To the surprise of many, the first two rounds of the Major League Baseball Draft came and went without Clemson’s top signee hearing his name called.
St. Mary’s Prep (Michigan) School standout Brock Porter, who has signed a National Letter of Intent with the Tigers, was widely considered a first-round talent. Some even had the 6-foot-4 right hander, who can touch 100 miles per hour with his fastball, as the top prep arm available. MLB Pipeline ranked him as the No. 11 overall prospect heading into the draft.
Yet 80 picks in, Porter remains on the board despite having no known injury concerns or character issues. Since Sunday night, The Clemson Insider has gathered some intel on the situation that we wanted to pass along.
MLB teams have a certain amount of bonus pool money they can spend on draft picks in the first 10 rounds without being penalized, making early signability just as important as talent in the baseball draft. If a team knows it can’t match a player’s asking price to sign, it won’t bother wasting a draft pick.
That’s at least part of the equation with Porter, according to a source. While it isn’t known if Porter and his camp have explicitly told teams that he’s going to college and to not draft him, asked if Porter’s asking price is too high or if he simply wants to go the college route, the source said it’s “a little bit of both.” The source said Sunday’s developments make it more likely that Porter ends up at Clemson.
But, as Clemson knows all too well, it’s not over until it’s over.
There’s always a chance a team with a higher bonus pool has more money to offer its picks in the later rounds. The Baltimore Orioles, Arizona Diamondbacks, New York Mets, Pittsburgh Pirates and Colorado Rockies have the most with more than $13 million each to spend.
Just last year, another Clemson signee, Bubba Chandler, widely viewed as a first-round talent, didn’t come off the board until the Pirates took him with the 72nd pick. But Chandler signed after the team gave him a $3 million bonus, more than triple the roughly $870,000 value assigned to that specific pick.
A source said a similar situation could play out with Porter but that his asking price may also simply be out of teams’ price range. The draft will continue today with rounds 3-10 starting at 2 p.m., so Clemson will have to play the waiting game a little longer.
But Sunday was a positive development as it relates to the program’s hopes of getting Porter on campus.
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