Mark Appel: Agent Scott Boras Will Ensure Lengthy Signing Process

The Pittsburgh Pirates were lucky to get Stanford Pitcher Mark Appel at No. 8, but signing their top pick is sure to be a headache. 

Appel is the ace of the Cardinal staff. He is 10-1 this year with a  2.27 ERA and 127 strikeouts in 119 innings pitched. 

Super-agent Scott Boras, whose clients include some of the game’s highest-paid players, represents the righty.

Boras always drives a hard bargain, and he negotiated three of the four contracts in baseball history that exceed $200 million dollars. Two of those deals were for Alex Rodriguez, and the third one was signed this summer and sent Prince Fielder to the Detroit Tigers.

The agent is infamous for advising draft picks to wait as long as possible before signing, and his strategy often results in big signing bonuses.

Boras will surely request a large haul for his client, who many people thought was the No. 1 prospect in this year’s class. 

Appel sliding all the way to No. 8 was the biggest surprise of the draft. He wasn’t even the first pitcher taken, with LSU’s Kevin Gausman, San Francisco’s Kyle Zimmer and high-school hurler Max Fried all going before him.

But Boras certainly still views his client as deserving of the top pick and may still be asking for a signing bonus that is usually reserved for players that are drafted higher. 

Under the new collective bargaining agreement signed in 2011, teams have an allotted pool of money to use for signing bonuses. It is likely that some teams passed on Appel, because they did not want to burn up a lot of their money on a Boras client when they could opt for a similar talent.

The new CBA also moved up the deadline for drafted players to sign a contract. Appel and Boras will have to strike a deal with the Pirates by July 13. 

This is the least amount of time Boras has ever had to work with in order to iron out a contract for one of his high-profile draftees. He is sure to take every possible second in his quest to squeeze every penny he can out of Pittsburgh. 

Appel will likely sign for the Pirates, but expect it to happen right at the deadline.