What OSU Baseball Players Have Signed For, And Why Trey Cobb Is Returning

Six Oklahoma State players have signed big league contracts following their dream run deep into June at the College World Series. Here’s a look at who has signed to this point and their signing bonuses.

• Thomas Hatch (Pick No. 104): Cubs (Undisclosed)
• Donnie Walton (Pick No. 147): Mariners ($125,000)
• Remey Reed (Pick No. 173): Marlins ($200,000)
• Garrett Williams (Pick No. 215): Giants ($250,000)
• J.R. Davis (Pick No. 466): Cardinals (Undisclosed)
• Conor Costello (Pick No. 971): Dodgers (Undisclosed)

Hatch’s contract slot is worth $573,900 which is probably around what he got because he could leverage returning to OSU for close to the full amount.

Donnie Walton’s contract slot, on the other hand, was $379,000 and he only got $125,000 because as a college senior he had no leverage to use. What was he going to go do? Start an OSU blog?

Davis and Costello likely received well below $100,000.

Contract slots are pretty interesting. The MLB assigns them for the first 10 rounds of the draft. Here’s how Bleacher Nation explains them and why Walton, as a college senior, got drafted where he did.

Teams are assigned a “pool” of dollars that they can use to sign players selected within the first 10 rounds of the Draft. The pool is based on the “slot” value of each of the team’s picks (each pick in the Draft is given a certain value, and each of a team’s picks’ values are added up to determine the pool amount).

Those bonus pools and slot values matter because if a team exceeds its bonus pool, it is subject to penalties. And note, if a team fails to sign a player, the slot value from that pick is removed from the bonus pool. This is why you’ll see teams heavily taking college seniors in the 6 to 10 round range: the team can sign those players for $10,000, and “save” money to be applied elsewhere in the Draft.

Also note that picks after the 10th round have no slot value (and you don’t lose any bonus pool money for failing to sign them), but any amount given to them in excess of $100,000 counts against the bonus pool.

This is the downside of returning to school for a final season which is what Trey Cobb (who was beyond the contract slotting and likely would not have received over $100,000) has decided to do.

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— Trey Cobb (@cobber_22) July 3, 2016

Hatch also went on Twitter to thank OSU fans for the last few years.