MLB Mailbag: Reds, Red Sox, Skubal, Alonso, Prospects, Dodgers, Cubs, Diaz
I’m stepping in for MLBTR founder and owner Tim Dierkes on this week’s MLB Mailbag. It’s a deadline-heavy edition this week, with questions on the Reds’ outlook, Frankie Montas, Jonathan India, the Red Sox, Tarik Skubal, Pete Alonso‘s future, the 2024 draft, the concept of non-contending clubs using the deadline to buy pieces for the 2025 season, the Dodgers’ growing list of needs, the Cubs’ uncertain status, and more! Let’s get into it.
Matthew H. asks:
No Reds in the Top 50 trade candidates? Was there any consideration to the front office tendency to stand pat in July or was that just the way the names fell?
We’ll definitely do at least one more update to our top trade candidates list — possibly two. The Reds could factor more prominently onto a future version, but as of right now, they’re only three games out of the Wild Card hunt in the National League. They’re in a key group of borderline
contenders — along with teams like the Cubs, Pirates, Giants and Rangers — whose deadline fate hinges on how the first few games of the second half shake out. A nine-game road trip to play the Nats, Braves and Rays (in that order) is going to be a major factor.
Former Vols star signs record MLB draft signing bonus
Former Tennessee and Wake Forest pitcher Chase Burns received a Major League Baseball record draft signingbonus from the Cincinnati Reds, according to news first reported by MLB.com senior writer and longtime draft analyst Jim Callis.
Former Tennessee and Wake Forest pitcher Chase Burns received a Major League Baseball record $9.25 million draft signing bonus from the Cincinnati Reds, according to news first reported by MLB.com senior writer and longtime draft analyst Jim Callis.
Burns, who was selected No. 2 overall by the Reds in Sunday’s first round of the MLB draft, signed for more than $500,000 less than the slot value of $9,785,000, but his $9.25 million bonus was still an all-time record — and more than $8.95 bonus Sunday’s No. 1 overall pick Travis Bazzana got from the Cleveland Guardians on Friday.
A Nashville-area native, Burns spent the 2022 and 2023 seasons with the Vols before transferring to Wake Forest for his third and final season at the college level.
The 6-foot-3, 210-pound Burns was a star at Beech High School in Murfreesboro, and many were surprised that he made it college in the first place. Concerns about his signing-bonus demands caused him to fall to the back end of the 2021 draft, though, and he quickly earned himself a prominent role on the Tennessee staff as a freshman in 2022.
Burns made 17 appearances as a freshman and started 14 times, finishing with an 8-2 record with a 2.91 ERA and 1.12 WHIP. He was miles from his best early in his sophomore season, but he flourished out of the bullpen and played a huge role in Tennessee’s return to the College World Series in 2023. He finished that season with 18 appearances and eight starts, and his 5-3 record and 4.63 ERA weren’t reflective of the impact he made down the stretch that year. Burns came out of the bullpen in the College World Series against Stanford and put together a performance for the ages, striking out nine in six scoreless innings in Tennessee’s elimination-game win. That day in
Omaha he became the first relief pitcher to throw six-plus scoreless innings in a CWS game since 1997. He also threw 2.2 electric innings out of the bullpen against Southern Miss in the Hattiesburg Super Regional that got the Vols back to the CWS. The previous week, he allowed only one run in 6.1 innings out of the pen in a win over Clemson in the Clemson Regional.
