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With the signing of James Shields by the Padres, all free agents with attached qualifying offers have found homes, and the 2015 MLB Draft order is now finalized. We know the Dodgers will pick 24th in the first round and 35th overall as a supplemental pick for losing Hanley Ramirez to Boston.
Now we know just how much the Dodgers can spend on the draft in 2015, which will be the first under new amateur scouting director Billy Gasparino.
Per Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com, the Dodgers will have just a draft bonus pool of just under $7 million, which counts the bonuses for all signed picks though the 10th round, plus any bonus amounts over $100,000 for subsequent picks.
With the extra pick as compensation for losing Ramirez, the Dodgers have 11 picks in the first 10 rounds, compared to 10 last year. Mayo specifically lists the slot values of the Dodgers' first two picks — $2,104,200 for the 24th pick, and $1,764,300 for the 35th pick — plus the Dodgers total bonus pool of $6,987,100.
Looking back on 2014 slot values from Baseball America, we can see that each pick listed by Mayo is an increase of roughly 9.28 percent over last year, with each slot amount rounded to the nearest $100. Knowing the pick numbers for the Dodgers, it's easy to reverse engineer the value of each 2015 slot for the Dodgers through Round 10.
The Dodgers in 2014 had a slot value of $1,980,500 for their first-round pick, No. 22 overall, but gave pitcher Grant Holmes a $2.5 million bonus. That brings us to the penalties for exceeding the bonus pool, per the collective bargaining agreement.
Last year the Dodgers had a total bonus pool of $4,947,700, and went over by $200,900, or 4.06 percent. That resulted in a tax of 75 percent on the overage amount (the tax totaled $150,675), the lowest level of penalty for spending more than the allotted amount.
Here are the penalties for spending more that the draft bonus pool:
Excess amount | Dodgers 2015 range | Penalties |
0-4.99% | $6,987,100 - $7,336,454 | 75% tax on overage |
5-9.99% | $7,336,455 - $7,685,809 | 75% tax on overage loss of first round pick |
10-14.99% | $7,685,810 - $8,035,164 | 100% tax on overage loss of first and second round picks |
15%+ | $8,035,165+ | 100% tax on overage loss of first round picks in next two drafts |
Per collective bargaining agreement |
In other words, with the Dodgers' draft bonus pool of $6,987,100 in 2015, they can safely spend up to $7,336,454 without forfeiting any future draft picks.