Imagine getting your first job out of college or high school and signing a contract worth $703,638.36. That was the average signing bonus received by 572 players this month in the 2026 MLB Draft.
Top pick Roch Cholowsky and 39 other first-round selections cashed in heavily on the all-time record $402,481,143 paid out by the 30 MLB franchises. That is about $10 million more than a year ago and $28 million above the 2024 class.
Cholowsky, a shortstop from UCLA, got an all-time record $10,347,500 from the Chicago White Sox. Shortstop Grady Emerson, an 18-year-old from Fort Worth, TX, was taken second and got $9,747,500 from the Tampa Bay Rays, a record amount for a high school player.
The White Sox spent a single-team record of $21,150,840. Nine teams total spent enough to join the top 20 list in draft history.
Each year, every team is allowed a certain amount to spend in a draft pool as determined by MLB. Those that exceed their given limit by 0-5% pay a 75% penalty tax on whatever amount they over-spend. If they overspend by plenty, they run the risk of paying the 75% tax and losing future selections.
It comes as no surprise that the mathematical masterminds driving baseball through analytics pretty much had their spending down to the last penny.
No team exceeded the 5% marker and only 23 went past zero, up from 20 a year ago. The Rays, Cleveland Guardians, Detroit Tigers and San Francisco Giants spent every dollar; the Houston Astros saved one mighty buck and the spend-thrift Los Angeles Dodgers kept $20.
The Colorado Rockies went past 0% for the first time, leaving the Minnesota Twins as the only club in history to never blow past their prescribed pool.
In 15 drafts with bonus pool rules, clubs have overspent a total of 283 times but never by more than 5%.
A .933 Batting Average
Of the 613 players selected in the 20-round draft, 572 (93.3%) signed. Only two of the first 390 picks did not sign.
High school pitcher Logan Schmidt, taken in the second-round at No. 59, turned down Cleveland. The Guardians forfeited the $1,598,900 in bonus pool money attached to the pick. Schmidt has a commitment to pitch at Louisiana State. Fans of the traditional college powerhouse are elated.
Sophomore eligible right-hander Aiden Knaak, picked 163rd overall by the Milwaukee Brewers, decided to return to college at Clemson. NIL money may habe played a part in him rejecting the $425,400 suggested by MLB for that fifth-round choice if that is what the Brewers offered.
The first 69 players signed and 78 of the first 80 all got more than $1 million. No pick ever got that much until 1991 when the New York Yankees signed No. 1 choice Brien Taylor for $1.55 million. The high school left-hander encountered all sorts of problems, never made the majors and had only a 22-30 record in the minors.
Signing For $500?
Credit the Atlanta Braves for persuading several picks to sign for much less than the slot value in order to get a possible future superstar.
Atlanta’s top pick, Virginia outfielder AJ Gracia, agreed to sign for $3,997,500, much less than the $6,675,300 allotted for the ninth overall pick.
Clemson catcher Jacob Jarrell, Georgia Tech outfielder Parker Brosius and Hawaii first baseman Ben Zeigler-Namoa each got only $500 to sign as the Braves’ eighth, ninth and 10th picks, respectively. That was a collective $653,000 under slot.
Atlanta took that savings and more by signing several others for under-slot terms and paid it to third-round choice Jensen Hirschkorn. The prep pitcher got the same bonus as top pick Gracia – only for him it was the most ever paid any pick after the second round and $3,023,800 over slot.
“There’s not a whole lot he can’t do,” Braves vice president of amateur scouting Ronit Shah told Mark Bowman of MLB.com. “He’s athletic. He’s a big-time basketball guy. We’re really excited to see what he can do. He throws a ton of strikes. We saw him in the summer at a big-time event, the Area Code Games. He struck out nine guys in three innings. It’s hard to do better than that.”
High Schoolers Paid More
Helped by Hirshkorn’s hefty payday, high school players on the average got richer than collegians this month.
- 98 prep players signed for $146,905,869 total, averaging $1,499,039.
- 474 collegians signed for $255,575,274, averaging $539,188.
No wonder MLB teams have proposed a drastic change in preliminary negotiations to the collective bargaining agreement that expires on December 1. As first reported by J.J. Cooper of Baseball America in mid-June, high school players would no longer be eligible to enter the draft.
The players’ union immediately called the plan a disaster.
“MLB made another set of proposals that are flat-out bad for baseball, ones that would cripple the next generation of players and damage the future of our game,” Bruce Meyer, interim executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, said in a statement.
Some of the greatest players in history were drafted out of high school including Baseball Hall of Famers Cal Ripken Jr., Chipper Jones, Johnny Bench, CC Sabathia, Robin Yount, Greg Maddux, Rickey Henderson, Ken Griffey Jr., and many more.
Before the draft began in 1965, many of the best players were in the majors by age 20. Future Hall of Famer Bob Feller made his MLB debut for the Cleveland Indians on July 19, 1936. That September, he struck out an American League record 17. In October he went BACK to high school at age 17.
The 2026 MLB Draft
Should high schoolers be banned from future drafts, this year’s event naturally will have historic importance.
The proposal to stop drafting prep players is based purely on economics. High schoolers are traditionally higher risk choices. While some of the greatest players in history did indeed develop quickly, there is no doubt that college picks are safer choices as MLB teams have that much longer to watch a ballplayer develop skills.
With colleges forced to now pay players in all sports due to NIL (name, image, likeness) agreements, costs are rapidly skyrocketing – as seen in the record payouts this month.
The sport is at a precarious crossroads. Are the financial figures from the 2026 MLB Draft mind-boggling enough to make drastic changes or just the tip of an iceberg that could threaten to sink the game? We’ll see in December.
