Padres Sign Top Draft Pick

Friars agree to deal with Stanford pitcher Cal Quantrill

Well, that was fast.

Last Thursday the Padres drafted Stanford pitcher Cal Quantrill with the 8th overall pick in the MLB Draft. On Monday the Padres signed Quantrill to his first professional contract. One of the things that made Quantrill so attractive to teams was signability was not going to be a problem.

“I’d like to get there as soon as I can,” Quantrill told NBC 7 on Friday, the day after he was selected. “I’m ready to play pro ball. We’re going to get it done and I’m excited.”

Quantrill, who gradauted from Stanford with a degree in Engineering, was true to his word. The size of his bonus was not released but the Padres have $12,869,200 in bonus pool money, the third-most in Major League Baseball, to sign their draft class.

Quantrill is coming off elbow reconstruction surgery, which likely scared a few teams off. Quantrill says he’s fully healed and will be ready to get on the mound by the end of June. The Padres had their doctors look at his progress and agreed, so they made the pick.

“He probably would not have gotten to pick eight if he had a healthy junior season,” said Padres General Manager A.J. Preller. “I think we viewed it as an opportunity to get a value at eight that we probably wouldn’t have had the opportunity to select if he hadn’t had the surgery.”

Cal will head to Arizona to start work with the Padres player development team soon. When he gets there, he will start to show off the repertoire of pitches that made him one of the best pitchers in the nation.

“I throw four pitches: fastball, changeup, curve ball, slider,” said Quantrill. “The fastball and change are definitely my best pitches right now. The slider is good. The curve ball is coming along. I think I’m a power pitcher; I’m going to throw a lot of strikes and make them swing and miss as often as I can.”

Forget about all that “pitch to contact” stuff. When he’s on the mound Quantrill wants his defense to do as little work as possible.

“I’m trying to strike out every guy I face. If they put in in contact, good for them, but I’m trying to strike out everyone.”

San Diego is also working to sign its other 42 draft picks and expects to have several of them under contract by the middle of the week.

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