Randy Flores, assistant general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, applauds after Portland’s Trejyn Fletcher signed a contract with the team on Wednesday in Jupiter, Florida. Photo courtesy of Erin Brady
Less than a week after graduation, Deering High’s Trejyn Fletcher signed a contract Wednesday with the St. Louis Cardinals with a bonus of $1.5 million.
His new life as a professional baseball player starts Thursday morning in Jupiter, Florida.
“There’s a 7:15 shuttle every morning to the field and I’ll be on that tomorrow morning to get some work in, and just working toward that next step now,” Fletcher told the Press Herald.
Fletcher, 18, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound power-hitting outfielder who moved to Portland from Delaware in the fifth grade, was the Cardinals’ second-round draft pick (58th overall) in the Major League Baseball draft on June 3.
He signed with the team at the Cardinals’ spring training site in Jupiter. St. Louis assistant general manager and scouting director Randy Flores oversaw the signing. Fletcher’s father, Taurus Walls, his guardian, Erin Brady, and his advisor, Brett Knief, shared the moment.
Fletcher played varsity football, basketball and baseball at Cheverus High as a freshman in 2015-16. He attended Trinity-Pawling School, a prep school in New York, beginning in 2016, repeating his freshman year and continuing to play three sports. He returned to Portland this February, enrolled at Deering and reclassified to his original Class of 2019 graduation status.
The Cardinals have not released the terms of the contract. It was expected that Fletcher could command more than the signing bonus slot value for the 58th pick of $1,214,300.
“We set a number. Our number was 1.5 (million), and that was what my bonus ended up being,” Fletcher said.
Jim Callis of MLB.com also reported that Fletcher’s bonus was $1.5 million.
Each major league team has a set amount of bonus pool money to use for signing its draft picks, based on the slot values for its picks in the first 10 rounds. St. Louis’ bonus pool is $6,903,500.
When the Cardinals signed their first-round pick (19th overall), University of Kentucky pitcher Zack Thompson, on Tuesday, it paved the way for Fletcher’s signing. Thompson signed for $3 million, $359,000 below his slot value, according to The Athletic’s Mark Saxon. That savings, Saxon noted on Twitter, could be used “elsewhere, such as to sign No. 2 pick Trejyn Fletcher.”
Fletcher said his first professional team will be the Gulf Coast League Cardinals, a short-season rookie level team. The season begins June 24.
Fletcher became the highest player from Maine selected in the draft since Ryan Flaherty of Portland (Deering High) was chosen 41st overall in 2008 after his junior year at Vanderbilt University. He is the highest-drafted position player from Maine selected out of high school. Pitcher Mark Rogers of Mt. Ararat was the fifth overall pick in 2004.
Fletcher had committed to a baseball scholarship from Vanderbilt.
“After talking with my advisor, my parents, my guardian, and even others, we just came to the conclusion that Major League Baseball was the best fit for me,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher said pro ball, particularly with the Cardinals’ organization, will offer him “as many opportunities and the time you need to develop and get the chance to play at that next level, and I feel like in no time I’ll be on the field and producing for the team.”
As a senior this spring at Deering, Fletcher played most of his games in front of several professional scouts as teams scrambled to assess his overall game a year sooner than they expected. Fletcher is considered to have plus raw power as a hitter, a plus throwing arm and very good speed. He is projected as an outfielder, but does have a plus-90 mph fastball. In 16 games for Deering, he batted .456 with three home runs, 24 runs and 17 stolen bases. In four games as a pitcher, he struck out 40 hitters in 20 innings, allowing seven hits.
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