Baseball America has the bonus pool numbers for the 2023-24 International Signing period, which begins on January 15, 2024 and runs through December 15, 2024. First-time eligible players for that signing class will be ones who turned 16 years old between September 1, 2022 and August 31, 2023.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are one of six teams who will have the maximum bonus pool in 2023-24. It’s a hard cap amount that allows trading for more space, as well as signing players for under $10,000, who don’t count against the cap.
The Arizona Diamondbacks, Baltimore Orioles, Colorado Rockies, Kansas City Royals, Cleveland and the Pirates all have $7,114,800.
A tier of eight teams will be allowed to spend $6,520,000. That group includes the Milwaukee Brewers and Cincinnati Reds.
That’s followed by eight teams at $5,925,000, four teams (including Chicago Cubs and St Louis Cardinals) at $5,152,200 and four teams at $4,652,200.
This news goes well with the announcement late last night that the Pirates have the highest bonus pool in the 2023 draft. The combo of bonus pools means that the Pirates will have more to spend on amateur talent than any other team in baseball over the next year.
It also pairs well with news we broke today about the Pirates being linked to a third 2023-24 international signing from Panama.
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball.
When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.
Most of our draft pool will go to first pick. Neither Crews or Skenes is cutting a deal. Slot for sure.
damn son. this next year or so could be transformative for the system
How many times have we heard that before? I will say I hope they finally get involved in big ticket guys on the international market. Their drips and drabs approach that goes back decades has sucked, by and large.
Here’s a list of guys on the FG top prospects list who signed for $1M or more: Jackson Chourio, Francisco Alvarez, Diego Cartaya, Adael Amador, Jasson Dominguez, Alex Ramirez, Kevin Alcantara, Samuel Zavala, Ronny Mauricio, Noelvi Marte, Marco Luciano, Yiddi Cappe, and Cristin Hernandez. That’s 13 names, or roughly 12% of their list. Now, all but four of those names predate BC. Maybe him signing Yordany to a bigger price tag indicates more willingness to swim in those waters. I’m hoping he continues with that trend.
There is a huge amount of data that shows the great majority of big ticket players turn out to be complete failures. That’s not to say the Bucs should never pursue one, but it certainly means there is no magic bullet.
Can you point me to that data? I’m genuinely curious. I’m not saying targeting the big dollar fellas is a magic bullet. But Pgh has played in the shallow end of the pool for 15 years and what has that gotten them? Gregory Polanco and…
Saying that the vast majority of big dollar guys fail is akin to saying that lots of first rounders bust. It’s true they bust, but relative to to the low dollar guys is it worse? I don’t think it is.