EDIT: Nevermind, I wasted my time here. He won't even be eligible for the draft.
Ok, I'm already tired of people who don't understand how all of this works chiming in. And also some Texas people using wishful thinking and going out of their way to explain how getting Kyler to accept his rumored demands of $4-5M is still possible.
Back before 2012, Bud Selig used to send every team suggestions for signing bonus amounts for each pick. That's all they were - suggestions. All a team had to do if they went over the slot was explain it to Selig. These were called "signability picks." A player would slide because, for example, he announced that he was going to play football in college, and a team would draft him later and offer him a boatload of cash: see Tigers and Porcello/Castellanos.
Now, this, of course, pissed off other owners and teams, and owners negotiated hard with the MLBPA to put in stricter rules for how draft signing bonuses work. Because MLBPA members are already in the MLB, they don't tend to give a shit about amateurs. In fact, smaller the bonus - bigger piece of the pie for MLBPA.
So now, each slot has a certain value, and it is no longer a suggestion. Each team takes the values assigned to each pick they own, adds them up, and that is their "bonus pool." It obviously depends heavily on how high your picks are, bonus pools vary from $17M (the Astros this year) to $3.5M (the Mets). The Rangers have about $9M.
The penalty for going over your bonus pool amounts are harsh. MLB taxes clubs that exceed their draft pools by 0-5 percent with a 75 percent tax on the overage. The higher the overage, the more severe the penalties, so severe that no team has gone over the five percent threshold. Going over by more than five percent and up to 10 percent would result in forfeiture of a first-round pick and a 75 percent tax. From over 10 percent to 15 percent, it’s a 100 percent tax and forfeiture of first- and second-round picks. Clubs would lose two first-rounders and incur a 100 percent tax if they went over by more than 15 percent.
So, if you do the math, it's basically impossible to both
1) not choose Murray in round 1
and
2) pay Murray $4M
For example, if the Rangers want Murray (and hey, I'm sure that they do. He fits their profile perfectly.): they'd make their first round pick (slot value about $5M) and hope to sign him below slot. Let's say they succeed in finding a really good player (maybe a college player with shitty leverage), and sign him to a $4M bonus, and then turn around and take Murray with the 45th overall pick (their next selection). The slot value for that pick is $1.3M. They'd reported need to pay Murray $4M, right? Ok.
So now they've spent $8M of their $9M bonus pool and here's where we stand:
- we've chosen a player with the 4th overall pick that we picked in part because we could sign him for less $$
- we have Kyler Murray, who is still not guaranteed to sign with us
- we have a cool $1M to sign the remainder of the players in our draft, which are cumulatively slotted for values totaling close to $3M. That's not even a bunch of lotto tickets - that's a pile of scratch offs.
Does this seem smart?
Ok, I'm already tired of people who don't understand how all of this works chiming in. And also some Texas people using wishful thinking and going out of their way to explain how getting Kyler to accept his rumored demands of $4-5M is still possible.
Back before 2012, Bud Selig used to send every team suggestions for signing bonus amounts for each pick. That's all they were - suggestions. All a team had to do if they went over the slot was explain it to Selig. These were called "signability picks." A player would slide because, for example, he announced that he was going to play football in college, and a team would draft him later and offer him a boatload of cash: see Tigers and Porcello/Castellanos.
Now, this, of course, pissed off other owners and teams, and owners negotiated hard with the MLBPA to put in stricter rules for how draft signing bonuses work. Because MLBPA members are already in the MLB, they don't tend to give a shit about amateurs. In fact, smaller the bonus - bigger piece of the pie for MLBPA.
So now, each slot has a certain value, and it is no longer a suggestion. Each team takes the values assigned to each pick they own, adds them up, and that is their "bonus pool." It obviously depends heavily on how high your picks are, bonus pools vary from $17M (the Astros this year) to $3.5M (the Mets). The Rangers have about $9M.
The penalty for going over your bonus pool amounts are harsh. MLB taxes clubs that exceed their draft pools by 0-5 percent with a 75 percent tax on the overage. The higher the overage, the more severe the penalties, so severe that no team has gone over the five percent threshold. Going over by more than five percent and up to 10 percent would result in forfeiture of a first-round pick and a 75 percent tax. From over 10 percent to 15 percent, it’s a 100 percent tax and forfeiture of first- and second-round picks. Clubs would lose two first-rounders and incur a 100 percent tax if they went over by more than 15 percent.
So, if you do the math, it's basically impossible to both
1) not choose Murray in round 1
and
2) pay Murray $4M
For example, if the Rangers want Murray (and hey, I'm sure that they do. He fits their profile perfectly.): they'd make their first round pick (slot value about $5M) and hope to sign him below slot. Let's say they succeed in finding a really good player (maybe a college player with shitty leverage), and sign him to a $4M bonus, and then turn around and take Murray with the 45th overall pick (their next selection). The slot value for that pick is $1.3M. They'd reported need to pay Murray $4M, right? Ok.
So now they've spent $8M of their $9M bonus pool and here's where we stand:
- we've chosen a player with the 4th overall pick that we picked in part because we could sign him for less $$
- we have Kyler Murray, who is still not guaranteed to sign with us
- we have a cool $1M to sign the remainder of the players in our draft, which are cumulatively slotted for values totaling close to $3M. That's not even a bunch of lotto tickets - that's a pile of scratch offs.
Does this seem smart?
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