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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vernon" data-source="post: 132770834" data-attributes="member: 1034769">PITTSBURGH — As the Cardinals finalized Monday the largest bonus — by a lot — they’ve offered a pick since the advent of the modern draft, they remained on track to spend beyond their assigned cap for the 13th consecutive year.JJ Wetherholt, the seventh overall pick, signed his first pro contract with the Cardinals on Monday, the club announced. He received a bonus of $6.9 million, according to sources. That is just ahead of the MLB-assigned bonus for his spot in the draft ($6,823,700), and it is nearly twice as much as the most the Cardinals have paid a first-round pick since 2000.Their previous high was $3.6 million a year ago.The No. 7 pick was their highest since selecting fifth in 1998.Wetherholt, a gifted left-handed hitter who won the NCAA batting title as a sophomore with a .449 average, will report to Jupiter, Florida, to begin his pro career. The Cardinals have two affiliates, Class A Palm Beach and their Florida Complex League club, housed at their spring training campus. It’s common for newly drafted players to get experience at both levels. Wetherholt will debut as the Cardinals’ top prospect and a top 25 prospect in all of the minors, according to updated rankings from Baseball America. The magazine puts him at No. 24 overall, one spot ahead of the Cardinals’ top pitching prospect, Tink Hence.The Cardinals said Wetherholt, 21, will play shortstop to start this career.The Cardinals have agreements in place with all of their picks from the first 10 rounds, according to sources and also reports by Baseball America. They have announced all but one: third-round pick Ryan Campos.With the No. 7 pick and then not another pick until No. 80, the Cardinals entered the draft with a bonus purse of $10,213,000, as assigned by MLB. The bonuses for players picked in the first 10 rounds count against that limit. For any bonus larger than $150,000 in the 11th round or later, the difference counts against the cap. The Cardinals signed 11th-round pick Jon Jon Gazdar and 12th-round pick Ian Petrutz to bonuses larger than $150,000, so that overage counts against the Cardinals’ spending cap.With Monday’s finalized deal, the Cardinals were trending toward spending about $400,000 more than their limit. If the remaining signings sign for assigned slot, they’ll have an average of $386,100. That puts them within the 5% overage penalty, and they’ll pay a 75-cent tax for every dollar over — or an extra $289,575 as a result.The penalties become more severe and include losing draft picks when spending more than 5% the assigned limit. No team has ever violated that penalty.The Cardinals are one of four teams to spend beyond their purse and pay a penalty in the first 12 years of the current draft-pool rules. The others are the Cubs, Giants and Dodgers.</blockquote>

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