About 35 minutes now until the deadline to sign Bryce Harper expires. And now it really is just Harper the Nats are waiting on as fourth-round selection A.J. Cole – a right-handed pitcher – was officially announced about an hour ago. The deal will pay $2 million, according to a baseball source. That’s more than even second-round pick Sammy Solis got for his bonus ($1 million).
The 6-foot-5 high-schooler was a combined 12-1 at Oviedo (Fla.) High the past two seasons. He was a first-round talent who slipped because no team was confident it could meet his asking price. But the Nats rolled the dice with a fourth-round pick and in the end added a nice arm to their farm system.
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Cole can hit 97 on the radar gun with his fastball, according to scouting director Kris Kline. He also has three different versions of a curveball – and not a slider, as some scouts have reported. There is a short curve, a hybrid slurve and then another curve that has good depth and power to it. Cole uses that one as his out pitch. Speaking in June, Kline said the change-up was only “okay” when he saw Cole in person. But other Nats scouts saw him on better days and reported it as an average pitch. At 18, Cole is a lanky 6-5 and has room to fill out. To have two power pitches at that age puts him ahead of most of his peers. The scouting staff wanted him and convinced their superiors he was worth the extra money.
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