Article: Draft Bonus Details Emerge

[Jeremy Nygaard]

It's that time of year again: When the draft is only a few months around the corner and the ever-nerdy draft-lovers are excited by the words "bonus pools" and "draft slots."

That's right. Major League Baseball released this information on Tuesday night and we can't wait to talk about it at North Side Baseball.

The Cubs will have a full bonus amount of $8,962,000, which ranks nineteenth in all of baseball. There was a significant increase in slot values - nearly 10% - which coincides with the significant increase in baseball revenue.

The total bonus pool is determined by finding the sum of each individual pick in the Top 10 rounds.  The Cubs lose their second-round pick for signing Dansby Swanson, but received a compensation pick after the second-round for losing Willson Contreras

Their Top 10 round picks are as follows:

Round 1 (13th overall): $4,848,500

Round 2 Compensation (68th overall): $1,101,000

Round 3 (81st overall): $872,400

Round 4 (113th overall): $591,800

Round 5 (149th overall): $416,900

Round 6 (176th overall): $325,600

Round 7 (206th overall): $254,500

Round 8 (236th overall): $203,600

Round 9 (266th overall): $179,400

Round 10 (296th overall): $168,300

All picks in rounds 11-20 are "soft-capped" at $125,000. Any player signed for over that amount will have their overage count against the team's pool. (i.e. if a round 11 draftee signs for $150,00 then $25,000 will count towards the team's bonus pool).

The most significant detail about the bonus pool and draft slots is that teams are free to use their money however they want. While some players will sign for slot, others (usually college seniors) will sign for significantly below slot, giving their teams more flexibility to use that money elsewhere. That money then is given to those signing overslot deals (often high schoolers) who may have slid down the draft.

There is a lot of strategy when it comes to making the bonus pool stretch as far as possible. It's impossible to say what the Cubs strategy will be this year. Have an idea? Leave it in the comments.

View full article

[Brock Beauchamp]

Welcome, Jeremy!

He's our draft specialist so expect to see his content ramp up over the next three months. He'll also be managing the draft tracker when that releases on draft day.

[Jeremy Nygaard]

The Cubs getting Horton and Ferris last year was a great example of pool manipulation. They went under slot on Horton (who was a late helium guy) and went well over on Ferris (who was viewed as one of the top prep arms) who fell to 47. They were also able to add a third seven-figure guy (Nazier Mule) in the fourth round. Mule has two-way ability and was a sneaky-good pick.

They were able to pull this all off by only drafting one guy who was a Top 10 reach (Nick Hull, 7th round, signed for $25k).

Hard not to like two really high upside arms plus a lotto ticket as your three biggest bonuses.

[CubinNY]

3 minutes ago, Jeremy Nygaard said:

The Cubs getting Horton and Ferris last year was a great example of pool manipulation. They went under slot on Horton (who was a late helium guy) and went well over on Ferris (who was viewed as one of the top prep arms) who fell to 47. They were also able to add a third seven-figure guy (Nazier Mule) in the fourth round. Mule has two-way ability and was a sneaky-good pick.

They were able to pull this all off by only drafting one guy who was a Top 10 reach (Nick Hull, 7th round, signed for $25k).

Hard not to like two really high upside arms plus a lotto ticket as your three biggest bonuses.

Opinions differ on the prudence of this approach. They need difference-makers. 

[Jeremy Nygaard]

12 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

Opinions differ on the prudence of this approach. They need difference-makers. 

Absolutely. For every time it works great, it falls flat on its face. The draft and international free agency are very similar. 

I've often wondered - and this is more IFA-related - if a team would be better off spending $3 million on one prospect with 29 $1k guys, $300,000 each on 10 prospects with 20 $1k guys or $100,000 each on 30 prospects. It all comes down to if you hit or not. 

Personally, I liked Horton, but thought he'd go in the 20s. I didn't think it was unreasonable to take him at 7 with the lack of college arms. I thought Ferris was, arguably, the top healthy prep arm and figured he'd go in the teens, but who knew what would happen with bonus demands. 

Obviously picks aren't tradeable, but if you could drop back from 7 to 15 while moving up from 47 to 25, you could make an argument on both sides. I really believed Ferris was the key to this for the Cubs, so the procedural part worked out... now about staying healthy and developing, that's another story.

[CubinNY]

7 minutes ago, Jeremy Nygaard said:

Absolutely. For every time it works great, it falls flat on its face. The draft and international free agency are very similar. 

I've often wondered - and this is more IFA-related - if a team would be better off spending $3 million on one prospect with 29 $1k guys, $300,000 each on 10 prospects with 20 $1k guys or $100,000 each on 30 prospects. It all comes down to if you hit or not. 

Personally, I liked Horton, but thought he'd go in the 20s. I didn't think it was unreasonable to take him at 7 with the lack of college arms. I thought Ferris was, arguably, the top healthy prep arm and figured he'd go in the teens, but who knew what would happen with bonus demands. 

Obviously picks aren't tradeable, but if you could drop back from 7 to 15 while moving up from 47 to 25, you could make an argument on both sides. I really believed Ferris was the key to this for the Cubs, so the procedural part worked out... now about staying healthy and developing, that's another story.

I'm no expert in prospect prognostication, but Farris seems to me to be the better of the two. Horton has the TJ history and frankly wasn't that much of a prospect until a few months before the draft when his slider clicked. He has two pitches. He ticks off a lot of boxes as a relief pitcher, maybe a closer one day. Fine, but at 9?  Especially when there were a lot of high-quality bats still on the board. Whatever, it's done, I hope they made the right choices.

[Jeremy Nygaard]

1 hour ago, CubinNY said:

Horton has the TJ history and frankly wasn't that much of a prospect until a few months before the draft when his slider clicked. He has two pitches. He ticks off a lot of boxes as a relief pitcher, maybe a closer one day. 

I think you're selling him short. He was BA's 65th-rated prospect coming out of high school (as a two-way player) and a highly-regarded quarterback. If you want to call him a small sample size darling, I won't argue that... but the projectability has always been there.

As far as being a two-pitch pitcher, he's got two MLB-quality pitches right now. (And that's impressive in its own right.) But he'll keep developing his curveball and change-up. His floor assuming good health (with a mid- to high-90s fastball and nasty slider) is probably a high-leverage reliever. But his ceiling is at the top of the rotation.

Ferris, on the other hand, is long lefty with an impressive raw stuff. But that's the key word. So as impressive as his ceiling is (pick a great lefty drafted out of high school), his floor is so much lower (pick a different prep lefty that never panned out).

Regardless, both have tons of arm talent.

*NOT MAKING a Ferris/Kershaw comparison, but both tall prep lefties. Kershaw went 7th overall in the 2006 draft, produced 76.2 bWAR and counting. All other prep pitchers drafted in the first round (or comp/supp rounds) in 2006 - Kasey Kiker, Jeremy Jeffress, Kyle Drabek, Colten Williams, Cory Rasmus, Steve Evarts and Caleb Clay - combined for 9.2 bWAR (most of that was Jeffress) and four of them never made the majors. Drafting prep pitchers is definitely a high-risk/some reward proposition.

And we won't have a good answer for a handful of years!

[CaliforniaRaisin]

On 4/5/2023 at 12:26 PM, CubinNY said:

I'm no expert in prospect prognostication, but Farris seems to me to be the better of the two. Horton has the TJ history and frankly wasn't that much of a prospect until a few months before the draft when his slider clicked. He has two pitches. He ticks off a lot of boxes as a relief pitcher, maybe a closer one day. Fine, but at 9?  Especially when there were a lot of high-quality bats still on the board. Whatever, it's done, I hope they made the right choices.

If you think Ferris is better than Horton, you’re going on a limb and disagreeing with the major draft publications. Only MLB Pipeline rated Ferris above Horton and since then, Pipeline has changed their mind with Horton not only ranked higher but and even ranked as a top 100 prospect across MLB (also no prospect publication ranks a guy in the top 100 who hasn’t thrown a pro pitch if they think he’ll settle in as a closer).

Here were the draft rankings:

Horton - BA: 23, ESPN: 22, FG: 12, MLB: 24, Prospects Live: 12

Ferris - BA: 34, ESPN, 41, FG: 43, MLB: 19, PL: 27

(Also Horton has two pitches with a 60 or better FV and Ferris only has one pitch even at 60, so you’re not even using the same closer logic on Ferris you do with Horton.)

[Named After Maddux]

Yeah I’m not sure I’d argue that Horton wasn’t that much of a prospect prior to his ascension last year. He absolutely was. 2020 was an insane year in general like we all know but we’re definitely still feeling the effects of it even in the tiny niche of the MLB draft. With the weird draft we saw a bunch of preps make it to campus. Prior to COVID, Kantrovitz had a visit with Horton and his family at their house. He had a strong offer to go to Oklahoma as a two-sport guy.

I definitely get how folks look at the pick as a reach but from what I’ve gathered that’s not how it was viewed by teams. Even if the Cubs didn’t take him at 7, he was going top 10 (someone also said top 11). 
I think Horton made the right decision to sign. Sounds like he had a strong offer from Oklahoma to return, but he’d be right in that Hurston Waldrep zone for me in the draft (7-12). It’s also a draft with a lot more depth in pitching and he might have been pushed down just for that reason.

if you like Ferris better, that’s totally cool. He’s a lefthander with a lot of ceiling. Sounds like Noah Schultz was another player they were having conversations with for an overslot pick at 47. He just got scooped by the White Sox. Not sure how they would have gone if Schultz and Ferris were both there. I thought both were late first rounders.

Again the 2022 draft merits scrutiny. They need to have gotten the process right, just feels like from folks around that they took the right swings. We’ll see if it plays out that way.