Rizzo on signing Fedde and more on draft signing deadline day

The Nationals beat today's deadline to sign 2014 draft picks by coming to terms with their first-round pick, right-hander Erick Fedde out of UNLV. Fedde went 8-2 with a 1.76 ERA in 11 starts as a junior this season, but his year was cut short by Tommy John surgery. However, the Nats did miss out on two of their top-10 round picks, failing to agree to contracts with second-round left-hander Andrew Suarez and ninth-round first baseman Austin Byler. The silver lining is that Washington receives a compensatory second-round pick in 2015 for not signing Suarez. General manager Mike Rizzo discussed the signing of Fedde and more on Friday at Nats Park. On signing Fedde: "We're excited to have an upside arm such as Fedde in the family and we're looking forward to seeing him and getting him on to Florida and beginning his rehab process. Then take him through our philosophy and our rehab process and see what the end results are later on." On how close Fedde negotiations came to deadline: "We were in negotiations throughout the last couple of days. It always comes down to the day of and this was no different." On disappointment of not signing Suarez: "Yeah, I was disappointed to not sign your second-round pick, although with the way the new set-up is with the draft, we'll get that pick back next year and we'll be really excited to have two second-round picks next year." On why Suarez didn't sign: "We just couldn't agree to terms. ... We're not going to give details on the negotiation, but suffice it to say, we couldn't agree on terms and we'll just leave it at that." On plans for Fedde for rest of year: "We're going to follow our protocol, our Tommy John rehab protocol. We're going to get him down to Florida and we'll assess where he's at. We've already been in contact with the surgeons and the doctors that have treated him so far, and we'll just take the process now and put it on the Nationals' calendar, and begin our protocol that we've done with so many of our pitchers already." On whether it's the same protocol for a younger pitcher and a veteran: "We use the same protocol that we've used on the rest of our guys. We've had guys that have been older than Fedde go through the protocol and guys that have been younger. We use the same protocol and then kind of tweak it when it gets closer to getting on the mound." On whether he's surprised to not sign second- and ninth-rounders: "I wouldn't describe it as surprised, but we felt that we had a chance to sign all three of them today and we just couldn't work it out with the other two guys." On whether he ever doubted the Nats would sign Fedde: "I think that all along - we had reasonable dialogue early on, which is always a precursor to getting a deal done. I would've been more surprised not getting Fedde done than anybody else." On Fedde's upside: "He had really progressed since being in high school. He had really come on the last two years and just took it to a different level this year as a junior. Before the injury, he was really climbing up a lot of draft boards and some pretty good scouts with the Nationals really thought that he was a special type of guy. So with that said, we feel really good about his upside and he's a big, physical right-handed pitcher that's got good stuff and commands it well. His repertoire is deep and we feel that he's going to be a successful starting pitcher in the big leagues." On trade deadline: "We're going to take a deep breath and bask in the joy of signing our first-round pick and we'll address the trade deadline later."