2023 MLB Draft: What The First Round Would Look Like Based On Money

Image credit: Max Clark (Photo by Duane Burleson/Getty Images)

One of the biggest challenges in evaluating the draft in real time is the fact that going sooner doesn’t always mean a team took the best player.

With baseball’s soft slotting and bonus pool system, teams can creatively navigate the draft board with under-slot deals for players to save more money for later picks, or go all-in on a big overpay for a player they really like early. In the end, you have to follow the money to get a clearer picture of what teams are up to.

Now that the signing deadline is behind us, here’s what the first round would look like based on signing bonus value:

Round	Actual Pick	$ Pick	Club	Player	Signing Bonus	BA Rank	BA – Industry Gap
1	1	1	PIT	Paul Skenes	$9,200,000	2	-1
1	2	2	WSH	Dylan Crews	$9,000,000	1	1
1	4	3	TEX	Wyatt Langford	$8,000,000	3	0
1	3	4	DET	Max Clark	$7,697,500	5	-1
1	5	5	MIN	Walker Jenkins	$7,144,200	4	1
1	9	6	COL	Chase Dollander	$5,716,900	6	0
1	7	7	CIN	Rhett Lowder	$5,700,000	8	-1
1	6	8	OAK	Jacob Wilson	$5,500,000	9	-1
1	11	9	LAA	Nolan Schanuel	$5,253,000	30	-21
1	8	10	KC	Blake Mitchell	$4,897,500	15	-5
1	13	11	CHI	Matthew Shaw	$4,848,500	13	-2
1	10	12	MIA	Noble Meyer	$4,500,000	7	5
1	12	13	ARI	Tommy Troy	$4,400,000	12	1
1	17	14	BAL	Enrique Bradfield	$4,169,700	16	-2
1s	35	15	MIA	Thomas White	$4,100,000	19	-4
1	14	16	BOS	Kyle Teel	$4,000,000	10	6
1	16	17	SF	Bryce Eldridge	$3,997,500	22	-5
1	15	18	CWS	Jacob Gonzalez	$3,900,000	11	7
1	19	19	TB	Brayden Taylor	$3,877,600	14	5
1	22	20	SEA	Colt Emerson	$3,800,000	27	-7
1	21	21	STL	Chase Davis	$3,618,200	28	-7
1	26	22	NYY	George Lombard	$3,300,000	31	-9
PPI	29	23	SEA	Jonny Farmelo	$3,200,000	45	-22
1	18	24	MIL	Brock Wilken	$3,150,000	23	1
1	27	25	PHI	Aidan Miller	$3,100,000	20	5
1	20	26	TOR	Arjun Nimmala	$3,000,000	17	9
2	50	27	BOS	Nazzan Zanetello	$3,000,000	110	-83
3	72	28	OAK	Steven Echavarria	$3,000,000	73	-45
1	24	29	ATL	Hurston Waldrep	$2,997,500	18	11
2	52	30	SF	Walker Martin	$2,997,500	24	6

I’ve also included a column that shows the gap between Baseball America’s pre-draft rankings and the “rank” that is based on the signing bonus value for each of the top 30 picks. Players with the largest deltas will be some of the most interesting to follow in the next few seasons.

Positive numbers in the “BA – Industry Gap” column represent players that the BA draft board likes more than the signing bonus a player received. Players with negative numbers represent players that the BA draft board likes less than the signing bonus a player received.

While it’s an overly simplistic measure and something we won’t know the truth on for several years, here are the players among the top 30 bonuses that the BA draft board has as the best values in the class: