I posted a list of all the LA players on a BA top 100 a year ago, the high priced players were scattered along the list, a few at the top, with low cost and intermediate players intermixed.
If you're going to spend "X" amount in LA, I think IF you can land a top guy (top 3-5), pay the price, but after that, focus on the ones your scouts love, don't worrying about "rankings" and go for volume, whether a $300K or $30K bonus.
But landing a bunch of guys ranked 10th to 30th at a $1+M each won't guarantee you a good haul.
Just look how badly most of the Atlanta signings regressed in a year.
In the states, when a team takes a player in the top 8 rounds that is unranked, red flags go up because the top 500 or so talents are pretty well scouted and good players rarely slip through the cracks. The hidden gems tend to be gambles from small schools or injury concerns.
But in LA, given the difficult logistics and the age of many prospects, it's much easier to find hidden gems if you invest resources into scouting, so as important as the money spent on bonuses is the money spent on scouting and maintaining connections with local people and tracking unsigned players as they age and develop (i.e., most kids are just starting their growth spurt at 16 and can be completely different athletes by 18).
