Bubba Starling. If You Don't Know, You Better Ask Somebody

[Derinyar]

The Royals have a good general manager now named Dayton Moore but they won't be able to keep Starling after his rookie deal IMO. He will likely command too much in free agency and be gone. Just like the ones before him.

Unless they gave him a major league deal they have time with him. Very few high school players get MLB deals. I saw no mention about any details other then the 7.5 million bonus spread over three years, so I would imagine that he has a minor league deal. So they have three years to get him onto the 40 man, 3 years in which they can option him to the minors after that, and 6 years of team control at the MLB level. The first three in which, assuming he doesn't have an already existent contract, they Royals name his price and the last three in which the Royals choose for him to go to arbitration and if they do he has to go.

So unless he doesn't develop and he gets to the MLB level the Royals are guaranteed 6 years of team control of the player. But frequently high draft picks are rushed and baseball picks have a much higher failure rate then the other sports over all.