The Athletics have gone way over-slot to sign third-round pick Nick Allen, according to MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo (Twitter links). He’ll land a $2MM bonus, well north of the $697,500 allotted to the 81st overall selection.
Allen entered the draft as a consensus top-30 prospect. The diminutive high-school shortstop had been committed to USC before deciding to join the Oakland organization.
Prospect analysts generally viewed Allen as a top-30 talent, with Eric Longenhagen of Fangraphs ranking him the highest at 25th. MLB.com placed him in the No. 30 slot. Generally, scouts are said to be enamored of his overall defensive abilities at short, quality baserunning, and strong hit tool.
To make the math work, of course, Oakland had to sign other drafted players for less — particularly after giving slot money to top pick Austin Beck and going $89,500 over slot for fifth-rounder Santi Sanchez. The A’s saved $233,500 against the pool in signing 33rd overall pick Kevin Merrell while also keeping at least $632,600 dry though deals with several other players who went in the first ten rounds.
The team still has yet to reportedly agree to terms with second-rounder Greg Deichmann, a junior from LSU, but will seemingly need to come under the $1,597,300 slot value for the 43rd overall pick to avoid the penalty of losing future draft picks (which no organization has ever done since the current system went into effect).
Why should Diechmann sign for less than Allen? I’d be pretty upset if I was him.
Perhaps they do a “nudge nudge wink-wink” sort of deal where they promise an early call-up and quick extension? But yeah, otherwise I assume Diechmann will just go back to LSU, although that carries its own risk. He has leverage here.
Greg Deichmann played SS in high school. Now he’s a 1B/RF guy.
There’s video of Nick Allen playing SS. Should be self explanatory.
They may have said to Deichmann we will draft you higher than you thought you would if you take less than slot money
Because Allen is a better prospect. Drafted in third round but first round talent it was lnowm they would have to go way over slot for him.
No you don’t get to be upset… they took him higher than he was ranked in anybody’s list… allen went later because of signability concerns and also because he had leverage… guys get how it works… deichman Didn’t have muh leverage and if he’s goes back, he likely gets drafted even lower losing about a million… (besides, he signed for 1.7… good for him)
You’re allowed to go 5% over your total allotment before you lose a draft pick the following year (any money spent over the allotment is taxed at 75%), so the A’s can still sign Deichmann for slot, they would just pay 75% tax on the $500K or so they’ll be over.
I do agree though that it feels weird to sign him for $500K less than your 3rd rounder. The math of the baseball draft is complicated…
Maybe it’s time for MLB to make the slot bonuses non-negotiable. An amateur can choose to either accept the amount or not.
They did that in the NFL to eliminate rookie holdouts and it’s been a huge success.
Apples and oranges. The NFL isn’t drafting any kids out of high school, so no NFL draftees have the leverage of going to college if they don’t like their bonus money offered.
That’s a major reason why the NFL has the weakest union in all of professional sports, while baseball has the strongest. Also, the average NFL career is less than three years, which doesn’t exactly give players any leverage.
Ghost of Bobby Bonilla that was an absolutely perfect summation. MLB should never ever do anything the NFL does, that’s why their superstars/HOFers make the same money what Mike Leake and Matt Garza make.
Your worth however much someone is willing to pay u
Allen was rated as a better draft prospect then Diechman. (Spelling?) usually when teams take someone later they know is gunna need a big bonus they cover that by taking a less leverage guy earlier. Classic As they do it all the time.
Huge, huge news. Allen was very iffy about signing and the fact he fell that far was shocking too. Now if Oakland can manage to convince Garrett Mitchell to sign they will have had a flawless draft, and probably the best draft of any team.
Don’t they still have to sign the 4th pick?
Do you mean the 3rd pick? (Allen was the 4th, Greg Deichmann was the 3rd.) Deichmann, the A’s final unsigned pick from the first 10 rounds (i.e. bonus pool rds), actually has now signed for 1.7M, slightly above the $1,597,300 recommended slot value. (This is per MLB.com and only happened very recently. If MLBTR hasn’t posted it yet, I’m sure it’ll be up in short order.)
FWIW, if the A’s had failed to sign Deichmann, the club would’ve received a comp pick in next year’s draft. For an unsigned 3rd-rounder, that comp pick would’ve slotted into a supplemental round b/t the 3rd and 4th rounds.
Also, the A’s would’ve been fine penalty-wise if Deichmann hadn’t signed (i.e. the club wasn’t relying on an underslot bonus to him to creep back under the major penalty threshold). Deichmann’s $1.7M bonus puts the A’s bonus total at $11.95M, which only exceeds its allotted bonus pool ($11,407,500) by $542,500 (4.8%). Major penalties (forfeiting future 1st-round picks) only kick in when a team exceeds its allotment by more than 5%.
I meant 4th round Toffee. The guy they say has an empty tool box.
It’s not empty there are just no loud standout tools (but the guy has a solid bat, he should get credit for his D and hit tool… bill mueller, Matt carpenter… I know you LOVE tools tools tools but guys like this make for solid pros time and time again)
But yes, I think he’s still unsigned