Triston Casas agrees to signing bonus, per report

It’s been a week since the MLB draft started, and with all of the players selected the attention now shifts to getting as many players signed as possible. Obviously, the most important signing for the majority of teams is the first-round pick, and for the Red Sox that is Triston Casas. Given the new, stricter rules for budgetary pools from the last few years, teams almost never fail to agree to signing bonuses for their first-round picks. That being said, it’s always a relief when the deal gets done. The deal is done between the Red Sox and Casas according to this report from Evan Drellich. It should become official after a physical on Monday.

We’ve talked about Casas the player enough, so it’s worth just quickly going over the implications of this deal. First and foremost, Drellich reports that the deal will be for slot value, meaning the Red Sox save nor lose money against their budget as a result of this deal. Given that Casas is a high school player, it was more likely that his deal would go over slot than under, so this is a win. It makes it more likely that they’ll be able to afford an expensive player or two from the third day of the draft.

As far as his fit in this system, Casas should now be ready to play right from the start, as the short-season leagues begin on Friday. One would assume they won’t be too aggressive with the corner infielder and he will start his career in the GCL. A promotion to Lowell towards the end of the year is a possibility. There’s a chance he can shoot up the system rankings for next year, but even now before playing a game Casas is probably a top five prospect in the system and one could argue he should be higher.