Detroit Tigers Use Early Over-Slot Strategy to Sign Latest Draft Class
By the deadline the Detroit Tigers had their entire 2024 MLB Draft class signed. But it took a little strategy to get it done.
Baseball America recently wrote about each team’s use of its draft bonus pool. Each team receives a bonus pool based on a variety of factors.
The Tigers’ bonus pool was $11.921 million and spent $12.512 million, which is allowed as long as they didn’t spend more than 5% above the bonus pool. The Tigers were right at the 5% limit.
Every selection, especially in the first 10 rounds, as a slot value, which indicates what that draft pick should get. Teams can pay the slot value, pay under the slot value or over the slot value.
Detroit adopted a strategy that Baseball America called “spend early, save late,” as the Tigers gave more to their early picks to make sure they got them under contract.
The Tigers selected a prep outfielder, Bryce Rainer, in the first round, which came with a slot value of $5.712 million. Detroit gave him $85,000 more.
Detroit did the same thing with another prep selection, pitcher Ethan Schiefelbein. He was the Tigers’ competitive balance selection between the second and third rounds. In fact, Detroit paid him well over slot — $1.80 million on a slot value of $1.09 million.
That was a combined $643,000 over slot that the Tigers had to make up for. So, they did it with the college players they selected on the second day of the draft.
Each of the Tigers’ next six selection were all from four-year colleges. Detroit got all of them to sign under-slot deals and saved $679,000 of its bonus money?
Why? Major League teams, like other pro leagues, like to catch players when they’re younger. That’s why teams will pay over-slot for high school players, in some cases. Also, teams can apply leverage to four-year college players if they’re out of eligibility.
That’s why the Tigers went over-slot again with their ninth-round pick, Zach Swanson, a pitcher from Toutle Lake High School in Washington.
That was a case where a well-ranked prospect fell into Detroit’s lap. Swanson was ranked No. 178 by MLB Pipeline and the Tigers’ selection was No. 266 overall. So, to convince Swanson to start his pro career as opposed to starting college, Detroit went $527,000 over his slot value of $195,100.
From there, the Tigers had to save money with the remaining picks to ensure they didn’t go over their allowed bonus pool overage.
That’s the balancing act for every MLB team and the Tigers executed it well to get their class under contract.
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