Back to the Rays Report

Roger Mooney

Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.

 @RMooneyTrib
 TBO_Rays
Send us your questions

More Links:

• Schedule/Results
• Player Stats
• Team Stats

Most Recent Entries

• UD unveils Military Machines inserts for 2012 Goodwin Champions set
• Rays @ BoSox: Guyer out for the season, Jennings close to returning and lineups
• USF softball: It’s game day
• Weekly Tampa Bay fishing report
• Rays at BoSox: Rivalry renewed
• Karen Cooley returns as Zephyrhills girls swimming coach
• USF beats Pitt, stays alive
• The Nerds head north
• Jeffrey Shank out as Gulf boys basketball coach
• Berkeley Prep captures Academic Team Champion Award - again
• This week’s signings and offers
• Berkeley Prep wins FHSAA Academic Award standings
• Shank out as Gulf boys hoops coach
• Be prepared for year’s busiest boating weekend
• Train and O.A.R. added to summer concert series

More

• Bucs Report -Tribune staff
• Rays Report - Roger Mooney
• Bolts Report - Erik Erlendsson
• Bulls Report
• Prep Report - Hillsborough
• Prep Report - Pasco
• Prep Report - Region
• Prep Report - Recruiting Updates
• Prep Report - Football
• Go Fishing: On The Waterfront
• The Sports Bookie - Bob D'Angelo
• Gators Report - Tribune staff
• Youth Sports Report
• NFL Draft Report
• Go Ask: Frank's Tacklebox
• Bucified Bert Blog
• BUK Power - Bucs Fan Blog
• Pigskin Preacher - NFL Fan Blog
• Breakfast Bonus - Tom McEwen
• Highlands Sports

Monthly Archives

• May 2012
• April 2012
• March 2012
• February 2012
• January 2012
• December 2011

Friedman, Harrison on the Final Four

Posted Aug 16, 2011 by Roger Mooney

Updated Aug 16, 2011 at 01:53 AM

ROGER MOONEY
BOSTON It took nearly every minute of the signing period and $4.62 million in signing bonuses, but when deadline to sign picks from the June draft was reached at midnight Monday the Rays had their final picks under contract.

Taylor Guerrieri, the Rays first pick taken at 24th overall, signed for $1.6 million, thus ending speculation that the right-handed pitcher from Spring Valley (S.C.) High with the rumors of off field issues and a scholarship to South Carolina, would spurn the Rays offers. Or the Rays would spurn him.

Mike Mahtook, the LSU outfielder taken 31st overall, agreed to a $1.15 million bonus.

Tyler Goedell, the third baseman from St. Francis (Mount View, Calif.) High who was considered a reach because of a scholarship to UCLA, signed for $1.5 million.

And Grayson Garvin, the left-hander from Vanderbilt taken 59th overall and who raised some eyebrows with an undisclosed medical condition from 2009, agreed to a $370,000 bonus.

With those four on board, the Rays signed 20 of their first 21 picks and 41 of the 60 players they drafted.

“It was a great day,” Rays scouting director R.J. Harrison said. “There are some anxieties when you go through this, and when it’s all said and done we got all of our guys signed. We ended up signing 20 of our first 21 picks. We’re really happy. Now it’s let’s get these guys out and let’s look up in a couple of three years and see what we got.”

Guerrieri and Mahtook seemed the riskiest of the four, since both expected to go higher in the draft and both had some leverage – Guerrieri a scholarship to South Carolina and Mahtook another year of eligibility at LSU.

Guerrieri appeared the riskiest of the two.

Guerrieri’s rumored off-field issues, true or not, were not enough to scare off the Rays. And, the rumors of his turning down the Rays and South Carolina to play a year of junior college baseball so he could enter the June 2012 obviously didn’t prove true.

“We spent a lot of time since the draft doing our work and doing our due diligence on this,” Harrison said. “I made two trips up there, spent some time with the family. With any of these things, there’s risk with 18 years, and what’s ever in the past we like to think is in the past.”

Grayson signed at about 10 .m. Goedell after that, and the two first rounders came down to the wire, which is how it went for most of the major league teams.

“We’re thrilled,” Rays executive vice president of baseball Andrew Friedman said. “We talk about it a lot, the importance of our farm system for us to have continued success in this division. In our opinion it’s more important for us than any other team in baseball. We feel like we’ve added a lot of high-impact players to our system, and we’re thrilled to get them signed and get them out going. We feel like we’ve really strengthened our system and given us some balance.”

Friedman said he knew the negotiations for the top four would push the deadline, but he said he was also confident they would get the players signed.

“We did, but you don’t really know,” he said. “We didn’t really know until 11:58 (p.m.). We were optimistic. We felt like we were in a good position with the evaluations and all the work that our guys did this spring, and we felt that with the backing we had financially we were going to be able to get it done, but until we had agreed upon deals, you never really know.”

The final four will report to the Rays spring training/minor league complex in Port Charlotte where they will learn the organization’s way of doing things. They will also take part in the fall instructional league.

Harrison said Goeddel will get some at-bats for the GCL Rays toward the end of the season. They other three are finished playing ball this summer.

Garvin’s signing bonus, which was considerably under Major League Baseball’s slot of $614,700 for his draft position, stemmed from something the Rays found during his physical.

“When we got him and were able to go through the physical process he had something from 2009,” Friedman said. “He’s pitched healthy, he’s been healthy. He was the SEC pitcher of the year, pitched really well in the Cape (Cod League in 2010), but something that we felt like was a little bit of a risk and so we just worked through it together to come up with something that we felt like was equitable.”