To nip this in the bud.

2 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

The current record bonus is $9.25 million. If the Sox were to give that out, they would have an extra $2.1 million left over to spend elsewhere, even before the about $380k extra they can give from the 5% overage, and any cost savings on punt picks. Last year the full slot value of the 46th pick was just under $2.1 million, to give you an idea of how much extra space that is. If they combined that total with their 2nd pick at #41, they would be able to put about $4.5 million in front of someone, which is the 2025 equal of slot value for pick #18 in the first round. Even if the Sox gave Roch a new record bonus of $10 million, they will have an extra $1.35 million, or about the value of pick #65 from last years draft.

Yep, lots of opportunity here. The 5% overage is actually just shy of $900K, so they'll have ~$18.5m total.

Unfortunately, there will still be months of "Jerry will cheap out at 1OA" and/or "the Rays/Pirates will outbid them for Roch" ahead.

5 minutes ago, Autumn Dreamin said:

Yep, lots of opportunity here. The 5% overage is actually just shy of $900K, so they'll have ~$18.5m total.

Unfortunately, there will still be months of "Jerry will cheap out at 1OA" and/or "the Rays/Pirates will outbid them for Roch" ahead.

The draft is the one place the Sox haven't really crapped out since the new system.

Here is what every team has available to spend this year on draft picks. Three teams have spent more than they were alloted every season. One of which was the Cubs if I read this properly:

https://www.mlb.com/whitesox/news/mlb-draft-2026-bonus-pool-pick-values?t=mlb-draft-coverage

So Roch can't accept a better paying deal from the Rays or Pirates? That tweet doesn't explain exactly why they can't outbid the Sox, given they have more money to offer him

unless I'm just not understanding how this works

45 minutes ago, joejoesox said:

So Roch can't accept a better paying deal from the Rays or Pirates? That tweet doesn't explain exactly why they can't outbid the Sox, given they have more money to offer him

unless I'm just not understanding how this works

They can try to convince him to SAY he doesn't want to go to the Soxm but if the Sox draft him, it doesn't matter a lick what the other teams have to offer. He belongs to the Sox, and no one else, and can't get an offer from another team unless he goes back into the draft as a senior, which won't happen.

1 minute ago, southsider2k5 said:

They can try to convince him to SAY he doesn't want to go to the Soxm but if the Sox draft him, it doesn't matter a lick what the other teams have to offer. He belongs to the Sox, and no one else, and can't get an offer from another team unless he goes back into the draft as a senior, which won't happen.

So the selection of the player is a separate process than the actual dollar amount/contract offer. For some reason I always thought that the money stuff was agreed to prior to the selection, but I'm ignorant about most draft stuff

Just now, joejoesox said:

So the selection of the player is a separate process than the actual dollar amount/contract offer. For some reason I always thought that the money stuff was agreed to prior to the selection, but I'm ignorant about most draft stuff

So there are numbers floated pre-draft for sure.

A player will say I want X million dollars to sign, or I will go back to college, so teams will have an idea of what they are up against, but once they ARE drafted, the ONLY team they can negotiate with is the team that picked them.

There is nothing stopping Roch (or anyone else) saying I want $12 million to sign. Or full slot value of the #1 pick, or whatever number they want. But once they are picked, they can only negotiate with the one team. Most likely the team and player will have exchanged numbers and either be on the same page, or close enough where they feel they can work together. In a case like this, Roch's people say we want full slot value. The Sox say well the previous record was $9.25 million, what do you think of $9.3 million? Now BEFORE he is drafted, Tampa can say, hey we will give you $10 million, and he takes that number to the Sox and tells them he won't sign for less than that, or don't pick him. Now the Sox have to decide whether it is still worth it or not. They do this little dance ahead of time and either move to a general agreement space, or the Sox feel they can't sign him, and maybe they move on. Maybe they play hardball knowing he won't go back to school as a senior. Maybe they pick the guy who WILL sign for $9.3 million allowing them a top pick AND another 2 million dollars to use in the rest of the draft to push down another good player.

Based on the draft slots, this is the Sox top 3 picks.

1. $11,350,600

2. $2,446,100

3. $1,086,600

If the Sox were to sign Roch to $9.3 million, which is $50,000 more than the former record, it leaves them an extra $2.05 million to use for the rest of the draft.

In simple terms, it means they could take that extra money, combine it with the money in their #2 pick, and have about $4.55 million to spend. That number is on par with #18 pick slot in this draft, meaning if they could convince someone around the 20th best player to put up an outrageous demand, they could push them down to #41 and still pay them essentially full slot value of the #18 pick. That's huge. Put another way, the ENTIRE LA Dodgers pool for 2026 is just under 4 million. The Sox could pay their #2 guy about 500k more than that, and still have plenty left over for the rest of the draft.

Add to that, the Sox can go up to just under 5% of their total pool OVER their total, which is ANOTHER $879,605, minus a penny. In other words the Sox could still offer #18 money at #41, and they based on JUST their overage, could pay their last pick over a million dollars, even if every other player went to slot value. If they pushed that money up to the #41 pick PLUS a 2 million cost savings for Roch, they could pay their #41 pick about $5.4 million, or the slot value of the #14 pick. Or the Sox could use this where they have 3 slots over a million dollars, and turn it into multiple extra million dollar signings, potentially 3-4 depending on how they spread it out.

21 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

The draft is the one place the Sox haven't really crapped out since the new system.

I think our drafting team of Shirley et al has gotten a huge pass through all of this. Their accomplishments:
Crochet - but that was Hahnber looking for a reliever;
Taylor - a reliever; perhaps a great one in time, but not yet.
Burke and Canon - 5th starters at best, thusfar.
Montgomery - looked good last September; not so far in 2026. And in both years Ks way too much.
I'm sure I'm forgetting someone but that's not a lot of production

Yea, we've got a system that he drafted ranked 10-15; but the draft positions have been high as well.

15 hours ago, GreenSox said:

I think our drafting team of Shirley et al has gotten a huge pass through all of this. Their accomplishments:
Crochet - but that was Hahnber looking for a reliever;
Taylor - a reliever; perhaps a great one in time, but not yet.
Burke and Canon - 5th starters at best, thusfar.
Montgomery - looked good last September; not so far in 2026. And in both years Ks way too much.
I'm sure I'm forgetting someone but that's not a lot of production

Yea, we've got a system that he drafted ranked 10-15; but the draft positions have been high as well.

don't forget Jacob Gonzalez