The St. Louis Cardinals spent the offseason trading away established major league talent for minor league prospects and controllable big-leaguers, and they generally did a good job of it.

The team brought in a Top 100 prospect (Jurrangelo Cijntje) from the Seattle Mariners while also acquiring exciting players like Brandon Clarke and Tai Peete, as well as two compensatory draft picks inside the Top 75 of this year's MLB Draft.

Add it all up and the Cardinals now have six prospects inside the MLB Pipeline Top 100, and they also have six picks inside the Top 100 of the draft - the most of any team.

And as a result, they have a ton of draft pool bonus money, which further helps escalate their ability to land premium talent in that draft.

As noted by Baseball America this week, the Cardinals have the fifth-highest draft bonus pool in baseball at $16,612,300.

Each draft pick in rounds 1-10 comes with an assigned "slot value." The higher the pick, the more bonus money is attached. Teams that are picking at the top of the draft tend to have the most money, and teams that have the most picks tend to have the most money.

The Cardinals have the No. 13 pick in the draft, which comes with a slot value of $5,661,300. That pick alone results in solid overall money, but each additional pick in the Top 100 also comes with solid money attached.

It means that the Cardinals can afford to take some chances on high-upside players. For instance, high school players in the draft have extreme leverage. If they are dissatisfied with a team's offer, they can simply go to college. Teams will often try to buy high school players out of college commitments, but if they don't have a lot of bonus money, then they can't really do that.

The Cardinals can. They can press the issue and offer players more money than their "slot value" suggests, potentially unlocking talent that other teams can't.

Of course, if you go "over slot" on one pick, you have to go "under slot" on another to even things out, but the fact that the Cardinals have so much money gives them opportunities to be creative.

As the team goes through its rebuild, this draft is critical. Not only does the team have the ability to draft a high-volume of impact players, they also have the ability to draft those with that high-upside. That will give them the opportunity to help accelerate this rebuild.

During All-Star week in July. It will take place in Philadelphia.

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