As we approach the draft, one group of players to watch is college seniors, who have very little leverage to negotiate bonuses, as Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper writes. Seniors selected in the fourth round typically get only $50K-$100K, while seniors picked in the tenth round get as little as $1K. Selections of seniors in the first ten rounds, which are now governed by rules regarding draft spending allotments, can be used to free up money for hard-to-sign players in other rounds.
That only works if those seniors sign, of course — if a team drafts a senior in the first ten rounds and he doesn’t sign, they lose the ability to spend the entire amount associated with his draft position.