Drafted pitchers Logan Schmidt, Aidan Knaak don't sign with teams

The 2025 MLB Draft signing deadline has come and gone, and two pitchers — Logan Schmidt and Aidan Knaak — have elected to return to college rather than sign with the clubs that selected them. Among all players taken in the first ten rounds, they stand alone as the holdouts, making their decisions the most notable outcomes of a deadline day that otherwise saw the league's top prospects lock in their professional futures.

This kind of outcome isn't entirely surprising in the pitching market, where leverage is real and college programs remain a credible fallback. When a high-ceiling arm believes the slot money on offer doesn't reflect his ceiling — or when a strong commitment to a program makes the college path genuinely attractive — unsigned picks happen. The rarity here is that both players made it through the first ten rounds, where bonus pool money is most significant and deals are hardest to walk away from. That both are pitchers adds an extra layer of intrigue, since arms typically carry both the highest upside and the greatest developmental risk, giving both sides reason to dig in during negotiations.

From a betting standpoint, unsigned draft picks create downstream effects that are worth monitoring in futures markets. The teams that drafted Schmidt and Knaak now own slot money they cannot spend on these players, and while the rules around redirecting that money are strict, the ripple effects on roster construction philosophy can be real over time. More immediately, if either pitcher performs well in college over the next year or two, they re-enter the draft as known commodities with leverage — the kind of player whose eventual professional signing can shift a franchise's pitching depth outlook and, by extension, their win total projections. Oddsmakers pay close attention to organizational depth when setting preseason lines, and a team that misses on a high-upside arm has to replace that development pipeline somewhere.

For bettors who play futures or dynasty-style content, the more actionable angle is tracking where these two pitchers land in the next draft cycle. A pitcher who goes unsigned and then dominates college ball typically sees his draft stock surge, and the franchise that eventually lands him gets a discounted asset if the new team is coming off a losing season with an early pick. Meanwhile, the clubs that missed out here may be slightly more aggressive in their approach to the next class, which can affect how analysts project their long-term competitiveness.

The immediate questions to track: which schools Schmidt and Knaak return to, how aggressively scouts follow their development this fall, and whether either club pivots toward international market spending to compensate for the lost slot value. Those answers will shape how this story evolves between now and next July's draft.

Reporting via ESPN. Analysis by the 4th & Value desk.