Signing deadline

Well midnight tonight is the deadline to sign the players drafted in this years first year player draft. If you don't sign them they can go back to school or whatever without much of a penalty to them while the team drafting loses out on the pick. The Cardinals have two picks unsigned including one huge one, Kyle Russell. Russell lead NCAA division one ball last year with 28 HR's, yet he fell to the 4th round. Many people considered him the best "power bat" of this years class, the problem is that he's is THE all or nothing player. He strikes out a ton along with those long balls. He drawn the likeness of Russell Branyon (tons of power but never amounted to much of anything) but also Adam Dunn. The problem right now is that the Cardinals are trying to sign him to (or at least close to) the market price for a 4th rounder, while Russell's camp is trying to sell him as a possible 1st rounder and therefore trying to get him 1st round money (kind of like Brady Quinn). This makes sense...to a point. The guy did lead the Div 1 in HR's last year. The biggest problem with that argument is that Russell did NOTHING in the short leagues that he has played in since being drafted. Granted it was only a small sample size...but he sucked it up until the end.
Either way, supposedly talks haven't developed into anything and Russell has informed some people down there in Texas that he'll be coming back next year. If this is true the Cardinals will probably be getting a lot of grief from their fans....but paying first round money for a fourth round pick is a bit of a stretch...especially when you haven't showed that you can deal with wooden bats. But you'll have those fans out there that will run with this and call Jocketty and company cheap. It's a lose lose situation in some respects. But hey....there's still time!!!