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2014 MLB Draft: Where Gators players and Florida signees were drafted

Six Gators and 10 Florida signees were selected in the 2014 MLB Draft over the weekend.

By Andy Hutchins
Bruce Thorson-US PRESSWIRE

Six Gators and 10 Florida signees from Kevin O'Sullivan's 2014 recruiting class were selected in the 2014 MLB First-Year Draft over the weekend.

There's plenty of good news in that news for Florida: The departures from the 2014 roster that have already happened were more or less expected, and the Gators might lose just one player from another stacked recruiting class.

Here's the table for Florida's six current players that were drafted.

Player Position Round, Pick Team Slot Value1
Taylor Gushue C 4th, 131st Pittsburgh Pirates $388,800
Justin Shafer RHP 8th, 234th Toronto Blue Jays $159,900
Karsten Whitson RHP 11th, No. 344 Boston Red Sox N/A
Casey Turgeon 2B 24th, No. 735 St. Louis Cardinals N/A
Ryan Harris RHP 26th, No. 794 Boston Red Sox N/A
Keenan Kish RHP 34th, No. 1,025 Cincinnati Reds N/A

Of those players, four are definitely gone. Gushue is a lock to sign and depart Florida, Shafer has already signed, and Whitson, another lock to leave, has indicated that he will, and Kish, a redshirt junior whose Florida career ended before the 2014 season began, thanks to an injury requiring Tommy John surgery, previously indicated that he would give the pros a shot.

Turgeon and Harris, on the other hand, have decisions to make. Neither one would get a bonus of more than about $50,000 at most to sign a professional contract, and both could improve their stock over a 2015 campaign. Pressed to guess, I would lean toward both staying.

And here's the table for Florida signees from the Gators' 2014 recruiting class.

Player Position Round, Pick Team Slot Value
Grant Holmes RHP 1st, No. 22 Los Angeles Dodgers $1,980,500
Alex Abbott OF 6th, No. 179 Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim $244,700
Weston Davis RHP 11th, No. 334 Washington Nationals N/A
JJ Schwarz C 17th, No. 506 Milwaukee Brewers N/A
Michael Rivera C 33rd, No. 1,002 Oakland Athletics N/A
Logan Browning LHP 36th, No. 1,085 Cincinnati Reds N/A
Dalton Guthrie SS 40th, No. 1,190 Minnesota Twins N/A
Taylor Lewis RHP 40th, No. 1,193 Colorado Rockies N/A
Taylor Lane SS 40th, No. 1,196 Milwaukee Brewers N/A
Alex Faedo RHP 40th, No. 1,210 Detroit Tigers N/A

Holmes, obviously, would be foolish to pass up nearly two million dollars, and is certainly expected to join the Dodgers. Abbott might find almost a quarter of a million dollars difficult to eschew.

But the rest of Florida's signees went lower than expected, with the possible exception of Davis, and they should eventually report to campus.

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  1. Slot value is the MLB-suggested value of the contract for each player taken in the first 10 rounds of the MLB Draft. Teams can exceed or undercut slot value when signing players, though the former is more common, and the combined slot values of all of a team's picks in the first 10 rounds is that team's bonus pool, or the sum that it cannot exceed when signing all of those picks without incurring penalties.

    Positions after the 10th round do not have slot values; instead, teams sign those players at their own discretion.

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