MLB Draft 2023: Potentially Historic Prospect Second Overall, Dylan Crews? Why the Pirates Didn’t Pick First Overall Pick

The best player, as judged by the general public, does not necessarily go first in the MLB Draft. It was said that LSU’s Dylan Crews, who plays centre field, had “one of the greatest offensive seasons in college baseball history.”

Draft analysts ranked him “right there with Adley Rutschman for best collegiate position prospect in recent memory.” According to Baseball Prospectus, Baseball America, FanGraphs, and The Athletic, he is the best player available in the 2023 MLB Draft.

On Sunday morning, though, it was widely believed that the Pittsburgh Pirates would pass on Crews in favour of his teammate, powerful pitcher Paul Skenes. The Washington Nationals, a franchise with a history of going all-in to sign top collegiate players, took Crews with the second overall pick.

Even when a recognised top talent emerges in baseball, he is not a cinch to take first overall, which may be surprising to fans of the more known NFL or NBA Drafts.

There is no equivalent of the Victor Wembanyama effect in the MLB Draft. That’s due to a number of factors, some of which are unique to this year’s draft class and others of which are standard for Major League Baseball’s amateur draft in general.

The arithmetic behind MLB draft strategy: slot values, bonus pools, and more
The first step in solving the financial Tetris that is Major League Baseball’s allocation system requires some background knowledge.

Each squad has access to a lump payment, or bonus pool, that can be used anytime during the first ten rounds.

That sum is based on the slot values (dollar amounts) MLB has ascribed to each of those rounds of draft picks. Even while draft picks are assigned slot values, draftees aren’t always compensated accordingly. Each team is free to distribute the total pot as they see fit.

If they are ready to pay the resulting fines, they can even go beyond their budgeted spending.

According to Jim Callis of MLB.com, roughly half of the league spends more than their permitted bonus pool in any given draft, resulting in a 75% tax on the excess money.

If a team’s win percentage drops below 5%, they will start losing draft picks in the future, a penalty so severe that no team has ever risked it.

Within such parameters, front offices strive to get the most talented players possible for their budget. Baseball’s amateur ranks are definitely more difficult to gauge than those of football or basketball, despite the fact that scouting has evolved and zoomed in on elite talent more successfully in recent years.

Especially for high school athletes, the calibre of competition varies widely. Before awarding a young prospect a multimillion-dollar contract, a team may only get to see him play in a handful of games.

The best player should be picked, of course, but bounties are typically the driving factor. Top-picking teams rarely offer the full slot value to draftees.

Instead, they put that money aside until the end of the first round or the beginning of the second round, when they may use it to sweeten the deal for players who are on the fence about whether to become pro or attend college.

Even if your second pick doesn’t come until choice No. 35, successfully threading that needle may mean snagging two of the top 15 or 20 talents available.

The Pirates have the highest bonus pool in the league at $16,185,700, while the slot value of the first overall pick is $9,721,000 this year. That’s the perk of being selected first in the new draft lottery, though it’s only as good as the front office will let it get.
There was no attempt at a “deal” on Dylan Crews’ part.

Both parties are doing the maths as the negotiation progresses.

Crews and his attorneys are hoping to secure him a bonus in excess of $10 million, which would be an NFL record and the highest in draft history. Maybe they have a favourite place they’d like to go.

It’s possible they’re just playing a strategic game to increase his payoff in the long run. The consequences are more important than Crews’ intentions, as ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel pointed out in a late-June mock draft. He wants a signing bonus of more than $9.7 million.

The firm stance evident from the rumours circulating in scouting circles indicated that a team choosing him must be comfortable either ponying up that amount of its bonus pool or living with that uncertainty for the rest of the draft, despite the fact that he is unlikely to follow through on the threat to return to school for his senior season. The last sentence is crucial.

Teams attempting to play the three-dimensional chess of slot values and bonus pools need a level of assurance that players and their advisors are not obligated to supply.

As a result of the less exceptional nature of baseball players in general (no matter how excellent Crews turns out to be, there is no such thing as an instant franchise-changer á la Wembanyama or LeBron James in basketball), teams typically go hunting for the greatest player who will “cut a deal.” That amounts to settling on a bonus sum, or at least a range, before the draft even takes place.

Savings from slot prices can be small in practise; for example, the 2022 top pick Jackson Holliday was signed by the Baltimore Orioles for around $600,000 less than slot. More extreme cases include the Orioles’ decision to keep almost $2.5 million in the pot for their No. 2 overall pick, Heston Kjerstad.

In 2021, the Pirates did this when they drafted first overall and signed Henry Davis, who just made his major league debut, for about $2 million less than the slot value.

Skenes’ contract will likely be below slot, but how the Pirates spend the money saved is unknown.

It’s a lot more tempting when there are a lot of possibilities at the top of the draft, as was the case in 2023. Crews, Skenes, University of Florida outfielder Wyatt Langford (No. 4 to Texas Rangers), and even top high schoolers Max Clark (No. 3 to Tigers) and Walker Jenkins (No. 5 to Twins) did not have a huge amount of separation.

This draft has been called “loaded” by Baseball America and other publications, making it the finest in almost a decade.

Three of the newest professionals, Crews, Skenes, and Langford, may immediately place in the sport’s overall top 10 prospects, thanks in large part to Skenes’s strong performance in the Men’s College World Series.

The Pirates will now focus on a process that is essentially the reversal of the current standard. Instead of finding a player who is willing to take less than slot, they will try to negotiate with some of their preferred draft prospects who might be available in the range of their future picks (No. 42, No. 67, and No. 73) and ask them to do essentially what Crews reportedly did: make contract demands that other clubs can’t or won’t meet.

After that, they’ll come in and offer them over-slot contracts, crossing their fingers that the talent they bring together with Skenes is enough to justify the risk they took by not selecting Crews.

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