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Reply to "bonus money"

The Brady Aiken episode is my favorite example to-date of how teams manage their slot buckets.  As a result of the Astros losing Aiken's bucket of money, they lost out on signing two other players (which they were going to fund by skimming off the top of Aiken's slot value)  Rounds 1-10 are use-it or lose-it, but you can allocate the 1-10 bucket differently than outlined.  #1 picks IMO are never going to get full slot money as it is simply to easy to hold back $1-2 million and work towards signing others.  The picks in round 10 getting $5k are, to a degree, giving up a few thousand dollars to enjoy the lifetime designation of a top 10 round draft pick (they might get $10-20k if they got picked up in round #18) and the club uses the slot savings to sign others.  I have seen it written that these guys are not really top 10 round guys from a performance standpoint, but serve a purpose when they accept $5k.  

As for the comment about D2/D3 players getting drafted (especially Day2), I've seen written on this board that the dollars allocated towards the scholarship portion of any contract are highly discounted by the club in that only a small percentage (<20%) of available funds are actually utilized.  I am still of the opinion that this is a personal choice and an individual player can utilize 100% if they work hard and pay attention, but I assume the clubs apply a 10-20% factor to these costs which greatly diminish their impact in the draft selection process.  That said, some junior pitcher - who might get a $25k signing bonus - is probably much better off staying put and finishing school and maybe getting $5k the next year (that $20k will make little to no difference compared to the degree in hand).

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