Phillies sign first-round draft pick Bryson Stott
After signing for $3.9 million, the shortstop from UNLV could move quickly through the farm system.
A year and one week after the Phillies drafted him, 2018 first-round pick Alec Bohm got promoted to double A. It took 2017 first-rounder Adam Haseley 13 months to reach that level, and 11 months after that, he was in the big leagues.
Bryson Stott might be on a similar track.
Stott signed with the Phillies on Thursday and was introduced in a news conference at Citizens Bank Park. The 21-year-old shortstop from UNLV received a $3.9 million signing bonus, according to a source, slightly below the slot value of $4.04 million for the 14th overall pick in this year’s draft.
The Phillies gave Stott something else, too, before sending him out to begin his professional career: a tour of the clubhouse, where he got to meet several players before Thursday's matinee series finale against the New York Mets.
“Just seeing all that stuff is pretty surreal,” Stott said. “It was a lot more than I would’ve expected to see in a major-league clubhouse — how big and how nice everything on the inside is. To be there one day is obviously the goal.”
The Phillies plan to send Stott to their spring-training facility in Clearwater, Fla., on Friday. Although assistant general manager Bryan Minniti wasn’t specific about his minor-league assignment, it seems likely that Stott will follow fellow college products Bohm and Haseley in starting out in the rookie-level Gulf Coast League before moving up to short-season Williamsport with the possibility of getting a look at low-A Lakewood before the end of the season.
“I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on him or any other player,” Minniti said. “At the end of the day, these guys dictate their own path. Whatever he does, we’ll move him accordingly. If he needs more time at a certain level, he’ll get it. When he’s ready to move to a different level, we’ll get him moving.”
Stott is already well-acquainted with Bryce Harper, whose sister was coached in cheerleading by Stott’s mother in their hometown of Las Vegas. Stott and Harper share the same agent, Scott Boras, and often watch college football together in the offseason.
In time, they could be teammates with the Phillies.
Stott "has a chance to move quickly, I think,” Boras said. “His bat is something that you don’t often see from a middle infielder at the collegiate level. His power grew every year. I would go to games with [fellow agent] Kurt Stillwell and he’d say, ‘Don’t get too excited.’ And every time, Bryson would have three hits and hit a home run. So I think we’ll continue to go to his games.”
The Phillies have signed their top nine draft picks and 31 of 39 selections overall. They’re hopeful of signing 11th-round pick Marcus Lee Sang, a left-handed-hitting center fielder from Northern High School in Maryland.