re: LSU Baseball MLB Draft Watch

With the new CBA and draft rules, rounds 11-40 max out at $100K signing bonuses (unless team has remaining $ from their first 10 rounds' budget, which gets tricky). There is very little post-draft negotiating now. Teams have to stay within their respective budgets so they need to keep a total of what kids agree to as they're drafting.

That being said, if Ibarra is drafted 10-15, it most likely means that he and his "advisor" told teams they were returning to campus and the team is hoping they have left over money to sway him later.

You could see Katz and Raph going 7-10 because they are seniors with limited negotiating room. Teams will take them in these rounds so they can save slot money (Ex: slot value = 350k so they offer 150k). They'll throw the extra $200K to a higher drafted junior or HS senior in order to give more than max slot and get him.

This is just how the draft is now. Seniors who would typically fall to late teen-30th rounds, get drafted top 10 just to save money. And it makes the decision to return that much easier for juniors/HS seniors drafted after the 10th round.

I know TL/DR .. w/e