Dean's twitter suggested he had signed but there has been no announcement.

Jim Callis was on the BA podcast on Friday and he suggested the Jays could spend a record amount on this season's draft.  He started with Beede, Norris and Comer who could cost $8m and then added a lot of the later picks who all want close to $1m.  He thought the Jays could get up close to $18m if they sign a lot of their guys.

Hasn't Eliopoulos struggled? This is from BA last April after he left his college team:

 Nothing clicked for Eliopoulos at Chipola, on or off the field. He went just 1-2, 8.44, though he did have 24 strikeouts in 21 innings. He also walked 21, and one opposing coach who saw Eliopoulos this season told BA today that while Elipoulos "kept us off-balance, he didn't look like a second-round arm. I heard he threw 92 (mph) in high school, but he didn't do that against us."

Here is what is happening today ..... Beede says he wants $3m.  The Jays have offered something less, lets say $2m.  The Jays think that Beede can't turn down the big bucks, going to college is too risky.  The Beede camp think the Jays don't want to not sign their first pick and have to wait until next year for a replacement.  So each side thinks the other should blink.  The pressure on each side has been ramping up and unless there is a deal it will ramp up until 11:30 tonight.  The Jays think Beede must be getting nervous, they are waiting for him to call and say I will take $2.8m.  Beede's side think the Jays should be getting nervous and to ramp up the pressure they fire off a few tweets about Vanderbilt. 

Who will call first?  Who will change their offer?  It might not happen until late tonight.  Today both sides are waiting for the other to blink first or to see if there is an acceptable middle ground.  For all we know there are no ongoing conversations.  I recall a case in the last year or two where the negotations started about 9pm or 10pm on the evening of the deadline day.

So without a listening devide in AA's office I have to assume that both sides want a deal, both sides know the approx. dollars required to sign Beede, and the deal will get done tonight.

Speaking as an evangelical Christian, I certainly understand TamRa's arguments. However, I do think that Norris' tweet can be construed to lessen his responsibility/actions in this whole scenario.  The logic goes like this.  1) The Jays don't offer $3.9 million. 2) Norris takes that to mean that God's telling him he shouldn't be signing for Toronto.  The problem is that interpretation doesn't allow for the possibility that God's telling him to take less money!

I agree with you TamRa that his tweet doesn't mean he's invoking God's support for him gaining millions of dollars.  But if he and his advisors are not going to budge from their asking price, then in my mind it implies that Norris' believes God wants him to take $3.9 million and nothing less. 

^^^^ That is a ridiculous comment.  1) How do you know? 2) The Jays already have plenty of passionate evangelicals and I've never read anything bad about their clubhouse dynamics (Rajai Davis, Aaron Hill are both evangelical Christians I believe).

Good lord!!!!

I wish this could be a god-free zone.

All I care about is if these guys sign today...and if god or satan help the negotiations, so be it.  Just sign!

I agree with you TamRa that his tweet doesn't mean he's invoking God's support for him gaining millions of dollars.  But if he and his advisors are not going to budge from their asking price, then in my mind it implies that Norris' believes God wants him to take $3.9 million and nothing less. 

THIS i do not disagree with.

This religion talk is painful...

Let's go back to debating about the rankings of prospects we have never seen before!

Tweet by Daniel Norris around 20 minutes ago: "Going on a hike to get my mind of things!"

Sounds like a young man with a big decision to make...or waiting to hear back given his last counter-offer.

THIS i do not disagree with.

I think we're all on the same page.  I have no trouble with Norris extracting money from Rogers and even using some of it for a good cause if he so wishes.

There are enough places on the internet to talk about religion.  I did not come to this site to hear about it.  If "God" gives Norris a 90+ fastball, pray away IMO.  Just sign!

The worst thing that can happen is you don't sign him and you get that pick back next year. He could have been selected with the Musgrove pick.

97% chance you end up with Joe Musgrove's equivalent next year.  Is that 3% worth a year?

 "This site had a song of the day and cuttlefish prizes at one time"

 I don't have prizes and I don't know what a cuttlefish is but for a song of the day, here's a few: Tom Petty's "The Waiting (is the hardest part)" or the classic In the Midnight Hour.The effort  to sign Beede alone could be themed by the Kinks "All Day and All of the Night". Maybe Beede is singing "If I Had 3 Million Dollars".

Bah! Werth!

Anyway, the Jays have good odds of setting the record for draft spending this year. The only question people are wondering is by how much (some estimates are that if they get most guys signed it'll be around $18M, if I remember right). I'd say they've done more than enough without taking the minuscule chance on Bell.

Anyway, the Jays have good odds of setting the record for draft spending this year.

Just like they were going to spend 16m last year, or like how they were going to take a step back in 2010 to move forward in 2011. I'll believe these things when they happen, and until then it's just front office speak.

Here is what is happening today ..... Beede says he wants $3m.  The Jays have offered something less, lets say $2m.  The Jays think that Beede can't turn down the big bucks, going to college is too risky.  The Beede camp think the Jays don't want to not sign their first pick and have to wait until next year for a replacement.  So each side thinks the other should blink.  The pressure on each side has been ramping up and unless there is a deal it will ramp up until 11:30 tonight.  The Jays think Beede must be getting nervous, they are waiting for him to call and say I will take $2.8m.  Beede's side think the Jays should be getting nervous and to ramp up the pressure they fire off a few tweets about Vanderbilt. 

Who will call first?  Who will change their offer?  It might not happen until late tonight.  Today both sides are waiting for the other to blink first or to see if there is an acceptable middle ground.  For all we know there are no ongoing conversations.  I recall a case in the last year or two where the negotations started about 9pm or 10pm on the evening of the deadline day.

So without a listening devide in AA's office I have to assume that both sides want a deal, both sides know the approx. dollars required to sign Beede, and the deal will get done tonight.

I believe this as well.  These signings will go down to the wire and we'll only hear about them late, possibly after midnight.

Ah, the darkness before the dawn. It sometimes feels like the sun won't rise, doesn't it?

Not that it's guaranteed that they will sign any of them, but the likelihood would have to be up there with an extinction-level event before midnight.

So the Jays are offering $2.5M...Beede wants $3.5M.  Split the difference...$3M.  Bob's your uncle.

Next!!!

Still 2 hours to go though.

I'm betting the real negotiations don't start for another hour and a half.

keithlaw Becoming skeptical. That has become a much bigger soap opera than i ever realized. RT @Arock1234: @keithlaw still think beede will sign?

and...

I believed that too, but I was wrong. RT @darth_federer: @keithlaw rumor before draft that they had agreement with beede already

Here is the problem I have.

The Pirates spend $8 million on their first and $5 million on their second (Bell).  Other teams spent more than $3.5 M to get their first rounders.  As much as the league would like teams to stick to slot, it seems like a joke.

So why didn't the Jays just pay what Beede wanted?  Its a million dollars which is 8 or 9 % of their budget.  I have not seen any explanation of why they did not just pay it.

It seems there needs to be a huge overhaul of the whole process of player recruitment.  If you are a 16 year old in Canada you need to wait until the draft when you are 18.  If you live in Mexico you can get a $1 million signing bonus at 16.  They need to follow hockey.  Everyone gets drafted at 18.  Then you are property of the team who can let you go to college or bring you into their minor league team. 

I think the Jays can contend next year if there is an extra wild card added - heck they'd be in the running for that one this year.  If it's status quo, I don't think they're a contender yet.  The pitching staff needs a lot of help if they're going to overhaul the Yankees or Red Sox.  Speaking of which, Trevor Miller is now being used in a 5-4 game in the 8th inning??

Given how aggressive the team was in drafting tough to sign players, I think the overall draft result is quite good.  From what I've read, Norris is a better prospect than Beede, he ended up costing less than what they offered Beede, let alone what Beede was asking for, and they get the 22nd pick next year.  If it was Norris who didn't sign, as most expected, and Beede who did sign, they would  have ended up with the lesser prospect, and had the 74th pick in next year's draft, so they got the better prospect and the better draft pick next year. 

They signed 8 of their 9 picks in the 4th round or higher, and added some high upside guys later, like Dean, Biggs and Lopes.  Last year they signed 21 of their top 26 picks, and this year they only signed 16 of their top 26 picks, but I think they picked even more tough signs than last year.  Would have been nice to get a few more of the picks like Suarez, Garza, Wiper, Glenn, Norwood, etc, but overall, I think they have a very good group under contract.  Some of the guys who signed early have gotten off to very good starts, too - Berti, Vega, Rollins and Arce in particular.

Is Eliopoulos ever going to sign with somebody?

uglyone, TEX, really????

The Rangers are the only team in baseball with five starting pitchers already in double-digit wins  and the revamped (Uehura-Adams-Feliz) bullpen is shutdown awesome, or has been so far anyway. The rotation lacks a Cliff-Lee-ace, but is the depeest 1-5 in the game, no question.

Seriously, for the first time in the history of the franchise, the pitching  in Texas arguably outshines the offense.

“We could have signed both of them (Norris and Beede) but it had to be at our value,” said Anthopoulos. “We set values on players long ago.”

What happens next year when the first round pick wants $6 million?

Either be prepared to pay up to $6 million or draft someone else who's going to meet your value.

I am happy.  The signing of Norris was big for me.  That is the one I was hoping for.  You can never have too many good left handed pitchers. 

Beede can watch the Blue Jays win the World Series in three years from his dorm room.  His loss.  The Jays get a compensation pick next year for him, so it is not the end of the world.  Maybe the Jays can get a player that actually want to play for them.

I don't understand Beede.  Two years from now, he could have Tommy Johns or a bad injury that wipes him out of baseball.    So many arms blow out every year.  He could drop way down in three years and they may cap the spending.  He could be 25-26 years old before he makes simular money.

My wife(who is american) thinks he just doesn't want to play in Canada.  I never thought about it, but that could be true too.

Just to put a thought out there....  I really wonder if there was tampering by other teams.  If he had a pre-draft agreement worked out with a team and it wasn't the Jays, I wonder what that means for his signability.

Anyway, it was a good draft, even without Beede.  Safe picks has got us Russ Adams and Aaron Hill in the past (Yawn...)   I would rather AA step up to the plate and swing for the fences.  He wiffed on a couple, but picks like Stilson and Norris could be huge.

To repeat for emphesis - the VAST majority don't stick to "their price"

The VAST majority don't send out letters to area scouts asking not to be contacted either.

I believe the Jays draft philosophy was as follows:

Sixth through fifteetenth round college player picks have very little value.

Sixth through fifteenth round hard to sign high school picks with first five round talent have value if they sign.

Getting two or three high school top five round talents in those 6th - 15th rounds is better than ten college players.  

AA's general strategy seems to be to draft a lot of high upside guys who are available because other teams are taking guys who are more likely signable.  Offer good money, but not more than what you think is the player's value.  Hope a bunch of them sign, but if some don't, that's to be expected.  I think it makes a lot of sense, as long as you are signing a good majority of the high picks.  They got more talent than if they just went with easily signable guys and signed them all.  Norris is probably a top 15 guy based on talent, and they got him 74th.  Comer and Stilson were 1st rounders based on talent and they got them 57th and 108th.  Dean was taken in the 13th round, and he would be what, a 2nd rounder, based on talent.  Lopes was taken in the 7th round, and he would have been taken much higher based on talent.  This isn't like the NHL or NFL drafts.  Perceived signability is a major factor in where a guy is picked.  Sure, in an ideal world, they could draft all higher talent, difficult to sign guys that other teams are staying away from, and sign all of them, but it's not going to happen.  Guys like Dean, Norris, Wiper, Suarez, Lopes, Glenn, etc. are available later in the draft for a reason.

Perhaps they do need to tweek it a bit, given how little success they had with the high school pitchers taken from rounds 5 through 22 - only signing 2 of them out of what was it , 10?  I imagine they are talking about that.  I agree completely with the comment that they feel it is better to sign a few high upside high school kids in rounds 5-15 than 10 college guys.  Then they take their college guys late and sign some undrafted guys to fill out the short season clubs.

As for just offering Beede what he wanted, AA has stated that if he just gives in to what a player wants, then the next year, he is going to be "hearing about that" - in other words, players will be expecting the same thing and it will make it harder to sign guys for reasonable bonuses.  He'd lose leverage and the ability to negotiate effectively.

Of course, if mlb goes to some kind of mandatory slot bonus system, then all of this goes out the window, and you have a system similar to the NHL, where you just take the best available player with each pick.  In that kiind of setup, they might get Beede, but they wouldn't get Comer, Norris, Stilson, Robson. Lopes and Dean where they did because they'd be gone.  I think they do better under the current system.  Would love to see an earlier deadline, though, so these guys who sign late could play this summer.