re: Who will be the number one pick in the MLB draft?

Your logic makes no sense. You admit to not knowing much about how slot values work, now you are telling everyone what is going to happen? You said "It seems to me, if they can pay a HS kid $7.2, then they can pay Crews higher than $8M." It's not that they can't pay Crews over $8 million. They can, but that then affects how much they can pay their other picks. All of this changes on a team by team basis. Just because one team would be willing to pay Crews $9 million doesn't mean that every team will do the same.