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MLB Draft 2015: Each team’s signing bonus pool

By Kyle Franzoni

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The 2015 MLB Draft will feature some intrigue and team’s will be forced to wade through a deep draft class to spend their bonus pool wisely.

The Major League Baseball draft is unlike any other in sports. Filled with intrigue, mystery, and perhaps a small touch of prognostication, the MLB Draft is not the sure thing that its counterparts in the NBA or NFL are. A break-out star may be three to four years from making a Major League impact and that same player may come from any point in the draft, from the first pick (Bryce Harper – 2010) to the 402nd selection (Albert Pujols – 1999).

However, perhaps the biggest separation that the MLB Draft enjoys from that of other sports is the assigned bonus pools.

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Instituted in 2012, the bonus pool was designed to ensure that every team in the draft had an even playing field finiancially and that those teams drafting at the top of each round (i.e. those with the worst record from the previous season) were not robbed of their chances to select the best available players due to signability concerns. Prior to being instituted, it was not uncommon for the game’s top spenders from throwing lavish bonuses at picks later in the first round in order to make them financially unavailable to those who would likely select those players first.

Each team is assigned a set value that they can spend on signing bonuses, and if a team exceeds those limits, there are further financial penalties and potentially the loss of future picks. If a team exceeds its pool by 5 percent or less, it must pay a luxury tax of 75% on the amount over the threshold. Teams that go 5 to 10 percent over must pay a 100% tax on the excess, and will lose their next first-round pick. A team that goes 15 percent over can lose its next two first-round picks, in addition to the luxury tax. Given the value of picks in today’s game, the penalties can set an organization back.

The value of the pool is determined by a combination of number of picks and where said picks fall in the draft. For the 2015 draft, the Houston Astros will have a record-setting pool of $17,289,200, a virtue of having two picks in the top five of the draft after receiving a compensation pick for not signing their first selection in 2014 (Brady Aiken).

So how does the rest of the pool shape up?

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Next: MLB Draft 2015: First Round Order

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