Largest Contracts In Draft History

It's been 20 years since the Oakland A's sent shockwaves through baseball by signing high school righthander Todd Van Poppel to a Major League contract worth more than $1.2MM as the 14th overall pick in the 1990 draft. At the time, the going rate for the first overall draft pick was a minor league deal worth $350K or so, but Van Poppel and his agent leveraged his scholarship to the University of Miami into more than three times that amount. Contracts given to draftees have since ballooned, and now rival the packages given to established big leaguers in terms of total value. Over the next several weeks, we're going to hear a lot about Scott Boras and Bryce Harper and their purported contract demands as he's expected to be the first overall pick. The 17-year-old catcher from Las Vegas is almost guaranteed to sign one of, if not the most lucrative contract in the history of the MLB draft. With that in mind, let's take a look at the richest contracts ever gi...