Quote:
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho
It's 100K, but the draft works like this now:
Rounds 1-10: Every pick has a slot value. Each team's picks in this round are totaled up to form a bonus pool.
Round 11-40: Each pick has a max signing value of $100k. Anything over that signing bonus must be counted as part of the team's bonus pool.
If you do not sign a player in rounds 1-10, you lose that slot's money from your bonus pool. So, basically, teams do not draft tough signs in the first 10 rounds. They wait until rounds 11-40 and then steal money from the pool to sign those kids.
Each of the Royals 5-10 picks are guys who can likely be signed for underslot value. It's possible KC could free up 750k-1,000,000 of pool money (including round 2 pick Josh Staumont, who likely signs for about 1/2 of slot).
They'll need some of that to sign Nolan Watson, the comp. pick for Shields. But they could end up with enough left over to make either Doherty or 11th round pick Ben Johnson (UT, jr.) an offer that convinces them to sign.
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The Cards zagged the trend this year.
They took guys in 9 and 10 that have been obvious 11th round 'tough sign' guys in years past. The thought process, as I see it anyway, is pretty clever. I think they knew that they weren't going to get a stab at those guys in the 11th picking at the back of the round, especially not with the Astros being so aggressive in how they target those rounds. They got a good Comp! pick and commensurate salary slot, as well as the extra 3rd rounder from losing Megill last year so the Cards have a little money to play with in the top 10, not to mention permission from ownership to pay the tax on the 5% overage that doesn't cost them draft picks.
So they took those guys hoping that they'd maybe get one of them locked up (I'm thinking they like Kep Brown a lot).
It's bold and in my mind a pretty sharp strategy.