The Toronto Blue Jays have finalized deals with five more players from their draft class, according to Baseball America.
Nolan Higgins, Gable Mitchell, Jake Bennett, Joey Urban and Bryce Chance are all officially signed, and the math behind these deals tells its own story.
Toronto saved a combined $1,351,600 in underslot money across these five signings.
That kind of savings matters more than usual this year, given the Blue Jays entered the draft with one of the smaller bonus pools in baseball.
Higgins, the Michigan State reliever selected in the fifth round, already stood out for a strikeout rate that jumped from 13.1 percent to 30.1 percent in his senior season.
Mitchell joined as an undrafted shortstop, another name added to an increasingly crowded pipeline of position player depth.
Underslot deals like these free up bonus pool money for picks who need more to sign, and Toronto has already shown it's willing to go over slot for players like fourth-rounder Will Brick.
Why these savings connect directly to bigger targets
Every dollar saved on a senior sign or a lower-demand pick gets reallocated somewhere else in the draft, and that's exactly the strategy at play here.
Bennett, Urban and Chance round out this group of signings, adding more names to a farm system that's stayed busy all summer between the draft, trades and undrafted free agency.
It's a bit like clipping coupons at the grocery store so there's more left over for the one big purchase that actually matters.
Does saving over a million dollars across these five picks actually translate into a stronger overall draft class, or does it just mean Toronto paid full price somewhere else instead?
For now, all five players begin their professional careers in an organization that's clearly treated this draft as one connected budget rather than a series of separate decisions.
How Higgins, Mitchell and the rest of this group develop will take years to answer, but the financial strategy behind signing them is already coming into focus.
Do you trust the Blue Jays' underslot draft strategy to pay off down the line?
Also read on Blue Jays Insider :
Blue Jays acquire new shortstop Gable Mitchell
