The St. Louis Cardinals signed two of their three high-upside 2012 MLB Draft picks Thursday—Carson Kelly, their second-rounder, went for $1 million over slot to give the Cardinals a high-upside complement to polished picks like Michael Wacha and James Ramsey, but they also went $300,000 over slot on a less-reported signing: Max Foody, a 12th-round pick out of a Florida high school. Foody's a big left-handed pitcher with a low-90s fastball who'd have gone in the first few rounds had he not already suffered through shoulder injuries.
↵He's the least essential of the Cardinals' trio of high-upside picks, behind Kelly and the still-unsigned Trey Williams, but he's another high-upside arm in a farm system filled with them.
↵Here's a weird note: News of his signing officially broke Thursday, but word of it first leaked out on June 8—in a Future Redbirds comment thread, in which someone who was apparently his high school teammate says he'd already agreed to a $400,000 bonus. He also adds this bonus fact: He's missing half his index finger, which imparts a particularly odd break to his pitches. "Three-and-a-half-Finger" Foody is going to be a great nickname.
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