Can somebody explain why it matters that they save money signing their draft picks under "slot"?
Does it give them more money to spend next year? Did they draft a bright high school prospect in the later rounds who has committed to college that they can now throw extra money at to try and sign?
I'm just curious as to why anybody would care how much they're saving on their draft pick signings.
Every pick from rounds 1-10 is assigned some "slot" value. In the Blue Jays' case:
Round|Slot Value
1|$1,944,800
2|$1,091,200
3|$636,400
4|$461,200
5|$345,300
6|$258,400
7|$193,900
8|$170,800
9|$159,300
10|$149,700
Total
|
$5,411,000
Each team is allowed to spend up to that total for the first 10 rounds. They can go over that total, but there might be some penalties in that case. If teams go over the threshold by less than 5%, then they only pay some luxury tax. If they go over by more, then they will lose some draft picks the following season. For teams with money, it doesn't really matter if they pay some tax, so they will likely try to spend up to that 5% overage amount. So for our purposes, let's assume the Jays have an extra $5,411,000*0.05 =
$270,550 to spend.
However, teams will generally try to save as much money as possible in these rounds. Every pick from rounds 11-40 has an assigned value of $100,000. Depending on how much teams save in the first 10 rounds, it will allow teams to throw this extra money at these later round picks. For instance, the Jays have currently signed 7 of their top 10 picks, while saving
$578,900. With overage, that amounts to
$849,450. AA can use this extra money to entice some later round picks to sign, rather than attend college.
There is a caveat though. Teams must actually sign players from rounds 1-10 in order to use these savings. If a player goes unsigned, they lose that player's slot value from their total pool allotment. For instance, the Jays's 8th round pick, Daniel Young, remains unsigned. His slot value is
$170,800. If they don't manage to sign him, they lose that amount from their total pool. So it is important for teams to try and draft players that they think will be sign-able.
In past drafts, AA's strategy has been to draft some high potential players in the first few rounds, then "punt" most of the picks from rounds 5-10. "Punting" means to take lower end players that are essentially guaranteed to sign for a very low amount. Alex Azor was drafted in the 10th round 3 years ago, but only signed for $1000. He famously quoted, "I would have signed for a hot dog".