Frank E said:
I don't understand what this means...I'm obviously not versed in MLB CBA.
It's complicated but I'll try to put it as simply as I can for anyone interested:
So, players taken in the MLB draft don't have a predetermined amount of money they make based on where they're drafted. Teams draft players, then have to negotiate a signing bonus. In the past that meant that some very good players didn't get drafted high because their signing bonus demands were very high so smaller revenue teams might opt to draft someone with lower salary demands because they were more affordable.
Nowadays, however, in an attempt to curtail the practice of high value draft picks falling to high revenue teams, all teams are allocated a certain signing bonus total for all of their draft picks that they can't exceed without facing penalties. Each draft pick is assigned what's known as a slot number, for simplicity's sake, let's say that the #1 pick has a slot number of 8 million dollars, the #2 pick is 7.5 million and so on.
So if a team has the #1 pick, with a slot bonus of 8 million, and also the #31 pick, with a slot bonus of 1 million and then two other picks whose slot numbers are 1 million total. That means that team has a bonus pool of 10 million. Now, they're allowed to allocate that money however they want. They don't have to pay the guy they pick #1 all 8 million. So if they have two prospects at #1 they like but one says he's willing to sign for 7.5 million, that extra 500,000 can be used by the team to sign their other draft picks.
So a team, let's say the Orioles, chose to draft someone generally seen as being outside the top 5 players in the draft in part because they were able to sign him for less than his slot number. That meant they could use later picks on players with salary demands that might exceed their slot numbers.
This comes into play a lot with players drafted out of high school. A high school prospect seen as pretty good value might want more than their slot number and say if they don't get it they won't sign with the team that drafted them and will instead go to college and re-enter the draft later. By having unused money in their bonus pool, a team can draft high value high school prospects and financially entice them go into their minor league system instead of college. Because oftentimes players improve in college and improve their draft position when they re-enter, offering over slot bonuses to high schoolers can be a way to get a lot of value from picks outside of the 1st round.
