MLB Draft,<\/a> including top pick Roch Cholowsky, who agreed to the highest signing bonus in draft history at $10.3 million with the Chicago White Sox.<\/p>\nThe UCLA shortstops\u2019 deal, about $1 million below the pick value, surpasses 2024 first-rounders Chase Burns (Reds) and Charlie Condon (Rockies), who each signed for $9.3 million.<\/p>\n
Arkansas pitcher Carson Wiggins, who was taken with the No. 27 overall pick, signed for $3.4 million.<\/p>\n
Marchand was a cornerstone in the Trojans\u2019 back-to-back-to-back state championships. As a senior, he hit .531 with 13 home runs, 11 doubles and drove in 45 runs. He doubled as a relief pitcher, striking out 32 batters in 19 innings. He was on the mound for the final out as James Island defeated Dorman for the Class AAAA Division I state title.<\/p>\n
Marchand struck out just 13 times during his entire high school career, including only four times as a senior.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever been as nervous as I was on draft night,\u201d he said. \u201cI had no idea where I\u2019d go. As the picks went by I was wondering if it was going to work out for me, but everything worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marchand will turn 18 at the end of July, and at 6-1 and 190 pounds, he is expected to get bigger and stronger when immersed in a professional weight program.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think his future is going to be at third base,\u201d said James Island baseball coach Matt Spivey. \u201cAs he gets bigger and grows into his body, I think he\u2019s going to hit a lot of home runs for somebody and make a lot of money.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Next season, Marchand hopes to be playing for the Charleston RiverDogs \u2013 the Rays’ Single-A affiliate. \u201cWhat better…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,93464,93463,4,297,90884,93462,2550,68,2551,2549],"class_list":["post-753222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-rays","tag-baseball","tag-baseball-signing","tag-hugo-marchand","tag-mlb","tag-rays","tag-taj-marchand","tag-taj-marchand-mlb-draft","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabayrays"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116929147953682047","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}