The Minnesota Twins will have the largest signing bonus pool in June’s amateur draft at $14,156,800.
Cincinnati is next at $13,658,400, the commissioner’s office told clubs this week. San Diego is third at $11,839,000, followed by Oakland ($11,407,500), Milwaukee ($10,447,700) and Pittsburgh ($10,135,900).
The lowest pools are St. Louis ($2,176,000), Cleveland ($3,829,000), Colorado ($4,615,700) and Washington ($5,503,500). The Cardinals lost their top draft pick, No. 30 overall, as compensation for signing free agent outfielder Dexter Fowler. Their next two picks, No. 56 and No. 75, were given to Houston by baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred for the Cardinals’ role in hacking the Astros’ baseball operations database.
Teams generally draft in reverse order of last year’s standings.
As part of baseball’s labor contract, the top slot is valued at $7,770,700, down from $9,015,000 last year as part of baseball’s new labor contract. No. 2 is worth $7,193,200 and No. 3 $6,668,100.
Baseball’s labor contract assigns a slot value to all picks in the first 10 rounds, and if a team fails to sign a player the amount of that slot is deducted from its pool. For the 11th through 40th rounds, the amounts of bonuses exceeding $100,000 per pick are added to a team’s total for calculating a penalty tax.
