Young baseball players dream of reaching the big leagues. They spend countless hours and often thousands upon thousands of dollars to get the attention of MLB teams. Some are rewarded for their years of dedication with signing bonuses in the millions.For three Atlanta Braves minor leaguers picked in the top 10 rounds of this year’s draft, $500 apiece was enough to go pro.Instead of drafting players in the eighth, ninth and 10th rounds who could have commanded bonuses in the $200,000-$250,000 range, the Braves chose to take three college seniors who otherwise would’ve been selected much later in the draft, if they were drafted at all: Parker Brosius, Jacob Jarrell and Ben Zeigler-Namoa.The strategy allowed the Braves to redirect $653,000 in savings to sign higher-priority picks.“Those signings were shocking to the industry,” said one rival scouting director who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely. “Obviously the only way that happens is you have those kinds of players in place willing to do that sort of thing, which allows you to then make the early calls that they did.”Several teams in the last three years have made calls like the Braves did and also found players to sign for a relative pittance. Using MLB.com’s draft tracker as reference, The Athletic found multiple instances where the Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers, Washington Nationals, Toronto Blue Jays, San Diego Padres and Texas Rangers joined the Braves in signing players for less than 2.5 percent of the assigned values of their slots. The Jays and Rangers even handed out bonuses this year worth less than 1 percent of the slot bonus allocated to that pick in the draft.In some instances, like with the Braves’ players, teams attached a $2,500 signing contingency bonus.Still, the paltry bonuses offered by the Braves astounded multiple scouting directors and agents who, like most of the sources in this story, spoke to The Athletic on condition of anonymity to speak freely and preserve relationships in the sport. They had questions about how teams approach players who could make money through NIL deals in Division I programs, and debated whether these moves fit the spirit of the draft.Braves vice president for amateur scouting Ronit Shah and president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos declined to speak about the approach. A team spokesperson said they were uncomfortable speaking publicly because the strategy is “proprietary.”The idea behind the tactic is straightforward, though. Each team is assigned a bonus pool before the annual draft and can’t exceed that total amount to sign the players they pick in the top 10 rounds without incurring a penalty. Teams often offer players bonuses below their slot values to spend more on others. This year’s pools ranged from roughly $20.5 million (Chicago White Sox) to just under $4 million (Dodgers). The Braves had the eighth-largest pot at $15.87 million.