I'll get this started now that we know we're picking 9th in the first round, as well as the Baldwin comp pick being 26th. If the Braves sign a free agent who rejected the qualifying offer, a lot of this will be blown up but I don't think that'll happen. I know everybody is bummed about the way the lottery went and I'm right there with you, but there's still a lot to be excited about with this. We will have all of our 20 draft picks, plus the additional Baldwin pick.
Last year, the Reds picked 9th in the draft. They had zero PPI or competitive balance picks (they had one but traded it to LA in the Lux deal), so this should be pretty easy math here. Their bonus pool was worth $11,836,800. If you add the 26th pick value ($3,492,200) to that, that would mean our bonus pool would've been $15,329,000, which would've been the sixth highest pool amount in last year's draft. Keep in mind pick values increase every year and the 2026 values haven't been released yet, so we'd just bey guessing at what the specific numbers will be based on last year's, but it seems fair to expect us to have around the 5-7th biggest pool in this year's draft. Last year, our entire bonus pool was $9,081,100 - the 9th pick in 2025 alone had a value $6.5 million on its own last year.
We will have the advantage of being the team with the earliest second pick in the draft. So if any of the expensive high school talent starts falling down the board, we'll be the first team to make its second pick and have a shot to give them a big deal. I do think that's pretty significant and a big reason why our PPI pick being ahead of Houston's actually does matter.
There are a lot of smaller details that could change things based on who signs which free agents. We know the Diamondbacks will get a pick after the first round when Zac Gallen signs somewhere, but that's the team QO free agent who will net a pick that high.
The good news is that the 2026 draft has been graded out really well by draft writers. We'll use Pipeline since it's free, but you can see their top 100 draft prospects rankings and their first mock draft, which doesn't include our second pick for some reason.
Still a lot to look forward to with this draft even with the bad luck in the lottery.
Last year, the Reds picked 9th in the draft. They had zero PPI or competitive balance picks (they had one but traded it to LA in the Lux deal), so this should be pretty easy math here. Their bonus pool was worth $11,836,800. If you add the 26th pick value ($3,492,200) to that, that would mean our bonus pool would've been $15,329,000, which would've been the sixth highest pool amount in last year's draft. Keep in mind pick values increase every year and the 2026 values haven't been released yet, so we'd just bey guessing at what the specific numbers will be based on last year's, but it seems fair to expect us to have around the 5-7th biggest pool in this year's draft. Last year, our entire bonus pool was $9,081,100 - the 9th pick in 2025 alone had a value $6.5 million on its own last year.
We will have the advantage of being the team with the earliest second pick in the draft. So if any of the expensive high school talent starts falling down the board, we'll be the first team to make its second pick and have a shot to give them a big deal. I do think that's pretty significant and a big reason why our PPI pick being ahead of Houston's actually does matter.
There are a lot of smaller details that could change things based on who signs which free agents. We know the Diamondbacks will get a pick after the first round when Zac Gallen signs somewhere, but that's the team QO free agent who will net a pick that high.
The good news is that the 2026 draft has been graded out really well by draft writers. We'll use Pipeline since it's free, but you can see their top 100 draft prospects rankings and their first mock draft, which doesn't include our second pick for some reason.
Still a lot to look forward to with this draft even with the bad luck in the lottery.
