An Auburn baseball fan's guide to the 2023 MLB Draft
Unlike the other major sports, Major League Baseball’s draft is unique in that both prep and college players are eligible, and that makes roster management at the college level incredibly difficult. The three-day event kicks off on Sunday night, July 9th, with the first two rounds and we’ve got everything you need to know.
Format and order for the 2023 MLB Draft
Officially known as the “First-Year Player Draft”, the MLB Draft is currently 20 rounds. The teams for the top few draft slots are selected by a draft lottery, new for this year. The worse your record, the better your chances of getting the first pick in the draft. This year, the team with the worst 2022 record, the 55-107 Washington Nationals, are picking 2nd, while the #1 pick went to the 62-100 Pittsburgh Pirates.
(The big loser in the first ever draft lottery was the Oakland Athletics - they had the 2nd worst record, at 60-102, but pick 6th.)
Each pick in the top ten rounds is assigned a dollar value, called a “slot”, that represents the recommended signing bonus for that selection. Each team is free to go outside that slot value to sign their draft picks, a practice referred to as going “overslot” or “underslot”, in order to either save money from their pool to meet the financial demands of specific players or offer extra to convince a player to sign in lieu of college.
But, here's the catch: The values of each team’s picks in the first ten rounds is added together and that figure represents the “bonus pool”, the total amount available for teams to sign their draft picks without penalty. Any team overage of their assigned bonus pool by 5% or more is punishable by financial penalties and the loss of future draft picks, and effectively serves as a quasi-hard cap on signing bonuses. If you go overslot for one player, you have to make that money up somewhere else by going underslot for another (or multiple).
Teams only have until mid-August to sign their draft picks, unless the player has exhausted their college eligibility - if a team does not reach an agreement with a player by the deadline, the player re-enters the draft pool next year and the MLB team receives a compensatory pick in next year’s draft one spot later than this pick’s position.
The amount of the signing bonus is the only thing to be negotiated between drafted players and their organizations. The contract signed by drafted players, called the “Uniform Player Contract”, is identical in almost every case and binds them to the organization for seven minor league seasons and/or until their addition on the MLB 25-man active roster, whichever comes first.
Wages are mostly fixed in the minors, although thanks to the minor leaguers forming a union for the first time ever, they are significantly higher than in the past: all players subject to the UPC receive $675/week in short season/rookie ball (up from $400/week), $850/week in Class A (up from $500/week), $1000/week in Double-A (up from $600/week), and $1200/week in Triple-A (up from $700/week).
Under the terms of the Minor League CBA, furnished housing and transportation to/from the ballpark is now provided by the parent organization, and minor leaguers are paid for spring training and offseason work at team complexes at the rate of $625/week.
MLB Draft eligibility
University players that have completed three seasons (juniors) or that have reached age 21 by the date of the draft (sophomores) are eligible to be selected. Junior college and community college players are eligible at all times. Because of this, many college juniors that are selected hold leverage in their signing bonus negotiations, as they have the option of returning to college for their senior seasons. 22 of Auburn's rostered players (not counting incoming or outgoing transfers) are eligible for the draft, with only seven having completely exhausted their eligibility. Greatly influencing this is that all players that were on a NCAA roster for the 2020 season can take an additional year of eligibility, called a “COVID” or “super senior” year, to make up for the 2020 season being prematurely terminated.
Auburn's draft eligibles:
(bold indicates likely to be drafted, underline represents no remaining eligibility)
OF Mike Bello (21 year-old sophomore)
RHP Ben Schorr (redshirt sophomore)
1B Cooper McMurray (redshirt sophomore)
2B Caden Green (junior)
C Carter Wright (junior)
SS Cole Foster (junior)
LHP Tanner Bauman (junior)
RHP Joseph Gonzalez (junior)
INF Ty Maudlin (junior)
RHP Christian Herberholz (redshirt junior)
3B Bryson Ware (senior)
C Nate LaRue (senior)
RHP Chase Isbell (senior)
LHP Konner Copeland (senior)
OF Bobby Peirce (redshirt senior)
OF Kason Howell (fifth year)
OF Josh Hall (graduate student)
INF Brody Wortham (graduate student)
OF Justin Kirby (graduate student)
LHP Tommy Sheehan (graduate student)
LHP Tommy Vail (graduate student)
Generally, college seniors will receive underslot signing bonuses, with juniors being at or slightly overslot. The two factors that will complicate bonus negotiations this year are the extra year of eligibility due to COVID and the impact of NIL. A senior drafted this year, thanks to a potential extra year of eligibility, will have another opportunity to be drafted should they choose not to sign. Offering a significantly underslot deal to a senior and expecting them to sign will be more difficult for many MLB teams. Additionally, the impact of NIL funds to not only offset the cost of attendance but to earn five figures of income makes it more difficult to significantly underslot a draft pick to the degree of years past.
NIL has significantly changed the "sign or stay" calculus for many college players. Anectdotally, it feels to many in the MLB Draft world that early qualifiers for the draft are more likely to return to college unless they are drafted early and/or offered significantly overslot deals to sign, as they can earn similar money in college baseball while playing in meaningful games versus what they'd be doing in the minors.
Scouting Reports for Auburn baseball's likely MLB Draft selections
Coming this week!
Recruits
Prep players that have finished high school and have not appeared in collegiate action are also eligible for the draft, and are frequently drafted not only on talent but also on “signability”, the industry’s reference to their signing bonus demands relative to their draft slot. Most prep players that are drafted require overslot deals to sign, as they hold the option of reporting to their universities and re-entering the draft in three years. Auburn’s class, according to public commitments, is rated 7th in the country (Perfect Game) with eighteen commits, including three Top 100 players.
The big four prospects to watch as far as the MLB Draft are infielders Kevin McGonigle and Colt Emerson, LHP Griffin Graves, and RHP Cameron Tilly. McGonigle and Emerson are listed as top 30 prospects on many draft boards, and the consensus within the program all spring has been that one of the two makes it to campus in lieu of entering MLB. Those two plus Tilly were invited to MLB's Draft Combine, as well as current players Cole Foster and Joseph Gonzalez.
Emerson, Tilly, and Graves have reportedly enrolled for summer classes and are on campus now, although that is not a guarantee that they will stay on campus in lieu of signing if selected early in the draft. SS/2B Kevin McGonigle is not enrolled as of now.
Auburn currently has five noteworthy transfers, Miami-Ohio shortstop Cooper Weiss, Jacksonville State outfielder Mason Maners, UAB infielder/DH Christian Hall, UAB pitcher Carson Myers, and Sacred Heart SS Sam Mongelli; none of them appear in most Top 400 lists and are all expected to arrive on campus as scheduled. Several junior college players are also committed; all are expected to arrive on campus and additional JUCO transfers may be taken, depending on draft results.
After the MLB Draft, we’ll have an updated roster and depth chart projection featuring commits, outgoing draftees, and incoming transfers.
More MLB Draft Coverage
For daily MLB Draft coverage and to follow former Auburn standouts, MLB Prospects, the MLB Draft, and more, subscribe to LockedOn MLB Prospects on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts, and follow the show on Twitter as well as Lindsay Crosby.
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