Over at Baseball America, Jim Callis has all of the spending figures on this year's draft from the 30 MLB teams, and as you'd expect, they're pretty staggering.
The teams spent a total of $227.9 million on signing bonuses this year, although additional guarantees from Major League contracts given to Danny Hultzen, Trevor Bauer, Anthony Rendon, Dylan Bundy and Matt Purke push the total amount of money guaranteed by the teams up to $236 million. Both of those figures set new records; last season, the teams spent $195.7 million on bonuses and $201.8 million in total guarantees.
Pittsburgh blew the old single team spending record out of the water this year by spending $18 million on their class. The Pirates spent more money on signing bonuses for No. 1 pick Gerrit Cole and second-round pick Josh Bell, a total of $13 million between the two, than any other team had ever spent on signing bonuses for an entire draft class. The Pirates did fail to set the record for overall money guaranteed to single draft class, though. In 2009, the Nationals spent $19.1 million on their draft class, including $15.1 million in guaranteed money to Stephen Strasburg.
Overall, we saw ten different teams spend at least $10 million in this year's draft, an absolutely astonishing number when you consider that only seven teams had ever done it before. The Pirates, Nationals, Royals, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Rays, Mariners, Padres, Blue Jays and Red Sox all guaranteed at least $10 million to their draftees this season.
And then there's the ridiculously poor allocation of resources by the White Sox and Tigers, two teams that are generally among the biggest spenders in all of baseball. Despite MLB payrolls that surpass $100 million this season, both teams failed to spend even $3 million apiece on their draft classes. That's absolutely ridiculous.