Trade increases Dodgers' draft bonus pool to $7.78 million

LOS ANGELES -- In addition to picking up Ryan Webb and taking on all of the remainder of his $2.75 million salary, the Dodgers in Thursday's trade also acquired a competitive balance pick from the Orioles, the No. 74 overall pick, between the second and third rounds.

The competitive balance picks, 12 in all, are the only draft picks that can be traded, and are determined each year by lottery, with the eligible clubs the 10 teams with the lowest revenues and the 10 teams in the smallest markets. Six picks are between the first and second rounds, and six more come between the second and third rounds.

The pick from Baltimore gives the Dodgers four picks in the first 74 selections of the draft — No. 24, No. 35 and No. 67 in addition to this new pick.

Every pick in the first 10 rounds has an assigned slot value from MLB, a suggested amount for the signing bonus for that pick. Per Baseball America, the No. 74 pick has a slot value of $827,000.

Back in February we used reported MLB.com figures and reverse-engineered the Dodgers' slot values for each of their 12 picks in the first 10 rounds. Those figures were updated this week by Baseball America, and the Dodgers bonus pool now at $7,781,700.

There are penalties for exceeded the pool allotment, but a team doesn't lose any future draft picks until exceeding the pool by five percent. In other words, the Dodgers could spend up to $8,170,784 without losing a pick, incurring only a 75-percent tax on the overage.