The Red Sox are just a few contracts away from wrapping up the first 10 rounds of their 2015 draft class after locking up fourth-round pick Tate Matheny, fifth-round pick Jagger Rusconi, and making their reported agreement with eighth-round pick Logan Allen official.
There's no word yet for the bonus on Tate Matheny, son of Cardinals manager Mike Matheny--MLB's draft tracker simply lists him as "signed"--but his place in the draft lines up more-or-less with his rankings from publications like Baseball America and Perfect Game, and as a junior out of Missouri State he probably wasn't looking to play hardball in negotiations lest he end up bargaining as a senior. It's probably safe to say he didn't end up straying too far from the $512,700 recommended slot value.
[Update] Exactly slot value, per Jim Callis:
4th-rder Tate Matheny's bonus w/@RedSox = $512,700 (full 111 slot). Missouri St OF, grt instincts help tools play up, Mike's son. @MLBDraft
— Jim Callis (@jimcallisMLB) June 22, 2015
Slot value is exactly where Jagger Rusconi appears to have wound up, with the $384,000 bonus having lured him away from a commitment to USC. Logan Allen was reported as having an agreement worth between $725,000 and $750,000, and it seems now that he's ended up at the very bottom of that range. Good news for the Red Sox, leaving them with $25,000 less to find in negotiations with other draftees.
In fact, if we assume Matheny came in at slot value, the Red Sox have now handed out $1,646,700 in bonuses against a pool of $1,603,500. Add in the 5% wiggle room teams are given to work with, where they only have to pay a tax on the amount spent over their pool, and the Red Sox actually have about $35,000 extra to work with.
That leaves just Andrew Benintendi, Austin Rei, and Travis Lakins left to go for the Red Sox, with Cherington having acknowledged the team is close to locking in their top pick in Benintendi. But if you take Peter Gammons' word for it, there might be even less work to do:
Red Sox have signed all but one of their draft picks in the first ten rounds with 3d round U. Wash C Ustin Rei signed Friday. 6th round RHP
— Peter Gammons (@pgammo) June 20, 2015
It's one of those ultra-casual Gammons bombs, both stating new information (the apparent signing of Austin Rei) while also just passing off as common knowledge something nobody else had heard about yet (the implied signing of Andrew Benintendi). So take that as you will.
For more information on the players in question and the rest of the 2015 draft class, you can find all of our draft coverage here.