WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Los Angeles Dodgers couldn't come to an agreement with their second selection in June's draft, Louisville right-hander Kyle Funkhouser, by Friday's 2 p.m. PT deadline, the team announced.
The Dodgers signed their top pick, Vanderbilt right-hander Walker Buehler, as well as sixth-round pick Edwin Rios -- a first baseman from Florida International -- and 30th-round pick Logan Crouse, a Florida high-school pitcher.
Funkhouser was viewed as a problematic signing from the start since he tumbled further than most draft experts expected and had agent Scott Boras as an advisor. The Dodgers said they offered Funkhouser more than the slot value for that pick, $1.75 million. They will receive the No. 36 overall pick in next year's draft as compensation for losing Funkhouser.
"On draft day, we got the 35th pick and he was the top guy on our board and we took him. That's how the draft is supposed to work," Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi said. "When it came time to negotiating, they felt like he was a top-10 pick and our position was, if he's a top-10 pick, he would have been picked there."
Boras later had a rebuttal to Zaidi's point. The No. 37 pick in the draft, Daz Cameron, signed for $4 million with the Houston Astros.
"The baseball draft is a value draft. It is not a draft where the order of the players taken means anything," Boras said. "There are 50 examples of that, but apparently that's known to only a few general managers."
The Dodgers signed Buehler for $1.78 million, which is about $300,000 less than the slot value for the No. 24 overall pick. Zaidi would not confirm or deny a CBSSports.com report that Buehler has an elbow injury that will require Tommy John surgery, which would delay the start of his professional career by 12 to 15 months.