Jays Minors Draft Signings Update: 27-Jul-10

The Jays drafted 56 players in the 2010 draft and have now signed 23 of them (41%) withg their latest 2 signings. The Jays signed 20 year old LHP Sean Nolin who was drafted in the 6th round, 186th overall, on the 23rd of July. They followed that effort with another signing, on the 26th of July, this time of 18 year old 2nd round pick (69th overall) 3B Kellen Sweeney. Both signings are significant and indicate progress on the part of the team in terms of getting all of the top picks under control. It’s a busy time of year for Alex Anthopolous and Jays executives as the trade deadline and the draft signing deadline loom close by.

Here’s a short list of the 10 highest picks that have yet to sign with the Jays followed the draft, or what you could call our 10 most wanted list:

1 – RHP William McGuire, 6’6″ 220 lbs, 1st rd pick, 11th overall

2 – LHP Griffin Murphy, 6’3″ 200 lbs, 2nd rd pick, 61th overall

3 – LHP Justin Nicolino, 6’3″ 160 lbs, 2nd rd pick, 80th overall

4 – RHP Samuel Dyson, 6’1″ 175 lbs, 4th rd pick, 126th overall

5 – SS Richard Thon, 6’1″ 185 lbs, 5th rd pick, 156th overall

6 – LHP Mitchell Taylor, 6’0″ 155 lbs, 7th rd pick, 216th overall

7 – LHP Logan Ehlers, 6’1″ 190 lbs, 8th rd pick, 246th overall

8 – 2B Brandon Mims, 5’11” 180 lbs, 9th rd pick, 276th overall

9 – RHP Tyler Shreve, 6’4″ 215 lbs, 10th rd pick, 306th overall

10 – SS Shane Opitz, 6’1″ 180 lbs, 11th rd pick, 336th overall (reports do say an agreement has been reached, not official)

What’s impressive with this list is who is not on it. What do I mean? Well, the Jays top 10 most wanted list above includes 10 players drafted in the top 11 rounds of the draft, so it’s pretty much as if they had yet to sign a single player in the top 10 rounds. But, this is not the case. They have, in fact, signed 7 players in the top 10 thus far, making the list above just as meaningful in that if the Jays were to be successful in getting them all signed, they would sign 18 players from the top 11 rounds of the 2010 draft, an impressive feat.

The Jays do have a lot of LHP youngsters to sign in the list above, and none more important than Griffin Murphy because of his ceiling. It’ll be interesting to see how the list progresses from now to the deadline, but I do expect a rash of signings to take place after the trade deadline passes.