Brewers ink top 2 Draft picks, Wilken and Knoth

MILWAUKEE – The ink was still drying on Brewers first-round Draft pick Brock Wilken’s first pro contract, but he already looked the part.

Wilken arrived at American Family Field wearing custom Nikes in Brewers colors. Don’t tell his teacher, but he won them in a drawing during a bio lab at Wake Forest about four months ago, well before the Brewers drafted him 18th overall during All-Star Week. On Monday, Wilken inked a $3.15 million bonus, according to MLB.com’s Jim Callis, as one of two top Milwaukee picks to sign. The team also made it official with the 33rd overall pick, prep pitcher Josh Knoth, for $2 million.

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“I’m a big shoe guy,” Wilken said. “I’ve probably got 50 pairs of shoes or more. … When I heard I was going to become a Brewer, I was like, 'Well, I've got these colors.’ I’m going to rock them as much as I can. It’s just a great way to show that I’m a Brewer.”

The duo, a power hitter (Wilken out of college) and a power pitcher (Knoth from Patchogue Medford High School on Long Island, N.Y.) are likely to head to the Brewers’ training facility in Phoenix for their first taste of the Minor Leagues. Knoth will probably spend the rest of the summer there, because he’s had a significant layoff since the high school baseball season. Wilken said he expects to be assigned to High-A Wisconsin after getting his feet wet in Arizona.

Both deals left room for the Brewers to go over slot for some of their remaining picks. The slot value for first-rounder Wilken at No. 18 overall was $4,021,400 and for Knoth at No. 33 overall in the competitive balance round was $2,543,800.

Wilken is coming off his junior season at Wake Forest, where he set a school record with 31 home runs to tie the ACC career record with 71. He led the conference in homers, walks (69), runs (90), slugging percentage (.807) and total bases (192) and ranked second in RBIs (82) and third in on-base percentage (.506).

Now comes a new test: The grind of Minor League Baseball.

“It’s a different atmosphere,” Wilken said. “It’s a part of the growing process. … I really look forward to playing with a bunch of new guys. That’s part of the whole process, as well. You get to meet some of your lifelong best friends along this journey so being able to do that is going to be pretty fun.”

Knoth is just 17 years old (he turns 18 on Aug. 10) and had a 19-strikeout perfect game this spring for the same high school that produced Cubs right-hander Marcus Stroman. He is regarded for a high-spin curveball and his knack for filling the strike zone with a fastball that gets up to 98 mph.

“This is my first offseason with a pitching coach,” he said. “That definitely helped, getting into my legs a little bit more and raising my arm slot. And just the routine. Doing it every day, it just gets a little bit better every time. … I can’t even put it into words [what it meant to sign a pro contract]. I worked my whole life for this and now it’s here? It just hit. As soon as I pulled up to the ballpark, it was like, ‘wow, this is actually happening.’”

Knoth, pronounced like “moth,” said he was eager to begin working with a Brewers player development department with recent success developing pitchers, most notably last year’s fourth-rounder Jacob Misiorowski, who lit up the radar gun at the All-Star Futures Game a day before the Draft.

Knoth knows about spin rates, but his relationship with analytics is refreshingly old school.

Asked if he’s into the numbers, he said, “I want to be, but it hurts my brain a little bit.”

And asked how he developed his signature, high-spin curveball, he said, “I just kind of grip it and rip it and it just plays.”

Wilken and Knoth are the second and third Brewers Draft picks known to have signed. The club announced Sunday it had signed fifth-rounder Ryan Birchard, a right-handed pitcher from Niagara County Community College. Brewers scouting director Tod Johnson said he remains optimistic the Brewers will sign two other notable high school picks with college commitments: Third rounder Eric Bitonti, a shortstop from California, and sixth rounder Cooper Pratt, a shortstop from Mississippi.

Teams have until July 25 to sign Draft picks, but that requires a soft deadline several days earlier in order to complete medicals, Johnson said.