This week marked the 2025 MLB draft. Three USC baseball players heard their names called in this year’s event: Ethan Hedges by the Colorado Rockies, Caden Hunter by the Baltimore Orioles, and Bryce Martin-Grudzialanek by the New York Yankees.

Obviously, it is great for these players that they got drafted. Each year, I cannot think about how flawed the current MLB Draft system is, and how bad it is for college baseball by discouraging players from staying in school longer.

Let’s start with a brief refresher on the current MLB draft rules:

Eligibility

Unlike in the NFL and NBA, there is no “declaring” for the MLB draft. High school seniors are automatically eligible for the draft, as are junior college players. At the four-year college level, players are eligible if they have either played at least three years of college baseball and/or are at least 21 years old.

Deciding to sign

After the draft, players have until July 28 to decide whether or not to sign with the team that drafted them. For high school players, the decision is generally between signing and turning professional right away or going to college. For college and JUCO players with eligibility remaining, they must choose between staying in school for another year (either at their current program or transferring) or signing and relinquishing their remaining NCAA eligibility.

Slot bonuses and bonus pools

After signing, players almost always start their careers in the minor leagues, where their actual salary is very little (which is another problem in itself). Hence, the majority of the money that they make until they reach the majors comes from the signing bonus that they sign after being drafted.

However, unlike in the NFL, signing bonuses are not a set amount. Each draft has a “slot value,” which essentially amounts to a suggested amount. A team’s total signing bonus pool to allocate to all of their draft picks is equal to the sum of the slot values of all of their draft picks.

College seniors have very little leverage

As previously mentioned, after being drafted, players must choose between signing with the team that chose them or going to/staying in school. Some players and their agents will use the threat of not signing in order to demand the team that drafted them sign them for above their slot bonus.

However, college seniors have very little leverage, as they do not have any eligibility left. Hence, they are often forced to sign for significantly less than slot bonus in order to give the team more money to sign its other draft picks.

The ninth and tenth round issue

The bonus pool rules only apply to players selected in the first ten rounds of the draft. For players selected in rounds 11-20, teams can sign them for up to $150,000 without it counting against their bonus pool.

As a result, many teams will select college seniors in the ninth and tenth rounds of the draft, the last in which the bonus pool rules apply. They do this because they know that they will be able to sign these players for less than their slot value, giving them more money to sign their other draft picks.

College seniors get jobbed

The result of all of this? College seniors get punished. Their reward for staying in school longer to continue their education and develop more at the college level is being forced to sign for pennies on the dollar.

For instance, in the ninth round, the Los Angeles Dodgers selected Connor O’Neal, a senior catcher from Southern Louisiana. Although the slot value for the pick was $196,000, O’Neal signed for just $2,500, giving the team an extra $193,500 to spend on its other draft picks.

Bad for college baseball

Because the draft system is so heavily stacked against college seniors, players are heavily incentivized to sign earlier—either after high school, junior college, or their junior year of college. As a result, almost none of the best players make it to their senior year of college—and the few that do tend to suffer a major financial penalty for doing so.

Not only is this system bad for these players, but it is also terrible for the sport of college baseball. Because of the rules, fans rarely get to watch their favorite players play for four years, as they are heavily incentivized to depart prior to then.

One of the best things about NIL in college football is that it has caused players who might have otherwise turned professional early to stay in school longer—which is great for the sport. In baseball, however, that is not what is happening.

Hurts the players in the long run

As mentioned earlier, each team has 20 draft picks every year. With only 26 spots on each major league roster, the numbers there obviously do not add up. The result is that less than 20 percent of players who get drafted wind up making it to the major leagues. (Although this percentage will likely wind up going up, given that MLB has reduced the size of the draft in recent years.)

For that huge group of players who did not make it to the big leagues, the signing bonus is not going to last forever. A college degree would be invaluable for them to have in the long run. However, because of the system in place, the majority of these players either never attended college to begin with or left prior to graduating.

Potential solutions

So what can be done to fix this issue?

Fortunately, at least some help should be arriving in the form of increased scholarships. Through this past season, the NCAA scholarship limit for baseball was just 11.7, despite some rosters having up to 40 players. Under the new House settlement, however, baseball programs will now have 34 scholarships. This will likely keep some more players in school, as many will no longer have to deal with the financial burden of paying college tuition.

In addition, though, perhaps MLB should consider adopting a draft format more like the NFL’s—with hard signing bonuses rather than slot pools and suggested amounts. Doing this would not only prevent college seniors from getting screwed over, put it would potentially cause more players to stay in school as well, as they would know that with a strong senior year, they could still get a big signing bonus, and potentially even increase their draft stock.

Ultimately, the majority of players selected in the MLB draft are still likely going to be high schoolers and college juniors. With a few changes to their system, however, the league could help out college baseball and make things right for those who chose to stay in school.