Atlanta Braves speeding to the draft signing finish line
By Fred Owens
Money Matters
Bonus reporting is haphazard at best these days. Teams aren’t reporting them – they don’t have to – and it’s no longer a hot item.
The Atlanta Braves Transactions page doesn’t list all of the signings either, listing only Calandra, Segal, Philip, Milligan, Gordon, Ball, Parker, Carter, Barger, and Birdsong. In any case, that page doesn’t list bonuses paid.
Rather than insert the spreadsheet I’ve used so far, I’ve created a copy that’s viewable by clicking this link.
The money hasn’t changed, but you can see at a glance who we believe is signed. Speaking of money, if you noticed a lot of the bonuses look $2500 short – Gordon signed for $212,500 instead of $215,000 for example – Jim Callis explained that happens because of a retention bonus.
"There’s a $2,500 that almost every player in the @MLBDraft will collect, so several teams count that as part of their overall bonus to save money vs their pool. So a guy agrees to $150k, that becomes $147,500 vs their pool & the $2,500 retention bonus."
The pool isn’t affected, but I thought that tidbit of insider trivia interesting enough to bore you with it.