Courtacy of MLBtraderumors.com: 

"The Padres did not sign ninth-overall pick Karsten Whitson according to Baseball America." Whitson, 19 next week, is a right-handed pitcher out of Chipley H.S. in Florida. The Padres will get the 11th overall pick in the 2011 draft because the Diamondbacks did not sign Barret Loux."

Karsten Whitson will now head to the University of Florida, where he had signed a letter of intent.

Karsten seemed to be a very easy sign when the HS pitcher out of Chipley Florida was selected number nine overall by the Padres in the 2010 draft. "I'm definitely ready to go, that's my plan," Whitson said in June. "Hopefully, they can get that done fairly quickly. It's all up to me then." 

So what changed? Whitson seemed like a slam-dunk and wanted to be here (in SD).  The Padres knew what they were going to offer and were aware of his asking price. So apparently the price went up?

The Padres offered Whitson $2MM-plus, only to see him reject it, according to Dan Hayes of the North County Times (via Twitter).

"would have paid over slot ($1.9-$2 million) and maybe quite a bit over (my guess, $2.2 or higher) for Whitson." According to Corey Brock (via twitter). Quite a bit meaning what... maybe 3, maybe even 4? 

In last years Draft.  Jacob Turner, Detroit Tigers - Was looking for Rick Porcello-like money last year at #9 overall and got close to it - signed for $5.5M.

#6 overall last year Zach Wheeler and the San Francisco Giants - Signed for $3.3M.

#11 Tyler Matzek, Colorado Rockies - Allegedly needed to "break the bank" with his deal and signed for $3.9M at 11!

So I do not think its hard to think that the asking price went up from the initial conversations and the Padres were simply not going to be reckless in their decisions to dish out money, for a high school kid that probably will not have an impact for at least 2-3 years.

The Padres were very aggressive offering many players over slot  price, so I cannot imagine the first round pick in the Draft being an exception. It seemed as though Whitson and his agent tried to out "wit" the Padres and former agent Jeff Moorad only to backfire. 

“I’ll be honest, we’re really surprised,” Padres General Manager Jed Hoyer said an hour after the deadline passed. “I think all along we expected to reach an agreement with Karsten. We had hundreds of conversations before the draft and every indication was that it would be a quick sign.

Translation, both sides knew what it would take, what each side had in mind, something changed last minute.

Jed Hoyer, “We offered him a fair deal. But there was a point after the draft where his worth sky-rocketed and it never came back to reality.

Whitson did not sign because his demands were unreasonable, and they changed from before the draft. As fans, should we have expected or wanted to dish out $3-5 Million dollars to a 17 year old HS pitcher years away when there is also still the possibility to sign Adrian?  Could that money be used differently? 

"This isn't the end of the world", as Jed had put it. He's a high school pitcher that would have likely taken a long path to the big leagues. Who's to say we don't get a polished college player next year at #11 that makes it to the big leagues faster than Whitson would have? I am very disappointed, but I'm not going to assume it is the Padres fault when there is no indication the front office was being cheap in this draft.