1 week ago
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Kiley McDanielJul 22, 2025, 05:08 PM ET
- ESPN MLB Insider
- Kiley McDaniel covers MLB prospects, the MLB Draft and more, including trades and escaped agency.
- Has worked for 3 MLB teams. Co-author of Author of 'Future Value'
Colorado Rockies shortstop Ethan Holliday, the 4th wide enactment successful the MLB Draft, signed for a $9 cardinal bonus connected Tuesday, the biggest bonus received by a precocious schoolhouse subordinate successful draught history.
Holliday, ranked arsenic the apical precocious schoolhouse subordinate successful the draught and 2nd wide by ESPN, is the lad of erstwhile Rockies fable Matt Holliday and is the younger member of Baltimore Orioles infielder Jackson Holliday, who was the archetypal wide prime successful the 2022 draft.
Ethan Holliday's $9 cardinal bonus is tied for the fourth-highest bonus of all-time.
The apical 3 precocious schoolhouse bonus figures each present beryllium to erstwhile Oklahoma precocious schoolhouse shortstops.
Jackson Holliday held the all-time precocious schoolhouse bonus grounds ($8.19 million) until archetypal Eli Willits ($8.2 million) and past Ethan Holliday surpassed it this year. Willits was the archetypal wide prime by the Washington Nationals and was ranked arsenic the third-best subordinate successful the draught by ESPN.
The MLB Draft is unsocial successful that teams get a fixed bonus excavation based connected the picks that they person but are escaped to walk those bonuses nevertheless they privation among their picks. The Nationals did the aforesaid happening with their apical prime successful the 2024 and 2025 drafts, taking a subordinate that was considered a somewhat lesser statement endowment that would instrumentality a somewhat lesser bonus to past dispersed the savings to aboriginal picks.
