Padres Reach Agreement With Top Draft Pick Ryan Weathers
The San Diego Padres announced on July 1 that they agreed to terms with left-handed pitcher Ryan Weathers
He was the No. 7 pick in the 2018 MLB First Year Player Draft.
With Weathers signing, the Padres now have signed 26 of the 41 players they drafted in this year’s draft.
The left-handed Weathers and the Padres agreed with less than a week before the deadline to sign draft picks, which is July 6.
The 18-year-old Weathers went 10-0 last season at Loretto High School in Loretto, Tennessee.
He posted a 0.09 ERA over 76 innings, striking out 148 batters. Weathers was named the Gatorade National High School Baseball Player of the Year. The Padres’ 2017 first round draft selection, MacKenzie Gore, received the award last year. With Weathers signing, the Padres now have the two most recent recipients of the award.
Before agreeing to terms with the Padres, Weathers was left to make a decision to go professional, or accept a scholarship to play collegiate baseball with the Vanderbilt Commodores of the Southeastern Conference. Weathers is the seventh high school player signed by the Padres this year and the biggest addition to the team.
The #Padres on Monday will introduce Ryan Weathers, the No. 7 overall pick from last month’s draft. They believe he has the pedigree and stuff to join Gore, Morejon and Logan Allen as premier lefties in the system. https://t.co/79ePMKXA8d pic.twitter.com/GCBfcTWLU8
— Jeff Sanders (@sdutSanders) July 2, 2018
Now that he has agreed to sign with the Padres, Weathers joins the top farm system in the majors, and one that is loaded with talented left-handed pitchers.
The assigned value from MLB for the No. 7 pick is $5,226,500. The Padres and Weathers agreed to the full slot value, as reported by A.J. Cassavell for mlb.com.
Mike is the sports editor for the Fayette Advertiser, and has been with East Village Times since 2015. His work has appeared on Bleacher Report. He is an avid Padres fan who is keeping the faith and trusting the process.
Kind of sad to the see the negativity from the fanbase. Weathers was Gatorade Baseball Player of the Year, and was most likely a top 12-15 pick. Guys like him don’t come cheap.
I’m pretty happy about this draft overall. Weathers, Edwards and Little seem like potential stars, and there are a lot of interesting picks in the later rounds.
(Smart ass comment alert). Only 21 teams passed on Mike trout. But I see your point.
“Much better”….from Tommy T, the super scout lol
Ummm, says all the scouts. There wasn’t even a question about it, unless you are Preller (or his sycophant).
The people saying Liberatore was better were writers, not scouts. A fan, casual or diehard, really has no idea what Major League teams/scouts know. It must say something that 8 other teams passed on Liberatore after the Padres did.
And for the record, John Sickels of Minor League Ball said, “Weathers is my favourite high school pitcher in the draft”, not that it means anything, but not all writers felt the way you alluded to.
Any word on whether or not he will pitch this year? Liberator was the top lefty in the draft, and many pegged the Padres to pick him as an obvious choice, but there were concerns about his signability. He was much better than Weathers, but ended up signing for $3.5 million, almost 2 million LESS than Weathers. AND he signed right away.
“Much better”? Says who? All of the none baseball “insiders” who write up mock drafts? The Padres did not chose Liberatore and then 8 more teams passed on him before the Rays selected him. Maybe there was something missing in all of the scouting reports that writers had on him that actual industry people didn’t miss or saw. I am not going to try to predict which of the 18 year old draftees is going to be better in the long run, but from how the Padres have approached the draft in recent years, I will give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
Tommy don’t you think it’s a little tough to compare 18 yr olds ?
If so, should we not compare 18 yr olds? Isn’t that the point? Isn’t that what “savvy talent” experts are paid to do, and praised for doing? Teams are dependent upon comparing 18 year olds, and when a certain team has a horrific history of not doing well in the draft (i.e. comparing players against players) then they will likely have a long history of NOT winning … and here we are.
Remember 29 teams passed on Mike Trout too……………