Brewers News: Crew Signs Their Two High Upside Draft Picks To Big Bonuses

The Milwaukee Brewers made big swings for upside on Day 2 of this year's MLB Draft, centering their Draft class around 3rd round pick Eric Bitonti and 6th round pick Cooper Pratt. Those two have finally put pen to paper and are officially members of the Brewers organization.

The Brewers announced the signings on Friday.

You don't often see official social media posts like this from the team for 3rd and 6th round selections very often, which is a further indicator of how good these players are and how excited the Brewers are to get them.

The Milwaukee Brewers signed their high upside high school draft picks to massive over-slot signing bonuses.

The deadline to sign draft picks was approaching, coming up on July 25th, but in order to get physicals done and finalize everything, agreements would need to be made in principle beforehand. Everything's official with a few days to spare.

Hours later, the signing bonus information was revealed. Jim Callis of MLB Pipeline reported that 3rd round pick Eric Bitonti agreed to a $1.75MM signing bonus. The slot value of the 87th overall pick was $796,200, so the Brewers went nearly a million dollars over slot to sign him. He received a higher signing bonus than 2nd round pick Mike Boeve. His bonus was comparable to the slot value for the 49th overall pick, which is in the middle of the 2nd round.

Callis also reported the Brewers agreed with 6th round pick Cooper Pratt for a $1.35MM signing bonus. The slot value of the 182nd overall pick was $309,900, meaning the Brewers did go over a million dollars over slot to get Pratt into the organization. He also received more money than Boeve in the 2nd round. Pratt's bonus falls in between the slot value of the 59th and 60th overall picks, which is at the end of the 2nd round.

Both Bitonti and Pratt received signing bonuses commensurate with being 2nd round picks, even though they were selected in later rounds. They were viewed across the industry as early 2nd round talents, which is why it cost this much to sign them both.

Selecting both of these young players gave the Brewers one of the best hauls of talent of any organization in this year's Draft.

Essentially, the Brewers had three second round picks this year. Their original in Boeve, and now Bitonti and Pratt. There's no trading to move up and down and accumulate picks in the MLB Draft so teams move around this way.

The Brewers have also signed their 7th-10th round selections, and while we haven't seen their bonus info yet, it's expected to be below slot. With Bitonti and Pratt's signing bonus now known, the total amount of money spent from the bonus pool is at $10,070,000. Their allotted bonus pool is $10,950,600, giving them just under $900k to sign their 7-10th round picks. Spoiler, it won't take all of that 900k to sign those college seniors. Plus, the Brewers could utilize the 5% overage they are allowed, giving them a maximum bonus pool of $11,498,130 without losing draft picks.

The Brewers will have a couple hundred thousand dollars left over to dangle in front of their Day 3 selections out of high school and they could be able to get one or two of them to sign. They have a few more days left to convince them.