The Arizona Diamondbacks have signed their #1 draft pick (#3 overall) Trevor Bauer. He has signed a major league contract which puts him on the 40-man roster and will report to Class A Visalia and make his first start on Saturday, July 30th. He signed a 4-year, $7 million contact, the details of which have not yet been released by the team.
Trevor Bauer, 20, was a junior right handed pitcher out of UCLA. He had a 13-2 record with a 1.25 ERA and 203 strikeouts, a PAC-10 single-season record. He recently won the 2011 USA Baseball Golden Spikes Award, given to the nation's premier amateur baseball player. In three years with UCLA, he accumulated a 34-8 record and 2.36 ERA.
From the audio of this afternoon's press conference, which was posted here by SB Nation Arizona (MP3), he seems like a very grounded and strong-willed individual. He believes in his stuff and he thinks he can be ready for major league action soon, but he knows that it's all based on performance on the field. His path through the minors will all depend on how he pitches, and he's going to trust in the system. He expects to throw about 30-35 innings the rest of this summer to put him at 165-175 innings pitched total for this season. He also spent 4-5 weeks this summer in a baseball academy in Houston, Texas.
Jerry Dipoto had this to say about Bauer's potential for the big-league Diamondback team:
When you're as talented as Trevor is, anything is possible. We believe, in giving him a major league contract right out of the chute, that he's very close to being able to contribute at this level.
As to his signing 20 days before most of his fellow high-draftees (the deadline to sign is August 15th), he said he signed because he felt the whole negotiations process was fair and professional and he's ready to go out and do what they drafted him to do, and that's pitch. He's not splurging on a car or any other big ticket item, but he does want to invest in food - his first thing is a week of sushi or steak dinners.
Trevor seems truly happy to be a member of the Diamondbacks:
I couldn't be happier to be in this organization. I did a lot of research coming into the draft on organizational philosophies of different teams and came to the conclusion a month or two before the draft that this is the one place that I wanted to end up more than any other.
You're here, kid, now show us what you've got!