How Tradeable Are MLB Draft Picks, and How Can the Brewers Do It This Year?

Teams do this to some extent each year. They draft seniors and sign them for tiny bonuses, planning to reallocate their funds to higher draft picks to pay them more money. That’s the biggest difference between the MLB Draft and the NFL and NBA drafts. In those drafts, pick bonuses are hard-capped. If you’re drafted earlier, you’re making more money. 

Sure, you can nitpick and say the NBA has a scale that goes 20% above to 20% below the value, so Knicks draft pick Pacome Dadiet will make less than the guy who was drafted after him. And that the NFL draft picks always get hung up on “offset” language, which could eventually change the bottom line for some. But the drafts on a whole are apples and oranges. 

I’m not going to get too deep into the minutiae of everything. It would get wordy, and you’d lose interest. Instead, I’m going to give you a few examples of how teams have done this in the past.

The first example I can remember is the Royals in 2013. Drafting 8th overall and possessing the 34th pick (the first of the competitive-balance round), the Royals had money to play games. They drafted Hunter Dozier with the eighth pick, who was considered a back-half of the first-round guy, at best. Dozier signed for a bonus of $2.2 million, below his slot allotment and more in line with what the 16th or 17th pick would get. In essence, they traded down. They now had extra money to spend, or “trade up.”

When top-10 talent Sean Manaea continued to fall and eventually went to the Royals with the 34th pick, he was signed for $3.55 million. That bonus fell in line with what the 6th pick would get.

You might ask, why didn’t they just draft Manaea first and Dozier second? Well, Dozier may have been gone. And then you would say, “Well, they didn’t know Manaea would still be there.” And that’s where I’d argue with you. He was floating hefty bonus demands that no team would have the money to meet before the Royals came back on the clock. 

I also think that, due to some hip issues that Manaea had been experiencing, there was some doubt about his health, and there was less of a risk in matching Manaea up with that lower pick in case something showed up in his physical and he didn’t sign. The Royals would still have the extra money from signing Dozier to throw at later guys. They did draft and not sign four guys in the last 10 rounds who became major leaguers. They would have been the likely beneficiaries of Manaea not signing.

Another, more recent example is the Cubs in 2022. Their selection of Cade Horton seventh overall was met with more than a few raised eyebrows. He was considered a first-round prospect, but this was too high. His under-slot bonus of $4.45 million was very close to slot for the 13th pick. Ah, a “trade back.”

The result was a “trade up” from 47th, where they drafted Jackson Ferris, another first-round talent, in the second round and paid him $3.01 million. That matches with the 24th pick’s slot. So while drafted 7th and 47th, the Cubs manipulated their money to essentially pay their selections as if they were the 13th and 24th picks. These are not the only examples. There are dozens. And they can be done on a wide variety of scales.

So what are the Brewers outside-the-box options?

The Brewers draft 17th, 34th, 57th and 67th and those picks have a total bonus pool of over $10 million. Breaking this down to its simplest form, if the Brewers use their second, third, and fourth picks and sign guys for 75% of their bonus (which is guaranteed for anyone who submitted medicals at the combine), the Brewers could add an additional $1.37 million to their first-round pick bonus and “trade up” from 17th to 10th.

Sure, it’s more complex than this, because other teams in front of them can do the same thing and there’s no guarantee that your preferred player will fall to your actual pick. You have to do background work, and you have to have fallback plans. But it’s also as simple as that: if you want a guy that might not be available at your spot, call their agent and tell them they have money waiting for them.

The Brewers did something similar in 2023 when they drafted Brock Wilken 18th overall, but paid him like the 25th pick. Then Josh Knoth got pick 43 money after going 33rd. Finally, Mike Boeve was drafted 54th and paid like the 63rd pick. Three 10ish-spot "trade downs" paid HUGE dividends for the rest of the draft.

Eric Bitonti (picked 87th) was paid like the 49th pick. Cooper Pratt (picked 182nd) was paid like the 60th pick. Bishop Letson (picked 332nd) was paid like the 134th pick. Bjorn Johnson (picked 362nd) was paid 148th-pick money. Hayden Robinson (picked 422nd) was paid 168th-pick money. Josh Adamczewski (picked 452nd) was paid like the 207th pick. Heck, even 20th-rounder Justin Chambers (picked 602nd) was paid like the 121st pick. Then, the Crew got Bryan Hudson for Chambers, from the Dodgers, meaning that investment has already paid for itself three times over.

The way the Brewers played the 2023 draft is a more common approach (though my opinion on how they manipulated their pool was that it was masterclass). Whom might they target if they want to go the other way and "trade up" this year? The perception of the tiers makes it a little trickier, but a couple names stick out:

William Schmidt (committed to LSU; Louisiana prep) is a right-handed pitcher with huge spin rates on his curveball. The Brewers love that. He seems like he could be a prime target to float to the comp round, but there may be a lot of teams sitting in the bottom of the first round ready to pounce on him. He would represent more of a "trade down from 17/trade up from 34" type pick, which would differ from their 2023 approach, where they underpaid their top three picks.

Nick Kurtz is a presumed top-10 pick, but my personal feeling is that he could be in for a bit of a slide. The Brewers are well-positioned to jump the line if anyone falls out of the top 10. Could they "trade up" by telling Kurtz that they can pay him like a top 10 pick, therefore making it unlikely he goes before 17? Kurtz is a first baseman from Wake Forest (where Wilken was drafted from) and was one of the premier hitters in college baseball.

Maybe it isn't Kurtz, but they might have a clear preference for a different college hitter? They could use their extra money to manipulate who falls to them. 

The Brewers proved last year that they are willing to get creative. I hope they do it again. At any rate, it’s going to be a blast watching every team not only make a new player’s dream come true but also do it while working their phones, their boards, and their draft pool. 

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