Here’s updates on the signing status for Detroit’s Draft
Now that the 2025 MLB Draft has concluded and all 21 picks have been made, it is time for the hard part — signing everyone. In the MLB Draft, teams are assigned a set amount of money to spend on signing bonuses for every player in their draft; this amount of money is the team’s total bonus pool.
Each pick has a projected slot value, assigned by the league, so a team’s bonus pool can be calculated by summing their slot value. This year, the Detroit Tigers have a bonus pool of $10,990,000, which is the 17th highest in baseball. This is new for Scott Harris, since Detroit had picked in the top 10 each of his other years and had a correspondingly higher bonus pool to work with.
It’s baseball, so there are naturally a few interesting rules to consider. Firstly, players are not required to sign. High schoolers can hold out and go to college, junior collegiate players can transfer to more mainstream baseball powerhouses, and occasionally, college graduates will choose to play in an independent league rather than sign with a team. That’s particularly rare, but it can happen.
If a player does not sign, the team loses the right to spend the slot value associated with that player’s pick. This is to prevent a team from intentionally drafting players it doesn’t intend to sign and funneling the savings to one individual player. Additionally, picks in the second half of the draft (rounds 11-20) have no assigned slot value; signing bonuses of under $150k made in these rounds do not count against a team’s bonus pool.
If a player signs for more than $150k in these rounds, only the overage contributes to the bonus pool. And finally, a team can spend up to 5% extra of its bonus pool with only a monetary penalty, which is fairly common. However, after 5%, teams begin to forfeit future draft considerations, a penalty no team has ever incurred.
As of Thursday afternoon, no Tigers’ draft picks have announced a signing. We’ll be updating this chart with their signing bonuses as they’re announced. Players to keep an eye on, outside the first few picks, are River Hamilton and Ethan Rogers. Both have commitments to strong D1 baseball programs and will likely require far more than their $150k allotment to forgo college.