Dustin Ackley signs major league deal for reported $9.5 million
Aug 17, 2009, 9:16 PM | Updated: Apr 4, 2011, 7:51 pm
by Mike Salk
More details coming soon as Jack Zduriencik is about to talk to the media via conference call. I’ll Tweet info as soon as possible @BrockandSalk
edit:
Just got off the conference call with Jack Z. It is definitely a major league deal, which means Ackley was added to the 40-man roster. He will now head to Arizona to be evaluated (physically, healthwise, and baseballwise), then he will probably play in the Arizona Fall League.
He will get an invite to major league camp in spring training this year.
SI’s John Heyman is reporting that it is a $7.5 million deal with $2 million in escalator clauses.
When will we see him in the bigs? Hard to say. Zduriencik doesn’t like to put timetables on players but he acknowledged that Ackley will probably be on faster track than most. Still, he thinks it’s not fair to put a timetable on this.
But he gave him a major league deal, put him on the 40-man roster, and gave him a ton of money. So, I would guess we see him in a Mariners uniform by September of 2011 at the latest, probably before then.
As for me, I think they Mariners had to do this. When you have the opportunity to draft a guy as highly regarded as Ackley, you have to do it. And there is no sense in drafting him unless you plan to sign him. So kudos to them for getting it done.
Do I like this system? Not particularly. This sort of goes against the way most of the baseball economic system works. But given the system they’re in, the M’s had to work this out.
One other thing to note: I believe this was Jack’s first agreement with agent Scott Boras on a major deal. Nice to see them work something out as Boras controls plenty of important chips. Whoops, forgot/didn’t know about Josh Fields!
Now, I can’t wait to see this kid play!
