Dave Cameron explains why Mark Appel has plenty of leverage in his negotiations with the Astros.

The signing deadline for drafted players is July 12th at 5 pm eastern, giving teams essentially a month to negotiate with their drafted players. However, that deadline does not apply to college seniors who have no remaining college eligibility. They are excepted from the July 12th deadline, and are still able to negotiate a contract until the night before the 2014 draft. While the Astros will have about 35 days to get the rest of their draft picks signed and in the system, Appel does not need to rush to put his name on a contract if he — or his agent, Scott Boras, who has been known to drag out negotiations — doesn’t want to.

So, now, Appel can basically hold the Astros bonus pool hostage. The bonus recommendation for the #1 pick this year was $7.79 million, which means that Appel’s slot makes up almost exactly 2/3 of Houston’s $11.7 million pool for signing picks. However, the Astros can’t confidently go forward with signing the rest of their selections until they have some idea of how much of that pool it is going to take to get Appel signed.

I suppose the Astros could take the opposite approach and start signing lower picks as fast as possible. Every time they sign one they call Boras and tell him there’s less money in the pool for Mark, so he better jump in.

The MLB Draft is about to get underway. History tells us some of the top ten picks will post huge WAR numbers.

Update: The Astros get Houston native Mark Appel.