The Dodgers failed to sign their fifth round pick of this years draft, Kyle Blair, Tony Jackson reports. Blair reportedly sought 1.5 million dollars after he was drafted, but his agent dropped the demands down to 1.1 million, yet the Dodgers still denied him. While this seems like tons of money for a fifth rounder, Blair was originally projected to go in the first round, yet dropped due to signability concerns.
I've already covered why I think teams should go after "unsignable" players like Blair in the draft, so I won't touch that, but this negotiation has a new wrinkle.
I assume that the Dodgers knew about Blair's initial demands when they drafted him, and he then dropped his offer down as negotiations went down. If the Dodgers had no intention of signing him for what he asked for initially, or even for 2/3rds of what he wanted to begin with, why draft him in the first place?
As the string of injuries in our staff have showed us, you can never have too much young pitching talent, and Blair would have looked mighty nice with Clayton Kershaw, James McDonald, Bryan Morris, and Chris Withrow next year. Oh well.