The Pirates' Draft

Yes, that's A-Rod, no, it's not Pirate-related, but it is draft-related. That's when he got the call on draft day in 1993. Rockin' the jean shirt and tie...nuff said.

Game 7 deserves its own post later on and yesterday's thrilling Pirates' win was taken care of by a West Coaster with a little to do as I, so I wanted to finally delve into some opinions on the Pirates' draft.

My kneejerk reaction to the Round 1 pick on Tuesday was that it was a Littlefield reincarnation of "signability". Reading opinions over the last few days and hearing arguments from both sides, I have come to a couple opinions of my own.

In addition to Sanchez, they spent the next couple days taking a ton of high school arms. This is a great strategy for a team that's rebuilding their broken system. Herein also lies where my initial thought about "penny pinching Pirates again" gets kinda blown up and I've changed my mind some.

Last year, the Pirates spent the second most money in all of MLB on the draft, helped out of course by Alvarez's contract.

Taking all of those high school arms usually commands more signing bonus money because a team has to overspend a tad to get those kids to not go to big time colleges, where the thinking is that we get them earlier in their careers and in later rounds before they become dominant college pitchers with a track record that would then go in the first round(s) in a few years and command more money. Also, getting a pitcher out of high school, before college, makes it better for a MLB team to groom the player and keep them healthy. College coaches can ruin arms tremendously through bad mechanics and especially by overusing them.

Anyway, with all of those bigger bonuses that we will have to pay out to sign these kids, we very well could end up very high (top 5 I'd say for sure) on the list again of money spent in the draft, which is exactly where the Pirates need to be since we don't spend on the ML roster.

Now for some "expert" opinions.

First is Jim Callis from 'Baseball America'. He had this to say in an ESPN chat the other day:

"The Pirates said before the draft that if they took a below-slot guy (Tony Sanchez) at No. 4, they'd put the money into later picks. Looks like they'll do that, as they've taken several talented guys today who could be costly: Texas HS lefties Zack Dodson and Colton Cain, Louisiana HS righty Zack Von Rosenberg (a personal favorite) and Arizona prep righty Trent Stevenson."

Next is Keith Law, who is ESPN's 'Mel Kiper of the MLB Draft':

"Pittsburgh's selection of Tony Sanchez at No. 4 overall on Tuesday was the most controversial pick of the day, but the Pirates did do one thing they promised, taking some tough-sign high school pitchers on Wednesday. Their philosophy is that high school arms are so volatile that paying premium prices in the first round is a poor strategy, and that the value of that first pick (when you might get a premium bat or college arm) is too high to surrender, so try to stockpile young arms in later rounds. Whether Sanchez was the best pick for slot is another question -- I don't think he was -- but the idea of adding young arms who fell due to signability reasons is a sound one, and they added four good ones, two from my top 100 in Jordan Cooper and Zach Von Rosenburg and two who would have ranked in the next 50 or so players in Colton Cain and Trent Stevenson. Stevenson and Cooper both looked like top-two-round picks last summer, but neither had a good spring, with Stephenson losing a little velocity and Cooper pitching very inconsistently until late in the season. If the Pirates sign three of those four kids, it's a great draft, and if they sign two, it's still a good one."

Next is a take on the draft as a whole that made a lot of sense, and this is from a message board poster on the 'Buccos Forum':

"Occasionally there is a "can't miss" player, but that phenomenom is somewhat rare. Just review the history to see how many players drafted in the first two rounds over the past ten years have actually had much impact at the ML level....

HAVING SAID THAT, there is an mportant caveat when it comes to the Pirates: they have passed on "can't miss" players like BJ Upton (for Bryan Bullington!!) and Matt Weiters (for Danny Moskos). They also passed on Tim Lincecum by taking Brad Lincoln, but that's not a done deal

Ok, here's the main point: the most important thing about the draft is to get a good mix of players throughout every round. THIS IS NOT THE NFL. These guys are mostly a few years away from the big leagues. Player development is just as important as scouting and drafting!!!"

- buccoman

Another from the Forum:

"1. There can be NO question that signability played a major factor in this pick. The Pirates obviously wanted to avoid the bullshit Pedro put them through last year. This kid will sign probably by the end of the week and be behind the plate in WV by the end of the month. The advantage of signing early and playing immediately can't be overstated enough for a young developing player.

2. I think Sanchez was the 3rd rated player on their board all things considered especially when signability played a major part of the equation. Talent wise though I think it’s just GM speak or just plain bullshit to say Sanchez was the 3 best talent in this years draft.

3. Let me say this on Sanchez's behalf. Sanchez has the look of a player on the come
he is a good player maybe a better than good player and without question the best catcher in the draft. What I really like about him is his work ethic and his character, those two tracts can not be minimized especially for a catcher. He is already a very good catch and throw guy which is a catchers bread and butter. I also think people are underestimating his bat. Look at his numbers this year they match up very favorably to Matt Wieters numbers his JR year. Why Wieters was rated a better prospect was that he hit all 3 years at GT, Sanchez just started to come around this year. Also Wieters was a year older than Sanchez when he was drafted.

4. The Pirates have no catching prospects in their system. The best of the lot is Steve Lerud a supposed offensive catcher who does hit much and as still an average defensively. Next is Kris Watts who is better offensively than Lerud but is worst behind the plate. Then there is Andrew Walker who has some pedigree as a major college catcher but has failed miserably so far and is back in EST. So Sanchez definitely fills an organizational need.

5. If the Pirates do follow through on their draft strategy and spend 9 or 10 mil as they said they would I can’t see how anyone can label them cheap."

-PittFaninVa

One last take from the Forum:

"The Pirates spent the 2nd most in the draft of all of Baseball last year. the Pirates also don't have the lowest payroll of all of Baseball either. Now, Washington should eclipse what the Pirates spend in the draft this year on Stephen Strasburg alone but the Pirates will and should likely end up being one of the top spenders in the draft again. This was CLEARLY something that they weren't during the Littlefield and Mcclatchy years. They skimped on the first round pick and didn't spend much on the rest of the draft. The Pirates are planning on spending a lot of money in this draft, I believe this.

Here is where I differ personally from DK and media guys etc... They view Sanchez as nothing more than saving money, I view this as basically analyzing the draft and placing a value tag on players to what the Pirates believe they are worth,. Last eyar the Pirates believed Pedro Alvarez's value was worth more than slot and worth what they paid and were willing to pay him big money. Going into this draft, the rumblings from the FO made it clear that they didn't view any player that they would likely draft this year to be worth value wise paying over slot for (I agree with that. you don't overpay for players whose value doesn't command it). So they passed on some arms that were likely to demand over slot money and weren't worth it. I'm all for that. Instead they drafted a bat that they really liked who will happen to sign for at best slot and in the end will have a good chunk of change to spend later on in the draft.

Because of this, the Pirates were able to draft all of the highschool players that they did because those players generally require overpayment to entice them to skip out on college and their college commitments to go Pro. there's an upside to drafting Highschool players because those very players could goto college and 2-4 years down the road eventually become First or Second round picks and demand big money. we just overpaid a little for them but still are spending much less than what they could be down the road and if there was any luck in the world we could end up with say a couple future first round picks down the road because we drafted them now.

Some say, well, our payroll is low so we should use that extra money in the draft. That's not how it works and there's no other teams in Baseball who do that. If this is how it were done, the Marlins or whatever other small market team is out there would be spending $10-$50 million more in the draft than other teams. It's never happened. There's a set budget for the draft before the season starts, I don't know how it is determined. there's a set budget for International signings, for the MLB payroll for other things. I don't know where extra money goes, but it's not like the Pirates are the only team with a specific payroll and a specific limit on the draft and a question mark around where the extra money is. More than half of the MLB teams are like this"

- Kipper

So, there are of course the folks saying that it's the same old Pirates not spending etc etc, and that's cool, but really if you step back and look at the draft as a whole, and of course, we do have to sign these players to make this point stick, we are spending more than nearly all teams when it comes to the draft. Also, our system is completely devoid of any young catching talent, so this pick (Sanchez) did have a lot of baseball sense to it as well.

Suppose, hypothetically, that we sign Sano too, then things are turning around for sure and the 'money issue' can be put to rest for a bit. Hell, even without Sano, I'd say we're on the right track to a winner in the near future.

Now excuse me while I finish this Kool-Aid.