Deals for Miami Marlins’ six draft picks are ‘essentially done.’ Here’s what’s next
The Miami Marlins took full advantage of the strength of the 2020 MLB Draft, using all six of their picks in the five-round event to select pitchers.
And Marlins director of amateur scouting DJ Svihlik on Friday said deals for all six draftees are “essentially done” and will be finalized by the end of the month pending physicals. The Marlins’ bonus pool for those six picks was $12,016,900.
“Money is agreed upon,” Svihlik said. “We just have to work through minor details.”
The Marlins’ six picks: Minnesota righty Max Meyer (No. 3), Oklahoma prep lefty Dax Fulton, Ball State righty Kyle Nicolas, Coastal Carolina righty Zach McCambley, Vanderbilt lefty Jake Eder and USC righty Kyle Hurt.
“As far as taking the pitching, we didn’t plow into this draft thinking we’re gonna take all pitching,” Svihlik said. “I can give you at maybe at another time there were very specific position players that we liked. Some of them slipped through the cracks. This is just the way the board landed. We knew that the draft was really deep in pitching. The position players that we really, really liked ended up getting taken right ahead of us. We had them lined up on the the board that way. They just got taken.”
Svihlik pointed to four specific attributes that stood out among all six pitchers: They are big or athletic, they have high-end fastballs (all have topped out above 95 mph), they each have at least one MLB-ready breaking balls and they had analytics that supported that their stuff was sustainable.
“Every one of these guys checks the boxes that we really value within the models organization,” Svihlik said.
Now, the Marlins will shift to the undrafted signing period, which begins at 10 a.m. Sunday. Team are allowed to sign an unlimited number of undrafted prospects, but signing bonuses are capped at $20,000. Svihlik said the Marlins will likely not sign more than 10 during this phase.
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