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The MLB Draft has become quite complicated and sometimes inaccessible to casual fans. With that in mind, we’ve compiled a handy rundown of players to know, draft picks, and answers to frequently asked questions about bonus pools, slot values, and more to help you better understand some of the more esoteric elements of the process.
When is the MLB Draft?
This year, the draft will take place from July 14-16. The first day will begin at 5 p.m. ET on Sunday, July 14 and will include the first two rounds, as well as the first two additional rounds. The second day of the draft will feature rounds 3-10, and the third day will feature rounds 11-20. Days two and three will both begin at 12 p.m. ET.
How can I watch the MLB Draft live?
The first day of the MLB Draft will be broadcast by MLB Network and ESPN. The stream can also be streamed live on MLB.com.
Baseball America’s Carlos Collazo will be on hand for the first night of MLB Network’s draft coverage. Days two and three of the draft will be broadcast on MLB.com.
Who are the best players in this year’s draft?
While scouts don’t believe this year’s draft class is as talented as the loaded 2023 class was a year ago, there is still a solid group of top-tier players led by Georgia outfielder/third baseman Charlie Condon and Oregon State second baseman Travis Bazzana.
Condon and Bazzana are considered by most scouts to be the best players in the class. Here are the top 10 players on our draft board:
- Charlie Condon, OF, Georgia (BA College Player of the Year)
- Travis Bazzana, 2B, Oregon State
- JJ Wetherholt, SS, West Virginia
- Chase Burns, right-handed pitcher, Wake Forest
- Jac Caglianone, 1B/LHP, Florida
- Hagen Smith, left-handed pitcher, Arkansas
- Braden Montgomery, outfielder, Texas A&M
- Nick Kurtz, 1B, Wake Forest
- Konnor Griffin, OF/SS, Jackson Prep, Flowood, Miss. (BA High School Player of the Year)
- Bryce Rainer, SS/RHP, Harvard-Westlake HS, Studio City, Calif.
You can read the full scouting reports on these players and the other top 500 players in the class in our full rankings here.
What is the MLB Draft Order?
Here is the order of the first round of the draft:
- Cleveland Goalies
- The Cincinnati Reds
- Colorado Rockies
- Oakland A’s
- The Chicago White Sox
- Kansas City Royals
- St. Louis Cardinals
- Los Angeles Angels
- Pittsburgh Pirates
- Washington Nationals
- Detroit Tigers
- Boston Red Sox
- San Francisco Giants
- The Chicago Cubs
- Seattle Mariners
- Miami Marlins
- Milwaukee Brewers
- The Tampa Bay Rays
- New York Mets
- Toronto Blue Jays
- Minnesota Twins
- Baltimore Orioles
- Los Angeles Dodgers
- Atlanta Braves
- San Diego Padres
- New York Yankees
- Philadelphia Phillies
- Houston Astros
- Arizona Diamondbacks
- Texas Rangers
How is the MLB Draft order determined?
This is the second year that the first round of the MLB draft has been determined by a new lottery. Each of the first six picks is considered a lottery pick, and the 18 teams that did not qualify for the playoffs are entered into the lottery with odds that match their records from the previous season (with some caveats). You can read more about how the draft lottery works here.
Playoff teams are seeded based on a combination of elimination dates and revenue sharing status. Rounds following the first round reverse the regular season seeding for teams that do not qualify for the playoffs.
How many towers are there?
The draft consists of 20 rounds.
This is a relatively new feature of the draft and a function of a restructured minor league system that features fewer teams. Before the pandemic, the draft consisted of 40 rounds, and in the early years of the draft, teams could simply continue to select players until they were eliminated. In the inaugural MLB draft in 1965, there were 72 rounds and 824 players selected.
The 2024 draft will feature more than 600 players selected, and teams will also sign undrafted free agents once the draft is complete.
What is an undrafted free agent?
Any eligible player who is not selected in the draft will be able to sign with any team as an undrafted free agent (UDFA). Most teams will sign at least a few UDFA players, though some teams will sign close to a dozen. The Angels signed 11 UDFA players after the 2023 draft.
Players who sign as undrafted free agents can do so for up to $150,000 without the value of the bonus being counted against a team’s bonus pool.
What is a bonus pool? What are the slot machine values?
Unlike the NBA and NFL drafts, which use hard draft systems where a player’s signing bonus is largely determined by the overall pick a player was selected with, MLB uses a soft draft system.
Each pick in the first 10 rounds is assigned a “slot value,” which is the recommended signing bonus for that selection. A team’s “bonus pool” is determined by adding together the slot values of each of its picks in the first 10 rounds. This number then determines how much money a club has to sign all of its players without incurring penalties.
Selections in Rounds 11-20 do not have slot values, and each player selected in those rounds can sign for up to $150,000 without that money counting toward the bonus pool. However, any additional dollars beyond that $150,000 must come from a team’s total bonus pool.
Penalties apply if you exceed the total amount of your bonus:
- Teams that spend 0-5% more must pay a 75% tax on the overspend.
- Teams that spend more than 5% and up to 10% will lose a future first-round pick and will also have to pay a 75% overage tax.
- Teams that spend more than 10% and up to 15% will lose a future first-round pick, a second-round pick and will have to pay a 100% overage tax.
- Teams that spend more than 15% lose two first-round picks and pay a 100% overage tax.
In the bonus pool era, many teams have been willing to pay a 75% tax and have hit the 5% overage limit, but no team has yet crossed that line and entered the draft penalty zone.
How does the bonus pool system affect draft strategy?
As you might expect, this system has led teams to be creative and strategic in how they use their pools. Every year, you’ll see teams signing players to sub-slot contracts, over-slot contracts, and contracts at exactly the value of the slot. A sub-slot contract is a signing bonus that is less than the value of the slot a player was selected in. An over-slot contract is a signing bonus that is more than the value of the slot a player was selected in.
Some teams like to save money on their picks via sub-slot deals so they can spread the bonus pool money across later picks in the draft. Other teams implement very heavy drafts that do the opposite. In reality, most teams will sign players to both sub-slot and over-slot deals.
Last year, we looked at how each team spent their money in the 2023 draft to highlight the most popular draft strategies. This article provides more details on exactly how the placement system works in practice.
Are teams just being stingy with sub-location deals?
It is common for fans and the media to criticize teams for being stingy when they sign players on discounted contracts. The assumption is that teams will not sign players for the full value of the contract and will simply pocket the money.
However, this is almost never what actually happens. The “savings” from underdrafting deals are usually transferred to other players in the draft. It’s simply a strategic decision about how to allocate the entire bonus pool throughout a draft.
The 2021 Pirates are a prime example. That year, the team had the first overall pick and a total bonus pool of $14.4 million. The team selected Henry Davis No. 1 and signed him to a sub-slot contract worth $6.5 million, a figure just over $1.9 million less than the $8.4 million value assigned to the slot for that pick.
Instead of simply pocketing that extra money, the Pirates then signed their next four players to upgrade contracts, including a $3 million bonus for third-round pick Bubba Chandler, more than $2 million more than the slot value assigned to the 72nd overall pick.
Davis is ranked as the No. 4 prospect in the 2021 class while Chandler is ranked as the No. 20 prospect. This strategy essentially allowed the Pirates to sign a pair of first-round talents despite only having one first-round pick.
The Pirates ended up going all the way and spending just over $15 million in signing bonuses that went into their draft pool. If they hadn’t saved that money on Davis with the first pick, it would have been unlikely they could afford Chandler later.
Why do seniors sign up for such modest bonuses?
Since the bonus pool era began in 2012, it has become common for teams to select college seniors and sign those players to contracts well below their roster value. These picks typically occur on the second day between rounds 5 and 10.
Many college seniors will accept these underclassmen contracts because it gives them the best chance to play at the professional level. If they don’t sign such a contract, they could end up playing in an independent league or potentially end their playing career.
The small bonuses are no surprise to these college seniors. Players almost always know in advance what type of bonus they are signing for, because securing bonus savings is a crucial part of the draft for teams, and if they don’t sign a player, the team loses the slot value attributed to the pick.