Where is Money Well Spent on Amateur Player Acquisitions?

A dive into past draft and international classes investigates farm building strategies

One way to contextualize the difficulty of projecting both international amateurs and draftees is by taking the time to review prior draft and international signing classes. All too frequently, we can get wrapped up in the hype of recent prospects and upcoming drafts when a retrospective look at years past reveals the fragile nature of amateur prognostication. Here, we discuss in detail three overarching findings from our analysis of the recent history of draftee and international amateur signings (as always with Oyster stuff, our focus is on hitters only).

1. International amateur signings are a shot in the dark—spending big money on one player here seldom pays off

2. Draftees are more sure investments, and the only sustained difference between high school and college players is a higher floor among collegiate guys

3. Teams still appear to undervalue premium positions in the draft—catchers, shortstops, and center fielders are the best value investments on the market

Rarely Does Bang Go with Buck in International Signings

A quick look at the top international bonus signings from 2017-2019 reveals the trickiness of the industry. While the below players did have to deal with COVID developmental challenges, it’s still a strong look at the overall scouting to results pipeline. Additionally, the jury is still out on many of these players, but we have a general idea of their rough career trajectories thus far. Ideally, we’d go back further, but we lack international signing bonus data from before 2017.

International Amateur Signings from 2017-2019, Sorted by Bonus Received

The randomness of projections bears fruit with our first two prospects, but it’s no shock to see “The Martian” at number one in terms of signing bonus. After losing prospect luster amidst Troutian hype levels, Jasson Dominguez’s career has rebounded nicely, and he’s been an above-average bat as a 22-year-old coming off some injury-marred seasons. The second $5M man is Robert Puason, a once physically projectable prospect who signed with the A’s in 2019, who snagged him from the Braves after their international signing cheating scandal. Puason is now out of affiliated baseball after four seasons of poor hitting and never looked to be a top-end talent.

Bayron Lora is also out of baseball after violating MLB’s domestic abuse policy, while Orelvis Martinez looked promising until his one-game MLB debut, where he was subsequently suspended for PED usage. His 2025 has been poor, as his whiffs have spiked and his power has failed to reach pre-2025 levels.

Outside of those top four, only Francisco Alvarez has an MLB impact or has any significant prospect buzz. Diego Cartaya was hyped for a time, but his hitting has mysteriously declined in the last few seasons, and he’s unlikely to make a splash in the show. Looking at the top international players in MLB WAR from 2017 on further reveals the volatility of scouting:

International Amateur Signings from 2017-2024, Sorted by Career MLB WAR

Remarkably, only two of all positive WAR producers (not just the top 12 here) signed for over half of a team’s international budget, with multiple players signing for less than 10% of the pool. Elly De La Cruz leads the way amongst international amateurs and signed for a mere $650,000! Ezequiel Tovar was also signed for under $1M, and Jackson Chourio was a relative bargain at $1.8M, and despite being MLB Pipeline’s 16th overall international prospect in 2021, he seems likely to be the only positive career WAR earner in the top-20 of that year (look out for Angel Genao at #22!).

Two 2025 breakouts in Ceddane Rafaela and Junior Caminero each signed for $10,000 apiece in 2017, and both failed to crack Baseball America’s top 50 list of potential signees that season. Julio Rodriguez turned out to be 2017’s grand prize, but, humorously from a 2025 perspective, Baseball America ranked him 6th, voicing concerns about his “heavy body” and inability to stick even at a corner outfield spot, a true testament to the difficulties of projecting 16-year-olds.

Absent from this list due to the date range is the game’s current best international amateur signing, the 765 million dollar man, Juan Soto. He signed for only $1.5M in 2015, and Baseball America ranked him 13th at the time. They praised his well-rounded bat (still true) and his good outfield instincts (ehhhhh). Again, no shade to any scouts or online prognosticators, but failing to spot Soto’s humongous potential before his complete domination of the minor leagues says a lot about the randomness of growth, development, and scouting, not to mention how tricky it is to assess the mentality and work ethic of potential signees. There’s a reason we shy away from draft content!

Moving beyond these case studies, the broader data backs up the notion that international signings are particularly rife with randomness. The chart below illustrates the relationship between signing bonus amount and future MLB WAR for all players signed internationally after 2016 and all players drafted after 2009 (yes, the year mismatch is a potential conflating factor here, but the chart looks the same if you exclude all pre-2017 draftees).

(Note: For data used in charts and regressions, bonuses have been inflation-adjusted to 2025 dollars. For chart legibility, signing bonuses have been grouped into percentile-based buckets.)

Average WAR per Season by Signing Bonus and Origin

The correlation is far stronger among those players drafted either out of high school or college than it is among international signees. In fact, a quick regression for each suggests that there is not even a statistically significant relationship between signing bonus and future MLB performance for international amateurs.

Relationship Between Signing Bonus and MLB WAR

College Players Have the Higher Floor, But Draftees of All Kinds are Surer Investments

What’s also clear from the above chart and regression is that there is a significant correlation between signing bonus and future performance for draftees–in fact, the marginal WAR value of an additional dollar in bonus money turns out to be exactly the same for high school and college draftees (an extra $100k leads on average to another .031 WAR per season–or put on a larger scale, the cost of a full extra win per season is approximately $3.2 million). While we’d nearly never splash out on multi-million dollar bonuses for international amateur players given the randomness involved, we would certainly be willing to do so on either college or high school players.

The difference between college and high school players is not in the marginal value of the additional dollar spent on their bonuses, but in their floors. Notice in the above regression that the constant (essentially the y-intercept in the chart above it) is much higher for college players than for high school players. Given that the slopes of the lines for college and high school players are identical, this has a very simple meaning–for a college and high school player with the same bonus, you can expect the college player to, on average, have a 0.05 WAR higher per season.

Both of these takeaways–that draftees are a far better place to allocate big bonuses than international signees and that college players slightly edge out high school players in value–are visible in a look at the top draftee signing bonuses given out between 2017-2019. Below, we chart the top 20 players by signing bonus from 2017-2019, matching the international amateur set from earlier:

MLB Draft Signings from 2017-2019, Sorted by Bonus Amount

An initial takeaway from this set is that there are far more MLB talents here when compared to the international amateur set. While guys like Joey Bart, Nick Madrigal, and Pavin Smith haven’t knocked our socks off as MLB players, there are far fewer flameouts when compared to international signees. Part of this is likely due to age; international amateurs are typically signed even younger than high school talent. Another factor is exposure; it’s far easier for MLB teams to scout, compare, and obtain advanced metrics on domestic players than on foreign amateurs (could that be changing?).

While college players make up the lion’s share of the big bonuses, the high school talent has a slight ceiling edge here, with Bobby Witt Jr., Riley Greene, and CJ Abrams posting the top three careers thus far. Hunter Greene has had an exceptional career after giving up at the dish, and Brendan McKay is another two-way player who never quite blossomed in the show.

Here’s the top 20 WAR producers from 2017 on (Hunter Greene is left off this list, which excludes pitching WAR):

MLB Draft Signings from 2017-2024, Sorted by Career WAR

While a solid crop of big bonus guys occupy some of the top slots, there are still unexpected breakthroughs. Cal Raleigh, who never hit a mainstream top 100 prospect list as a minor leaguer, was a third-round sub-$1M selection. Stephen Kwan, Jarren Duran, and Brendan Donovan were each signed for under $250,000, and Jeremy Peña and Michael Harris II were acquired at around $500,000. Furthermore, there are still some high-bonus flops, with Andrew Vaughn ($7.2M) and Henry Davis ($6.5M) failing to meet expectations.

Of course, the top two draftee stars of the 2010s onward, Mike Trout and Aaron Judge, were both sneaky value picks, with Trout signing for $1.2M in 2009 and Judge for $1.8M (an overslot bonus) in 2013. Both players quickly rose to the peak of the sport despite most teams passing on the opportunity to acquire their talent, which is again a testament to the difficulties of scouting and player projection.

For Draftees, and Particularly High School Players, Premium Positions Offer the Best Value for Money

We’ve written frequently in our articles and demonstrated in our Oyster projections that playing premium positions in MiLB–shortstop, center field, and catcher–are important indicators of whether players will be successful in MLB. It would then also come as no surprise to expect that players who play these positions at the amateur level will also have more success in their pro careers. But of course, you would also expect that teams know this, and that the market adjusts to put a premium price on these players. As a rough example: if college shortstops tend to produce twice as much WAR as college third basemen, you would expect teams to (crudely) pay twice as much for those college shortstops. Therefore, if we examine the correlation between signing bonuses and WAR, despite the disparity in positional performance, in an efficient market, the correlations for each position should be the same.

However, that’s not so in reality. When dishing out bonuses, teams do not seem to fully appreciate the advantage that those draftees at premium positions have. Compare the two charts below–the first includes just those players who catch, play shortstop, or patrol center at the time they were drafted. The second shows all other players.

Average WAR per Season by Signing Bonus and Origin, Premium Positions

Average WAR per Season by Signing Bonus and Origin, Non-Premium Positions

While there’s not so much of a difference for international signees, draftees have a much larger correlation between signing bonus amount and performance when they play one of those three premium positions. A four-million-dollar man high school shortstop on average produces double the WAR per season of a $4 million signing high school left-fielder. If you’re less of a visual learner and more of a numbers nerd, the table below shows the regressions run on the data displayed above (excluding international signees, for whom no significant correlation was found).

Relationship Between Position and Draft Status (HS or Col.) and Career WAR

For high schoolers, the marginal dollar spent on a premium position player is nearly (on average) twice as productive (as measured by WAR) as the marginal dollar spent on other hitters. For college players, it’s 50% more valuable. Take a look at just how stark the difference is between the relationship between bonus amount and performance for high school players depending on where they play on the diamond:

Average WAR per Season by Signing Bonus for High School Players, Premium vs. Non-Premium Positions

Essentially, in the low bonus amounts, position doesn’t seem to matter much. But once you get into the big money, you’re much better off looking to shortstops, center fielders, and catchers.

Wrap Up

Let’s get right to it: if we were running a team, we’d put a heavy, heavy focus on drafting the three defensively key positions (C, SS, CF). We’d also ensure that we’d avoid balking at high-potential draftees due to bonus considerations—it’s clear that money in this area tends to be well spent. We’d also go big on quantity over perceived quality for international signings—loads of low-cost guys turn into productive MLB players, and we wouldn’t shell out more than a couple of million bucks on one player. Instead, we’d focus on signing many players to mid-range bonuses, since the hit rate on the multi-million dollar signees is low and the amount of pleasant surprises among the less heralded crop is relatively high. Perhaps an organizational scouting strategy focused on identifying and developing relationships with talent in low-information areas could yield results by producing low-cost, yet potentially high-end, future MLB talent.