Adam McCalvy on MLB.com is reporting that the Brewers have already signed 19 of their 54 picks from last weeks amateur draft. Among those signed are two of the first five picks, including college pitcher Evan Fredrickson and outfielder Cutter Dykstra. Details of those deals was not immediately available

The most interesting development was this:

According to the Marshall County (Tenn.) Tribune, second-round pick Seth Lintz, a prep right-hander, will sign later this week for $900,000 and a college education on the Brewers' tab.

One of the major questions I had going into this draft was what kind of budget the team would have. My concern was that when teams have a lot of early picks, they often don't allocate enough money to pay baseball's recommended "slot" price for those picks, meaning they have to look at inferior players willing to sign for less to fill out those picks. The Brewers claimed before the draft that the money to sign the players would be there, but there was nothing specific about what their budget would be.

The fact that Lintz was reputed to be a "tough sign" made the Brewers selection of him very interesting. Last year, the 53rd pick was "slotted" to receive $594,000 and that is exactly what the Reds paid to sign Kyle Lotzkar. One can reasonably assume that MLB is going to have a similar slot for this year, which means that the Brewers went well over that slot to sign their 4th pick.

What this says is that the Brewers were willing to pay to get quality, even if it meant spending more than they might want in a given spot. That is truly a very positive sign, and an indicator that the organization has their priorities straight when it comes to the draft. It will be interesting to see when all the figures come in what the Brewers paid for this draft.