The Hidden Negotiation Behind Your MLB Signing Bonus

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Most Valuable Agent with Matt Hannaford

Episode: The Hidden Negotiation Behind Your MLB Signing Bonus

Date: June 17, 2026
Host: Matt Hannaford
Guest: Mike

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Main Theme / Purpose

This episode provides an insider’s look at the journey leading up to a Major League Baseball (MLB) signing and the hidden, intricate negotiations behind draft bonuses. Matt Hannaford demystifies the entire draft process, from high school scouting to the combine to final signability negotiations. The discussion focuses on what players, parents, and fans need to understand about MLB contracts, the vital role of scouts, how pre-draft workouts are evaluated, and how agents strategically advocate for their players.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The MLB Draft Process: Structure & Scouting Hierarchy

• Draft Structure Evolution:
  • The number of draft rounds has drastically decreased from 60 to 20 in recent years. (01:39)
  • "That is a remarkably long week," Mike reacts to how the draft was historically much longer. (01:46)
• Scouting Levels Explained:
  • Area scouts are the first evaluators, followed by regional cross checkers, national cross checkers, and finally, the scouting director. (03:06-04:38)
  • Quote: “His job is to really gather as much information as possible on the family… the first line of defense.” – Matt (02:46)
• How Scouts Identify Talent:
  • Area scouts are constantly at local high school games, looking for players who "look different" and then escalating promising talent up the hierarchy. (03:46)

2. Scouting Season Timeline

• Timing:
  • High school baseball can start as early as January and run through May or June, depending on location. Scouts watch games throughout. (06:55-07:08)
• Scout & Family Interactions:
  • High-profile players may notice scouts at every game, but being seen only by area scouts isn’t enough for an early-round draft position. (07:43)
  • Insight: To be picked in the top three rounds, you must be seen by supervisors, directors, or even general managers.

3. Pre-Draft Workouts & Combine Decisions

• Purpose of Pre-Draft Workouts:
  • Selective, invitation-only events allow teams to further evaluate top prospects. (08:10)
  • Families shouldn’t feel pressured to attend every workout. Attending does not guarantee a major boost in draft stock or bonus. (09:15)
• Combine vs. Workouts:
  • The MLB Draft Combine typically invites the top 300-350 players. If invited, it’s often better to attend the combine rather than several individual workouts. (10:03, 13:10)
  • Quote: “If you go to the combine, every single team will be there. So it doesn’t necessarily benefit you to go to the pre-draft workouts and the combine.” – Matt (13:10)
• Strategic Choice:
  • Agents help families evaluate which workouts are worth attending based on interest from top decision-makers and logistical convenience. (10:15-11:32)

4. Managing Expectations & Signability Negotiations

• Determining a Signing Bonus ("Signability"):
  • Three common approaches:
  1. Family picks a number (e.g., what college is worth to them).
  2. Signs for anything, regardless of amount.
  3. Basing negotiations on market value for the player’s profile, with the agent’s strategic input. (13:34-15:06) • Insight: “You have to be really comfortable with…if you don’t get the $2 million and you end up going to college, do you feel good about that?” – Matt (14:45)
• Pre-Draft Board & Team Leverage:
  • Each MLB team creates a “big board” right before the draft, ranking players and planning for various scenarios, but everything remains fluid until picks are made. (16:10) • Teams may “underpay” in earlier rounds to save money for bigger bonuses in later rounds; this flexibility changes how agents approach negotiations. (16:44)
• Leverage and Holding Out:
  • Best-case signings occur when families truly are willing to walk away for college and won’t be talked down from their number. (19:04-20:16)
  • Memorable Moment: A recent client “stuck to his guns” through multiple lowball calls and ultimately got his asking price, underlining the importance of having a credible backup plan. (18:32-20:16)

5. Emotional Journeys & Behind-the-Scenes Stories

• Quote on Negotiation Dynamics:
  • “If we say the player's number is a million bucks and he's not signing for less than it...the scouting director is really trying to test it…they'll make sure their area scout calls the player and say ‘what about $700k, what about $800k, what about $850k?’” – Matt (19:04)
• Agent’s Favorite Moments:
  • The real reward comes “getting to the end (of draft week), no matter what happens…the family being like, ‘We could not have done that without you.’” – Matt (21:05)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Patience & Process:
  • “You can’t speed up the process. The process is what it is. You’ve got to be patient. You’ve got to let it play out.” – Matt (06:06) • “Baseball is a game of patience…and especially in this part too.” – Mike (21:27)
• On Workouts & Decisions:
  • “Even if you choose to go to a workout…I don’t want a family to think that by going to the workout, they’re going to increase their value by hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Probably not.” – Matt (08:23)
• On Negotiating & Leverage:
  • “The only time it ever works out is when you have leverage. And the leverage is the player being comfortable and the family being comfortable with that backup plan.” – Matt (20:16)
• Perspective for Players & Families:
  • “The draft, college…It’s not the end, it’s the beginning…It’s very easy to fall into this mindset of, like, let’s just get to the draft…No, that’s just where it starts.” – Matt (21:33)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• (01:35-02:46) – Explaining draft round changes and scout roles
• (03:46-04:42) – How scouts find and evaluate talent; team scouting hierarchies
• (06:44-07:43) – Scouting season, player/family-scout interactions
• (08:10-09:15) – Pre-draft workouts: Purpose and whether to attend
• (10:03-11:32) – Combine invites, deciding between combine and workouts
• (13:34-15:06) – Signability: Determining bonus expectations and negotiation strategies
• (16:10-16:44) – Team draft boards, bonus pooling, and creative drafting
• (18:32-20:16) – Behind-the-scenes negotiating; standing firm on numbers
• (21:05-21:33) – Reflections on the agent’s most rewarding moments
• (21:33-22:30) – Final thoughts: The draft is only the beginning

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Final Thoughts

This episode equips players, parents, and aspiring agents with a clear-eyed view of the complexities behind MLB draft negotiations. Matt underscores that the signing process is dynamic, strategic, and often emotional, requiring patience and preparation. Ultimately, success comes not just from talent, but from informed decisions, clear expectations, and strong leverage rooted in sound backup plans. The draft isn’t the end – it’s the launching point for a career in professional baseball.

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Transcript

[A]

All right, guys, welcome back to another episode. We are joined again with my. My guy, Mike. So, Mike, we've got, I guess, a couple questions. We want to specifically speak to the draft and really what's going on right now.

[B]

But as a fan, Matt, I am fascinated by the draft. You know, obviously, being a football guy, like we talked about before, and, you know, that was my first love. Watching the combine, watching these guys go through the pro days, watching these guys get on the phone with their teams and, like, you know, you have the infamous day where Aaron Rodgers fell all the way down, and that was. There's always, like, some crazy stuff that happens, but nobody really talks about all of the stuff that happens before.

[A]

Leading up to it.

[B]

Yeah, leading up to it. Like, no, people see, like, the. The, you know, the combine, which is always fascinating, and, you know, they. They hear the. The mock drafts and the whispers. But I'm sure a lot of our audience, just because of your experience, you know, working in Major League Baseball, representing some phenomenal players, you know, I. I think a lot of these parents are like, okay, but what are you actually doing? Like, what does it take for you to be so involved and at your best and making sure you're accomplishing your mission, getting your clients drafted in whatever round there is? I remember, like, the major league draft, there used to be, like, 30 rounds.

[A]

Oh, more.

[B]

Yeah. What is it? What is the actual.

[A]

So there's 20 now.

[B]

20 now. Okay. But there used to be like.

[A]

Oh, there used to be 60.

[B]

60. Yeah, that's that. And that's like.

[A]

And then 40 and then 20. It's gone down.

[B]

That. That is, like. That is a remarkably long week. Yeah.

[A]

So one of the hardest things for us going through this process is we want to get the information as soon as humanly possible. Yeah. Right. But you have to let the process play itself out, and that can be one of the most challenging things, because as you're advising families, they're just like, what's the information? Give us the information. And you have to really let these families know, look, like you. There's no replacing the process.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Part of the process is these guys have to go be scouted. And what's interesting is these players, because they've been playing travel ball for so long, they're like, what do you mean? We've been playing for five years. It's like, yeah, but you haven't been scouted for five years. Right. So for a high school senior, right now, they were scouted over the summer. Maybe they got some looks last year in the spring. But the most important time right now is the spring season of their senior year. And so you need to let these scouts just, you know, go watch the players. And part of this stems. The reason I say this part of it stems from, you know, it's not enough if everybody doesn't know this. I'll just, I guess, touch on this real fast. So you have different levels of scouts, right? You have the area scout, which is the guy, I don't want to say, like, he's the guy at the lowest end of the totem pole, but he has a really important role. His job is to really gather as much information as possible on the family. And he's really like the first line of defense. You know, he's the one being tasked with, like, who is this kid? Tell me about him.

[B]

So he's like, boots. They're like boots on the ground. They're going. They're traveling all over the place. They must be on the road. Insane amount.

[A]

Insane. And their jobs are really, really hard. You know, imagine an area scout and you've spent countless hours driving and flying to all these various places, and you go through your draft and maybe none of the guys that you scouted get drafted by the organization. Like, that's a lot of work. And you're like, yeah, or nothing.

[B]

Yeah. No. And a question about the area scouts, and not to get too granular into it, but how do the area scouts find these kids?

[A]

I mean, so there's various publications, obviously, but it's by watching baseball games, right? Like, everybody in the industry, they're watching

[B]

like high school baseball games, like in their area constantly.

[A]

That's all they're doing, right? And so the area scout will go see a player, and let's just say they're looking at, at this player and they say, this player, he looks different, right? Like, this guy isn't necessarily a guy that's going to be drafted. This is a guy that could go pretty good in the draft. And so the more looks they get on him, then they start recommending that player to their higher ups, right? And. And above the area scout is the regional cross checker, right? Which is like the regional supervisor. And that guy is. So let's just say, like, you have a scout that's in a small. Maybe he's got one or two states, maybe he has eight states, but it's a small number of states. And then the cross checker has even more. And so the cross checker will then come in and watch the player and say, okay, where does this player stack up in relation to every other player that I have, let's just say on the entire West Coast. And then if he looks good, then they're going to recommend him to the national cross checker. And then the national guy has the

[B]

entire country, and this is for every team in baseball, has this, has this structure.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Now, you may not be a player who's going to be seen by everybody, and the reason you're not seen by everybody is because maybe they don't think you're at that level, but if you are, then you're going to be seen by now the national guy and they're going to get looks on you. And then if that guy likes what they see, if you have a chance to go, let's just say in the first one or two rounds, then he's going to recommend him to or the player to the scouting director and then the scouting director comes in and does the same thing. And so when you're seen by all of these various people in the organization now, things are going to, you know, you're put, you've basically put yourself in a really good spot. That doesn't guarantee anything, though, because how you looked in those various games matter. Right. And that's what I mean when I say, like, you have to let the process play out.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Just because you're seen by these guys doesn't guarantee that you're going to get the money you want. You're going to go where you think you're going to go in the draft, but that is a prerequisite if you're going to be a guy that's going to go really high. And so what these families are hungry for is where are we going to go in the draft? Are we going to go in the first round? And the reality is is you don't know until draft day.

[B]

And baseball is also a game where it's very hard to be super consistent over the course of a really long season. So I can only imagine the kid starts out hot in an area, scout sees him, brings it up to the regional cross checker. Kid's got a, like an amazing month. Like he's just crushing the first month of baseball, but then he starts slumping.

[A]

Right. That matters too.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right. And so that's where you just, you can't, you can't replace the performance. You may have a kid who's performed really well the summer before his senior year, but then the spring season went backwards. That affects him. And so that's what I mean. Like, you can't, you can't speed up the process. The process is what it is. You've got to be patient. You've got to let it play out. And then so it's obviously the beginning of May right now. Right. And so now what we're talking about is a lot of pre draft workouts. Various organizations put on these like very selective workouts where they'll invite five guys to a workout, they'll invite 20 guys to a workout, maybe a hundred guys to work out. Right.

[B]

So just for a timeline perspective, we're, we're assuming when does the high school baseball season start?

[A]

Well, so it depends on the area the kid lives.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But let's just say it starts in January.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So it starts in January, January, maybe games start end of January, beginning of

[B]

February and then the season ends.

[A]

See this again, depends on the area. It may end, the, the begin May, maybe playoffs go into the end of May, beginning of June.

[B]

Got it. So the scouting, the scouting kind of takes place. I mean it's always consistent. But let's just say for, to just idealize it for our audience. January is when the season starts for high school scouts are kind of watching these baseball games from January, February all the way until June. Yeah. Okay. And how many times are scouts interfacing with a kid in the family over the course of that season?

[A]

I mean, it could be, you could have area scouts at. Not that the same area scout's going to go to every game, but you may be a high school player where every single game a scout is present.

[B]

Got it.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And so but for a family, be mindful of like what scouts there, Right. Is it the area scout? Because you could be a family who has an expectation of getting drafted really high. And when I say really high, I'm talking like first three rounds.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And the only scouts that are ever watching you are area scouts. If that's the case, you're not going to be drafted really high. In order to be drafted in the top three rounds, you've got to be seen by some of these other decision makers, right? The supervisors, the scouting director, sometimes the general manager. And so the reason these players get invited to these pre draft workouts, it's because it's a guy that they really like and they want to see more of.

[B]

And they've seen them over the course

[A]

of that season, they've seen him over the course of that season. And maybe they couldn't get a supervisor to get in to see him. And so they want to invite him to a pre draft workout where their supervisors will be. And that's going to be their look. Right. But what I will say is sometimes these families make the assumption that, oh, if we're getting invited to a workout, we have to go. You do not have to go. You shouldn't go to every workout. And also, even if you choose to go to a workout, I don't want a family to think that by going to the workout, they're going to increase their value by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Probably not. Maybe you put some money in your pocket by going, but more importantly, it may just be the one thing that encourages the team to say, you know, we were iffy about this guy. Now he's definitely a kid that we want to take. Now it just becomes what's his sign ability, how much does he want and does it line up with how our draft goes?

[B]

Got it.

[A]

Yeah. So it's, it's truly like this. It's an organism that changes and grows, and you've got to let it happen.

[B]

I was just going to say it sounds like it's just constantly moving around.

[A]

It is.

[B]

So. So now they're in this pre draft workout and we're in May right now. So I'm assuming they're going through that right now.

[A]

Yeah, they've basically been invite. Chances are they've been invited to a handful of workouts and now we're evaluating. Should we go to these workouts? Should we not go to these workouts? The combine is June 22nd to the 27th of this year. Right. It was pushed back a week. Not every player gets invited to the combine. Right. They invite the top three to 350 guys in the country. And so if you're getting invited to all these individual workouts, but you're also being invited to the combine, you may choose to go to the combine and then to none of these other individual workouts.

[B]

I see. What did what determines or in your experience, what what determines a family choosing the right workout for them based upon the the scout or the team that that has seen them?

[A]

I'll say what should be the determining factor is the advisor having a conversation with the scouting director and really understanding how many national looks have you gotten? Right. How many times has the national guy been in to see him? How many times has the director been in to see him? And maybe in certain instances, let's just say if a kid is from San Diego and the national guy hasn't seen him. Well, it's easy to go to the San Diego Padres workout because you're in San Diego. So maybe you choose to go because it's convenient. And, like, why would I not go? Right. That's okay. But if you're in San Diego and you're being invited to a Yankees workout or a Mets workout, all right, now you have to fly across country to go see him, right? So naturally that's going to cost money. It's going to cost time. And so in order to go to that workout, you really have to make sure it's worth the time and the. And the money. And so what we have to do is we have to talk to these families and talk to these scouts and talk to these directors and figure out. And I had a conversation, funny enough, with the scouting director this morning. And very quickly in this call, I realized, oh, this is not a workout that he needs to go to. And the scouting director and I, funny enough, because we've known each other a long time. Yeah, it was transparent. He wasn't trying to convince me that he should go. And he basically is like, look, I'll be honest with you. If for some reason you guys have an invite on the same day, he's probably not a guy that we're going to take. So I would, I would say go to a different workout.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

So, like, but he's getting invited to the workout. So if a family thinks, oh, but we got invited, we have to go. That tells you the fact that I had that conversation. Like, that's not necessarily the case.

[B]

It's every workout. You know, I don't want to use, I don't want to use, like, language of absolute. But let's just say if. If a player goes to a workout and they fail that workout, is that the end of their career?

[A]

No.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

No. Because you could. I mean, I've had. Austin Riley is a perfect example. Austin riley went to four workouts. Granted, this was in 2016.

[B]

And was he. And he was a high school senior,

[A]

High school senior as a first round pick, ended up being a first round pick. He went to, you know, four or five different workouts, did really good at some, did pretty good at others, but definitely performed better at specific workouts than the others. Now, that obviously influences the likelihood that he gets drafted by a particular club. But just because he didn't do good at one doesn't mean like, oh, his career's over. Right? It's like, maybe that means he's not going to go where he wanted to go in the draft out of high school, and then he ends up going to college. Like, that happens too. But it's Definitely not the, the end of it.

[B]

So now the player completes the pre workout process, or the, I guess we can call it the pre workout process workout. And then they go. Let's say they, they get invited to the combine. So let's go through that route. They go and they ace the combine. We're now, we would be sitting probably right after June, July is when the All Star break is. Between that gap, what do you do as an agent to help prepare that player for what's going to come for them? Because I'm assuming now, like, they can't do anything else to improve their position after all of that.

[A]

Sometimes they can. One thing I will clean up. So if you're a player who's getting invited to all these pre draft workouts and then also get an invite to the comb, if you go to the combine, every single team will be there. So it doesn't necessarily benefit you to go to the pre draft workouts and the combine. I would say, like, save your time and energy and money, go to the combine, but you don't necessarily need to go to these individual workouts.

[B]

If you get invited to both pick the, you would say pick the combine.

[A]

Got it.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Now between the combine and the draft, that's where everything pretty much starts to happen. So from that, so that gap that you're, that you're describing, that is where a lot of these signability conversations happen, right? There's three different ways you can come up with signability. One is for a family just to kind of like pick a number out of a hat and say, I want $5 million because that's what I think I'm worth. You know, that's my number. But it's not really based on anything necessarily. More like, this is what college is worth to me. So I'm just going to pick that number. The opposite end of the spectrum is another way, which is I'm going to sign for anything. I'm not going to college. I'm going to. If it's a dollar, I'll sign for a dollar. If it's a million, I'll sign for a million dollars. The majority of the families, what they do is they say, well, look, I mean, I, I have an opportunity to go to college, that's worth something to me. But I want to base what I'll sign for based on, like, what does the industry think I'm worth? Right? And that will be me having conversations with these directors and really figuring out, like, if the draft goes well, like, where are we falling in the draft? And Then that will give us a range of like, look, this is kind of what his value is. And then on top of that, like we'll have a value that we place on the player too. Right. If it's a high school shortstop who's not being considered first round pick necessarily, but he's a really, really good player, Maybe, you know, $2 million is a number where we could point to prior shortstops who've come through the draft, similar skill sets, they sign for 2 million. And so you'll identify numbers like that. But a family has to understand there's no guarantee that you're going to get it. So you have to be really comfortable with, well, if you don't get the 2 million and you end up going to college, do you feel good about that?

[B]

So do you ever have players reach out to some of these prospects that you have or clients to kind of let them know what, what's the expectation or maybe talk to the parents about like, here's, you know, here's was my draft process, here was my experience and you know, I want to share with you guys what worked and what doesn't work.

[A]

Yeah, we definitely make that available if that's something that's important to them. You know, in my experience, oftentimes the family for a high school kid doesn't necessarily take them, take us up on that. Yeah, and some of that is just more of a respect thing, like, hey, I don't want to bother the guy, he's got a lot going on.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But it's certainly something that, yeah, we've

[B]

always made our guys and then draft happens. So, you know, we already talked about in the last episode that, you know, it's the really, the board does not get set until that first pick is made. And the only person or the only team, excuse me, that knows what they're doing is that team that has that first overall pick in the days leading up to that. Cause I'm assuming, you know, you have your pre draft process for you specifically, you know, what are you advising the parents at that time as you get closer and closer to the draft?

[A]

Well, so the week before the draft, every single organization is going to start putting what they call kind of their big board together, right. And they're going to basically try to prioritize all these various players and the conversation would look like, you know, I talked to the scouting director and they say, all right, for your particular player, he's in play at pick 45, pick 75 and pick 112. That's kind of the Range, he would go. But naturally, at every single pick, there's a group of players that they're also considering in those places. And so what we'll do is we'll have conversations with the family leading up basically telling them, here is the range in which we can go. These are the various ways you can get your money, even if it's not in this range. Right. Because the way that the draft works, if you're being drafted in the top 10 rounds and you don't sign, there's, there's, there's negative influences on what happens to the team in those instances. And so after the 10th round, it becomes a lot easier if they saved money to overpay later. And so you can look at plenty of teams in the last five years that have done this. Milwaukee brewers are a team that, that comes to mind where, you know, they'll take a player and they'll give them slot, let's say in the first pick. The rest of the picks in the top 10 rounds, they'll underpay, so they'll save that money, and then they'll give a kid $3 million in the 11th round. Right. And so there's ways that these teams can get creative, but again, that's stuff that you're not going to know in advance of the draft. They may have a plan for this to happen, but like I told you, that one instance, the minute that guy was available at pick four changed everything. So you, from my perspective, we want to do all of this work the week before the draft so that come draft day, again, it's still going to be stressful, but at least you have information so that the family feels really confident that no matter how it goes, if they don't get their number, they're, they're comfortable with the, the backup plan of going to college.

[B]

You know, a lot of our audience, you know, they've heard over the course of the show, basically the playbook on how to get their kid from a very young age to go and play in the pros. But one of the things they don't hear from you is a lot of just your personal experience being an agent over the last 25 years. And you've done a lot of drafts. So a question for you is, do you have a memorable draft moment from the last five years that, you know, kind of made you feel like, I got, I got this kid drafted where he wanted to get drafted. It was just a feel good story.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, we had a kid last year that went. And to his credit, he stuck firm on his number, and the scouting director, in advance of the pick, called and tried to get him for hundreds of thousands of dollars less. Right. And, you know, again, we're talking to the scouting director, and all the while, behind the scenes, the player is getting phone calls from the area scout. Right. Now, why would the area scout be calling the player when I'm talking to the scouting director? Because they're trying to check the information that we're giving them. Is it true? Right. If we say that. And I'll just use this number as an example.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If we say the player's number is a million bucks and he's not signing for less than it. And the, and the, The. The scouting director is really trying to test it as I'm talking to him, they'll make sure their. Their area scout calls the player and say, hey, you know, what about 700? What about 800? What about 850? And so in this particular instance, the scouting director called, tried to get him for hundreds of thousands of dollars less, we stuck to our guns, called again, tried to get him for 150,000 less, stuck to our guns, called back, tried to get him for 50,000 less, stuck to our guns, and he eventually got his number. Now, those are the best case scenarios, because sometimes the team will just pivot and go somewhere else. But in this instance, yeah, I mean, to the player's credit, he stuck to his guns and ultimately got what he wanted. And it all stemmed from him being comfortable with the backup plan. If you're not comfortable with the backup plan, then you're going to talk yourself, because the team is not calling, saying, oh, we have the money you want. We just don't want to give it to you. They're saying, we don't have that money. Well, then you're not taking us.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right. Then take somebody else. Right. So you have to be confident with, okay, if we don't sign, we're comfortable with that outcome. And the only time it ever works out is when you have leverage. And the leverage is the player being comfortable and the family being comfortable with that backup plan.

[B]

And it's the process you were talking about, too, where it's not going to be like an immediate, you know, gratification, you know, right off the bat from the time that you just have one good season, you're going to get paid top dollar, and then that's it. It sounds like to me that value of what that player asserted for themselves came from the process that you had been doing with them over the course of, you know, however long you've known their family.

[A]

Yeah. And that's the strategy behind it. All right. You got to be prepared. You've got to make sure that you're, again, the thing that comes. Managing expectation.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You have to manage the family's expectation. If you don't do that, then naturally the family's going to be driving the bus. And that's a scary thing for even families because they're not experienced, like, they're looking to you, guiding them through the process. So.

[B]

Yeah. What's your favorite part about draft week?

[A]

Getting to the end, no matter what happens in the family, Being like, we could not have done that without you hearing that.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, that's. And that's something that I think a lot of our. And we'll. We'll land the plane for this episode today about the draft. I know there was a lot we threw out, but that just goes to show a lot of people, you know, understand that game. Baseball is a game of patience.

[A]

Undoubtedly.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. It's a game of failure. It's a game. A lot of things.

[B]

Yeah. And especially in this part, too.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

No question. The whole draft part.

[A]

So final thoughts. Yeah. Well. So the thing I'll leave everybody with is, is this, the draft, college. It's not the end, it's the beginning. I think it's very easy to kind of fall into this mindset of, like, let's just get to the draft, and when that happens. Okay, now we're good. No, that's just where it starts. Now it's like, now we go. Right. So we have to make sure that as we're kind of guiding players through the draft, we're also talking about, you know, how could a family or a player ever really analyze what the. You know, what pro ball's like? Unless you talk about what does it look like the minute I sign, what does that mean? Right. What should I expect if. If you didn't even touch on that stuff, the player's gonna show up in Arizona or Florida having signed with the team and feel like, well, I don't know what to expect. I didn't know this is what it was like. And so you want to do a lot of that work in advance so that when that happens, they're like, oh, yeah, it was exactly what you told me. Granted, it's going to be a little bit unique and different for everybody, but, you know, they need to understand that. So.

[B]

Yeah. I feel like there's so much more I want to ask you about the draft, but that's all the time we got. Yeah, we'll have to do another episode. That's all the time we got for

[A]

today, so appreciate everybody for listening. If you guys enjoyed the podcast, like, subscribe, share it with the family that could benefit from listening to it, and as always, send us your comments. I think this is a perfect example of. We certainly read them and we want to continue making an impact, so thank you.

[B]

All right, we'll see you guys.