Pick Value vs Bonus

I found this recent thread helpful:

https://community.hsbaseballweb.com/topic/mlb-slot

This was the first year I followed the draft day by day.  I had my list of 15 players to watch.  It is quite a learning process!

...because one is a senior with zero negotiating leverage

Yup - that would be the most common and overwhelming reason for it.

I've heard some of the later slot rounds picks (7-10) often are pulled up from lower rounds (11-20 or later) because the team would generally like to sign the kid and are 99% confident that he will sign for some small percentage of the slot money.  This way the team banks the underslot money and can use it as a carrot for some later picks out of high school where signability is a big issue.  Could be that the one player getting his full slot bonus is a legit 10th round pick whereas the other player got pulled up from the 20th round so that team could "work" the system.  Looks like there are plenty of $5K signings in the 10th.

$2k does sound kind of low - looked it up and the kid signed with Chicago - a shortstop no less.  Maybe he just absolutely loves Chicago and agreed to sign for round trip air fare.  I could definitely see foregoing $10K or $20K in bonus if you had some grand desire to get signed by a particular team. 

These are typically college senior signs that have no leverage (as stated above).

And he was a college senior - thats really all that story is about.  Whether a 10th round talent, 20th round...or later, he has no leverage and thus helps balance out the finances of a draft for a team.

Plain and simple.

Really?  That simple?  Chicago paid a total of $7K in bonuses for their 7th and 10th round picks - saving $356M (7th round kid took a whopping $5K).  I would argue that Chicago picked these guys because they would take $7K (the player's reasoning is in fact that they have no leverage), but why they got chosen that high in the draft has significantly more to do with the Chicago's strategy than the players straight up skill level.  Chicago has two high school picks in rounds 3 and 4 who probably will end up signing above slot.  They already signed their 1st round under slot.  Chicago apparently is stockpiling excess slot money for a reason and their #7 and #10 picks are part of an overall strategy.

I don't follow the draft that closely but I have a feeling Chicago may have a few more high school picks after round 10 that are going to need way more than $100K if they are to sign.

I will agree these guys got peanuts because they had no leverage but to ignore the fact that they were cherry picked, probably several rounds ahead of were they were tracking, oversimplifies the process IMO.

I am not following the perspective on  the view of oversimplification.  These are guys who can be drafted and would be probably in rounds 11-30.  The team contacts them and confirms agreement to sign for the club offer. If not, the club moves on to the next person and calls them with the same deal. It isn't like the club drafts the player and then has to sign them or begin to run afoul of the draft rules.  Drafting the player with out the agreement is the only way to give the player a bit of leverage, if he is a senior sign with none.  Most of these guys running the draft know their leverage points very, very well and they want an answer in less than 60 seconds often times or they move to the next player they could pick.

Let me turn the question around - was Chicago looking for the best kid they could get in the 10th round or were they looking for the best kid they could get in the 10th round that would sign for $2k?  If the latter is correct, where did Chicago come up with $2K?  I believe the latter is correct and would suggest that Chicago came up with $2K or thereabouts based on how their initial 9 picks went and who they were targeting in the later rounds.  Look at who they picked in round 26 - Padgett taken with the 773 pick.  He was said to be the 120th best player available but no one is going to take a chance on him in the 4th round.  Chicago will certainly make an offer much greater than $100K, but if they fail to sign there will be no hit to their overall slot money total (combined rounds 1-10).

Again, put the question a little differently.  Why are there so many college seniors taken in rounds 7-10?  I would suggest that it is not because that is where they naturally fall in their player ranking, but rather it is because teams are trying to get some really cheap guys so they can use the extra money to entice some later picks that have signability issues.  Maybe the answer to the OP's question is in fact as simple as "they are college seniors", but to completely ignore why teams are picking these guys during these rounds again does not fully explain the process.  I would love to see the pre-draft player ranking right beside the final draft pick - I would imagine rounds 7-10 end up having lots of picks where the player ranking would not seem to justify their draft pick.

"Again, put the question a little differently.  Why are there so many college seniors taken in rounds 7-10?  I would suggest that it is not because that is where they naturally fall in their player ranking, but rather it is because teams are trying to get some really cheap guys so they can use the extra money to entice some later picks that have signability issues.  Maybe the answer to the OP's question is in fact as simple as "they are college seniors", but to completely ignore why teams are picking these guys during these rounds again does not fully explain the process."

I think this and what others are saying is pretty much the same, but I could be wrong since message boards can be clumsy sometimes.  I guess if we might differ is I doubt whether the bonus of $1,000 or $2,000 is much other than a rounding error for the club.  In other words, I don't think they know what it is going to take for those getting slot or above when they draft the guy committed to $1,000 or $2,000. They are making quick decisions with this type of pick designed to maximize slot savings to enhance their  ability to allocate it elsewhere as the draft unfolds and negotiations start, in earnest,  with everyone other than the 1st rounder. Of course they also want to save where-ever they can!

For the senior sign, they probably want a quality player, solid person,and  baseball grinder who buys into the position that getting signed and assigned, hopefully to the highest short season team, is his best option when compared with a bonus which is going to be less than $2,500.