Baseball America | Blog | Baseball America Draft Blog

Highest Bonuses, Draft History

Posted Aug. 19, 2011 9:57 am by Jim Callis
Filed under: Signings

Player, Pos.	Team, Year (Pick)	Bonus
Gerrit Cole, rhp	Pirates, 2011 (No. 1)	$8,000,000
Stephen Strasburg, rhp	Nationals, 2009 (No. 1)	*$7,500,000
Bubba Starling, of	Royals, 2011 (No. 5)	+$7,500,000
Jameson Taillon, rhp	Pirates, 2010 (No. 2)	$6,500,000
Danny Hultzen, lhp	Mariners, 2011 (No. 2)	*$6,350,000
Donavan Tate, of	Padres, 2009 (No. 3)	+$6,250,000
Bryce Harper, of	Nationals, 2010 (No. 1)	*$6,250,000
Buster Posey, c	Giants, 2008 (No. 5)	$6,200,000
Tim Beckham, ss	Rays, 2008 (No. 1)	+$6,150,000
Justin Upton, ss	Diamondbacks, 2005 (No. 1)	+$6,100,000
Matt Wieters, c	Orioles, 2007 (No. 5)	$6,000,000
Pedro Alvarez, 3b	Pirates, 2008 (No. 2)	*$6,000,000
Eric Hosmer, 1b	Royals, 2008 (No. 3)	$6,000,000
Dustin Ackley, of	Mariners, 2009 (No. 2)	*$6,000,000
Anthony Rendon, 3b	Nationals, 2011 (No. 6)	*$6,000,000
*Part of major league contract.
+Bonus spread over multiple years under MLB provisions for two-sport athletes.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 19, 2011 at 9:57 am by Jim Callis and is filed under Signings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Comments

Comments will be monitored prior to being added to the site. Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be rejected. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed.

We have chosen to open up commenting to everyone, so comment away! We want to hear from each and every one of you! Leave a comment.

2 Comments

It's great to see just how successful Herr Selig and his lackeys have been in keeping bonuses in check since they implemented this absurd push-everyone-to-the-deadline cap on over-slot signings!

Posted by David | August 19, 2011 at 11:14 am | Shortcut

[...] becomes the 16th player in draft history to earn a bonus of $6 million or more. He matches Eric Hosmer (Royals, 2008) as the recipient of the largest straight bonus (not spread [...]

What Are Your Thoughts?

• Line and paragraph breaks are automatic
• Your e-mail address will never be displayed

About This Blog

The Draft Blog is a source of frequent updates about the draft and the top prospects eligible for the draft. If you have questions or comments you can e-mail them to draftblog@baseballamerica.com.