Welcome to the 2025 Draft Signing Period!

Now that the 2025 First-Year Player Draft is in the books, the signing period is upon us. With some limited exceptions, this year's signing deadline is 5:00 pm ET on July 28, 2025. As most of our readers know, each team's spending on draft pick bonuses is capped. The overall bonus cap is determined by the number and placement of each team's selections.

The bonus cap sets an aggregate limit for a team to spend on its selections in the first ten rounds and also limits teams from spending over $150,000 on players taken after the 10th round (the excess on any late-round bonuses will count against the bonus pool). Boston's cap is $12,409,300 this year. If the club exceeds its pool: (1) by 0-5%, it will be charged a 75% tax on the excess; (2) by 5-10%, it will pay the same tax and will also lose its first-round pick next season; (3) by 10-15%, it will be charged a 100% tax on the excess and lose its first- and second-round picks next season; and (4) by more than 15%, 100% tax on the excess and lose its next two first-round picks.

Those are obviously harsh penalties, making it highly unlikely that the Red Sox will go more than 5% over the pool limit in any year. However, the team has shown that it is willing to pay the requisite tax and go up to 5% over the cap, which would place the team's spending limit (not counting the first $150,000 given to any pick after the 10th round) at about $13,029,765. One other wrinkle to remember is that if Boston fails to sign any of its picks from the first 10 rounds, the team's pool will be reduced by the slot amount for the unsigned player's draft position. Here are the bonus slots for each of Boston's top picks:

1st round: $5,114,200

CB round: $2,898,300

Comp round: $1,093,800

3rd round $907,200

4th round: $642.200

5th round: $479,800

6th round: $364,800

7th round: $285,200

8th round: $2229,000

9th round: $203,500

10th round: $191,300

At first blush, it appears that all of Boston's picks in the first 10 rounds are signable, and some draftees may already have pre-draft deals in place. This is pure speculation, but first round pick Kyson Witherspoon should be right in the range of slot, possibly slightly under? Meanwhile, third round pick Anthony Eyanson is likely to get well over slot. At this stage, I'm not seeing any draftees after the 10th round who would get significantly over the $150,000 threshold, which makes things maybe more predictable if not a little less exciting. Maybe 11th round pick Barret Morgan could be in line for a bit over the threshold to sign him away from his commitment to Texas A&M. 

For some additional detail, my initial projections on who will sign are in the 2025 Draft Signing Period Discussion Thread in the SoxProspects Forum.  The projections will be updated regularly, and that thread will include detailed discussion and snippets of info from across the web.

Mike Andrews is the Founder & Editor-in-Chief of SoxProspects.com

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