less-potent bats, though he still showed a patient approach. He took his walks and didn't strike out a lot, but put a lot of pressure on himself after his huge sophomore season. MacPhee has a tight, uphill swing from both sides of the plate. He doesn't have the arm strength to play anywhere but second base and is a fringy runner. He's a good defender at second base, but at 5-foot-8 and 172 pounds he needs either big tools or big numbers, and he had neither this year.

BA posts signing bonuses for most signings, maybe only when they're in six figures? since nothing smaller is posted on Tribe list. Here are bonuses so far:

Round 7: $580,000
Round 19: $350,000
Round 3: $325,000
Round 14: $250,000
Round 4: $220,000
Rounds 5, 13 and 16: $150,000
Round 9: $125,000
Round 6: $112,500
Rounds 7, 43: $100,000

In 2010, BA lists these 100,000 and over signings:

1 Pomeranz 2,650,000
2 Washington 1,200,000
3 Wohlers 1,350,000
4 Blair 580,000
5 Cole Cook 299,000
6 Bartlone 125,000
7 Aviles 150,000
8 Lavisky 1,000,000
9 Jordan Cooper 125,000
10 Tyler Holt 500,000
11 Hunter Jones 225,000
13 Goodnight 315,000
19 Mark Brown 125,000
23 Dischler 255,000

Not sure if there might have been other 6 figure bonuses, but none are posted by BA

Compared to last year's payouts, we still have plenty of cash left for the final hard cases.

Did Pomeranz get all of that $2.65M up front or did they spread it over the life of the contract? Maybe they passed some of that money on to Colorado. Same question on White's bonus.

The 2.65 million was a signing bonus so I would think he got it at the time of signing. White the same.