2024 MLB Draft Day 3 Thread

[Playing Catch]

I mentioned it in the other thread, but the drop-off between #17 and #25 was more than $1M. (A) That's a lot of bonus money to play with, and (B), in a draft that's tiered at #15-60, it's silly not do go underslot at #17.

Also, we don't know if some players insisted on being signed at "slot value". That would possibly eliminate many of the guys that we were looking at.

I dunno. The vagaries of the draft slot value system are myriad. There's not much sense in trying to make sense of it all.

[brewcrewdue80]

12 hours ago, igor67 said:

Especially if I am a pitcher, I would find it hard to pass up a solid 6+ figure offer from the Brewers. Get premier development. A chance to get to MLB faster and the low minors salaries aren't as terrible anymore. And probably better care in case of an injury.

 

In terms of draft strategy I expect that their pattern will again shift in a few years as industry patterns change. About the only constant has been liking up the middle prospects for awhile now.

Maybe Milwaukee sees that with the extra minors pay, more HS picks will sign with the 150k or more signing bonus.  There's also blocking other teams from drafting some of these kids. Signed or not.

[sveumrules]

FanGraphs Day Two and Three Draft Roundup had a blurb on the Brewers approach...

"The Brewers followed up on their high school-heavy 2023 draft with an even younger group this year, and it reveals an interesting strategy. Their first round pick, Braylon Payne, was generally seen as a second-round prospect. His bonus is likely to be well below the $4.5 million slot value of his pick, with some amount of the excess pool space diverted to the high school pitching prospects they selected in the second and Comp B rounds, New Jersey high schoolers Bryce Meccage and Chris Levonas. They also popped high schoolers in rounds nine and 10, and then took several on Day Three. Not all of these guys are going to sign but several of them will. Recall last year that Brewers got Cooper Pratt’s deal done for $1.3 million in the sixth round and then also signed multiple high schoolers for between $250,000-$550,000 on Day Three of the draft. Day Three picks don’t have bonus slots that reduce your team’s pool if the player doesn’t sign, so aside from a little opportunity cost (the college guy they’d have otherwise taken in round 14 or whatever), the Brewers can now negotiate with a bunch of higher-upside high school players between now and the signing deadline and decide what combination of bonuses and players gives them the best overall class.

Several teams do a version of this every year, but nobody does it to this degree. Whether it was precipitated by the nature of this particular draft class or just how the board fell in the first round (i.e. the Brewers didn’t like who was left on the board, so they pivoted to this strategy), we just don’t know."

[snoogans8056]

We only hear of minor league contracts in regards to signing bonuses, but what’s stopping teams from paying guys more during the contract itself rather than using bonus money?

Example: Sign for 150k less, and we will pay you 50k more per year?
 

Feel like this would come in handy in rounds 11-20, and especially with high schoolers.

**EDIT** From what I’ve found on google, it looks like your first contract season is paid $1,100/month, and after that season it’s all open to negotiation (with higher minimums at each level).

[Playing Catch]

27 minutes ago, snoogans8056 said:

We only hear of minor league contracts in regards to signing bonuses, but what’s stopping teams from paying guys more during the contract itself rather than using bonus money?

Example: Sign for 150k less, and we will pay you 50k more per year?
 

Feel like this would come in handy in rounds 11-20, and especially with high schoolers.

**EDIT** From what I’ve found on google, it looks like your first contract season is paid $1,100/month, and after that season it’s all open to negotiation (with higher minimums at each level).

Oooohh, this is an excellent question. Essentially promising guys "perks" for signing. Not unlike old-school college football recruiting.

I have to think that teams have done this before, and that MLB has controlled for it in some way. It could even be accomplished by some kind of internal memo from the Commissioner's Office, "Hey guys, we see what you're doing and you've got to knock it off, or we'll need to add it to the next CBA, which is annoying for all of us."

[Jim Goulart]

 

[Matt]

I mostly just like the idea of a teenager in 2024 saying "Holy smokes!"