Brewers Select Braylon Payne 17th Overall in the 2024 MLB Draft

[Theo Tollefson]

The Brewers selected Braylon Payne with the 17th overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft.

The Brewers selected Braylon Payne with the 17th overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft. Payne is a 17-year-old, 6'1, 180-pound outfielder from Fort Bend Elkins High School in Texas, He was ranked 56 on the BrewerFanatic Draft Consensus Board. The 17th overall pick comes with a valued price tag of $4,700,000. 

Braylon Payne will be just 17 on draft day, one of the youngest prospects in the entire draft class, a fact likely to add to the appeal of his already enticing profile.

Payne is an outfielder who sets up in the box with a relaxed, quiet stance at the plate. It's a clean, compact swing with fast hands and solid bat speed. A flattish bat path makes it a line-drive-type offensive profile currently. Payne sprays the ball around the field effectively though, and there's a good hit tool there when it's all said and done given his good bat-to-ball skills.

Payne is a menace of the base paths, with easy plus to double plus speed which he uses aggressively in games already. Payne plays a good center field already, leveraging his speed for now while he hones his route running. It should be a plus glove which will help him stick in center field despite having only a fringe average arm.

If Payne can add some loft to his swing and improve his bat speed, he could get to average power to round out a profile grounded in strong hit, speed, and defensive tools.

More to come.......

View full article

[balsamlaker]

What he signs for will be very interesting.  Would expect to be underslot, which should increase the odds of more high school picks this evening.

[balsamlaker]

Could Caminiti or Sloan fall to 34?

[Joseph Zarr]

13 minutes ago, balsamlaker said:

What he signs for will be very interesting.  Would expect to be underslot, which should increase the odds of more high school picks this evening.

Oh he'll be underslot. The real question is how much? He could very very easily go $2M under (or more). That was a set-up pick. Fun tools. Uber-young. Consensus would indicate they can go for more upside and value throughout the next picks.

[Joseph Zarr]

(From the Scouting Director from Perfect Game USA)

[BrewerFan]

1 hour ago, Joseph Zarr said:

Oh he'll be underslot. The real question is how much? He could very very easily go $2M under (or more). That was a set-up pick. Fun tools. Uber-young. Consensus would indicate they can go for more upside and value throughout the next picks.

I still would have loved Cam Caminiti.

I get they're very good at taking lower rated players in Rd1 and they have their whole bonus pool pretty well figured out, but...a LHPer like Caminiti is someone I'd love to see them get.

 

But...oh well. I'm sure I'll love their later picks. I would have liked the kid from Iowa. 2 years as a pitcher, just a great athlete. That could easily be the 3rd player in the Burnes trade. So...whatever. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

3 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

 I would have liked the kid from Iowa. 2 years as a pitcher, just a great athlete. That could easily be the 3rd player in the Burnes trade. So...whatever. 

Brody Brecht. I was following after the Payne pick, thinking they might grab him at 34 if still there but they had other plans. He went at 38 to Colorado, which is kinda like a zebra being sent to go live in the "Big Cats of Africa" enclosure at the zoo.

[BrewerFan]

5 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

Brody Brecht. I was following after the Payne pick, thinking they might grab him at 34 if still there but they had other plans. He went at 38 to Colorado, which is kinda like a zebra being sent to go live in the "Big Cats of Africa" enclosure at the zoo.

Yeah, I saw. Sloan nearly fell to their 3rd pick. 

I just wanted to see a couple of these arms with huge upside and Brecht had so much. He was so raw and so dominant at times, but obviously erratic. But it's been two years. Imagine where he'd be in 2 years in the Brewers system?

Or Sloan. I know he was even more highly regarded by some... but again, they've really earned the benefit of the doubt.

[titletownking]

11 hours ago, Joseph Zarr said:

Oh he'll be underslot. The real question is how much? He could very very easily go $2M under (or more). That was a set-up pick. Fun tools. Uber-young. Consensus would indicate they can go for more upside and value throughout the next picks.

I keep seeing that due to new CBA changes, if a player takes his physical he cannot get less than 75% of his assigned slot value. If that is true, that puts the savings around 1.1 million. That doesn’t feel like it’s enough for a guy that was projected to go around the 50’s and probably should have saved around 2-2.5 million. Hoping the CBA stuff is inaccurate 

[nate82]

21 minutes ago, titletownking said:

I keep seeing that due to new CBA changes, if a player takes his physical he cannot get less than 75% of his assigned slot value. If that is true, that puts the savings around 1.1 million. That doesn’t feel like it’s enough for a guy that was projected to go around the 50’s and probably should have saved around 2-2.5 million. Hoping the CBA stuff is inaccurate 

Do we know if Payne had a pre-draft physical?

[CheeseheadInQC]

18 minutes ago, nate82 said:

Do we know if Payne had a pre-draft physical?

He might not. There was an article where agents were suggesting certain prospects don’t take one because it limited their ability to negotiate below slot deals. The article seemed geared toward senior signs, but I could see some prep players in Payne’s range wanting similar flexibility.

[Madhawk23]

23 minutes ago, nate82 said:

Do we know if Payne had a pre-draft physical?

Yeah, I'm curious about this as well, as this could really impact how much under-slot we can sign him for.  Something tells me that he probably did take the physical, and we probably don't have as much $$ to play with her as we initially thought that we might after picking him.  

[wallus]

54 minutes ago, titletownking said:

I keep seeing that due to new CBA changes, if a player takes his physical he cannot get less than 75% of his assigned slot value. If that is true, that puts the savings around 1.1 million. That doesn’t feel like it’s enough for a guy that was projected to go around the 50’s and probably should have saved around 2-2.5 million. Hoping the CBA stuff is inaccurate 

I think there is some ambiguity on this. From what I understand, the team would be taking a risk offering less than 75% of the slot value but there is nothing saying there wasn't something negotiated and accepted below that. 

Payne could play hardball and demand that amount. That would be a great way for an agent to lose any relationship with teams however.

[jay87shot]

Obviously Payne at 17 is a big risk but watching the sparse footage of him makes me think there is some high-end bat potential. At 6'2" 180 he could easily add 30 pounds of muscle and have better than average power. How much we save slot wise and what above slot guys we take in day 2/3 will really determine how I look at this. I kind of see a left handed Cameron Maybin if he fills out with some upside if he develops really well.

[Jim French Stepstool]

1 hour ago, jay87shot said:

Obviously Payne at 17 is a big risk but watching the sparse footage of him makes me think there is some high-end bat potential. At 6'2" 180 he could easily add 30 pounds of muscle and have better than average power. How much we save slot wise and what above slot guys we take in day 2/3 will really determine how I look at this. I kind of see a left handed Cameron Maybin if he fills out with some upside if he develops really well.

I'm dating myself but I keep thinking Dion James. If he does add good weight & it transcends to power w/o him drastically changing his approach I think we have something.

 

[Jim French Stepstool]

3 hours ago, wallus said:

I think there is some ambiguity on this. From what I understand, the team would be taking a risk offering less than 75% of the slot value but there is nothing saying there wasn't something negotiated and accepted below that. 

Payne could play hardball and demand that amount. That would be a great way for an agent to lose any relationship with teams however.

Yep. I suspect that once he was on our radar we did our homework & have a pretty good idea we'll be able to sign him. He has a committed offer to the University of Houston, but pretty much all of the top preps have commitments.

[CheezWizHed]

1 hour ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

Yep. I suspect that once he was on our radar we did our homework & have a pretty good idea we'll be able to sign him. He has a committed offer to the University of Houston, but pretty much all of the top preps have commitments.

Exactly.  Just because the 75% slot with a physical rule is new to us, doesn't mean it is surprising the Brewers.  I'm quite sure they know how much he will sign for. 

[Jim Goulart]

 

[CheezWizHed]

16 hours ago, Mass Haas said:

 

Time to start playing "jump around" at Brewer games?