Giants Sign Dakota Jordan Among Several Late Night Moves

Tuesday Post-Pourri with Week 17 Stats Review

My goodness! The Giants did many things while I was sleeping! Let’s take them in order before we get into the normal Tuesday activity.

First, the draft class is basically complete! MLB’s Jim Callis announced the two crucial signings last night of 4th rounder Dakota Jordan and 5th rounder Jakob Christian. With Christian taking about a $55,000 under slot deal, the money was in line to give Jordan his $2 million payday. As Callis quite rightly notes, Jordan may well have the biggest power/speed combination in this entire draft class. If focusing on baseball full-time allows that hit tool to develop, he could be an absolute steal in the 4th round.

Though, of course, “if the hit tool develops” is the biggest if only of every draft class. Still, this is an immensely talented and tooled up player to get into a system that really needs that phylum. And, in a year that has seen two different “if the hit tool develops” players really succeed, in Heliot Ramos and Tyler Fitzgerald, maybe planets are aligning for exactly this type of success in the organization in 2024.

In much smaller deals, the Giants also signed 16th rounder Tyler Switalski and 20th rounder Fernando Gonzalez. Switalski took a very slight over slot deal, using up another $12,500 of the bonus pool. With the allowable overage up to 5%, that leaves the Giants with, by my calculations, an extra $2,160 with just one unsigned player left. That player, left-hander Ryan Ure, can sign for no more than $152,160. My guess is that’s not going to be enough for a lefty with his kind of stuff, and he’ll likely head back to campus and try to use a post-TJ season to launch himself up into the higher reaches of the draft, rather than accept 19th round money. So that should do it for the draft class, other than UDFA, who will continue coming into the system for the next few months in all likelihood.

Secondly, the Giants made a trade last night, helping the Braves put their 2021 World Series team back together by shipping Jorge Soler and Luke Jackson back to Atlanta.