Atlanta Braves draft signings definitely not business as usual
By Fred Owens
Atlanta Braves draft signings sped up as the week ended. 8 of their 11 pool-round and 3 late-round selectees are now officially on board.
It’s only been a couple of days since my first draft signing report, but the Atlanta Braves added three additional top 11 picks to the fold and spent well over slot on four out-round selections.
In case you missed the earlier background administrivia on draft spending I’ll run through it quickly. The Atlanta Braves pool for the first ten rounds totaled $11,532,200. The team may exceed that pool by 5% without penalty, making their de facto pool $12,108,810.
Players taken after round 10 may receive up to $125,000 without penalty. MLB charges any amount over that on a single, to the pool. The penalties can become harsh, but I don’t expect the Braves to face them. The plan looks designed to spread it around but not go crazy over anyone.
Friday Expenditures
I reported the Beau Philip signing in the first post without a confirmed bonus. We now know he signed for $700K, 40% below the $1,157,400 slot.
That information from Jonathan Mayo came around noon. Later in the afternoon, his MLB Pipeline sidekick dumped all the news he’d collected that day.
We heard via a pair of tweets with pictures of the event that Jared Johnson and Vaughn Grissom put pen to paper shortly after the post went live. Details surfaced when Jim Callis Tweeted Grissom signed for $350K, 180% over the $125K limit for late-round signings. The excess $225K counts against the pool-round allowance.