I sat in my office at Pirates Prospects HQ tonight with my typical approach to the draft. Four screens in front of my face, showing rankings, the draft broadcast, Twitter, and the site. The TV above me had the Pirates game, and then the Penguins game. The next room had two large pizzas and a box of Lucky Charms, aka, my food for every meal the next few days, until Sunday afternoon when I next see the outside world. John Dreker was on an open chat on my laptop, ready to relay info about the picks, while texting back and forth with Wilbur Miller, who was getting the player pages up.
The picks came in, and my reaction was to go into news mode, flipping through each screen to get all of the info I could on each player, as quickly as possible. I didn’t stop for much personal opinion, in part because of how much work there was to be done in such little time. But also because the quick reactions to draft picks are really difficult when the Pirates are picking lower in the draft.
When the Pirates were picking guys at the top of the draft, it was easy to get excited and declare the draft an instant win or a loss. We would follow Jameson Taillon and Gerrit Cole every single start from February up until the draft. Even with guys like Austin Meadows and Reese McGuire, you had plenty of time to follow their progress, and hoped they’d fall to the Pirates.
But when you’re picking this low, you can’t prepare. You aren’t going to get stud draft prospects at the bottom of the first round. You can still get good prospects, but not guys who will immediately “wow” you. And usually, the guy who is taken is a guy who you didn’t focus much on, because there are so many players who are possible for the pick that you spread the attention out, rather than putting a specific focus on 2-3 guys.
This combination means the draft doesn’t look as exciting on draft day as it used to. And that’s a good thing, because the trade-off is that it’s June, and the Pirates aren’t already doomed to one of the worst records in baseball. But as we’ve seen in the last few drafts, the late round picks can grow on you.
In 2014, people hated the Cole Tucker pick. The selections of Mitch Keller and Trey Supak were seen as your typical prep pitchers. Tucker has since gone on to show why he’s a good prospect. Keller has really broken out. Granted, people didn’t like the selection of Connor Joe, and he hasn’t consistently shown his hitting skills to justify the pick.
Then last year the Pirates took Kevin Newman in the first round, which was seen as a low ceiling, high floor pick. But one year later, Newman is hitting everything in sight, or was hitting everything, until getting hit in the face with a pitch. Suddenly we’re seeing the value in Newman, and it’s a lot more exciting now than it was on draft day last year.
My approach in the past was to give some sort of grade or evaluation on the drafts after each day, but honestly, that’s pointless. You could be up or down on the draft, and the view could change a few months from now or a year from now after seeing what the player can do. All we really have to go on right now are the reports on the players, and the Pirates’ history with similar picks. For the 2016 group, that provides some optimism.
First, there’s Will Craig. The Pirates have taken a lot of high OBP/low strikeout guys the last few years. The first round picks have worked out, with Tucker and Newman looking promising. The guys after that haven’t been as successful. There have been some good signs behind the numbers from people like Kevin Kramer and Connor Joe. But overall, there’s not much so far to give a lot of optimism that the Pirates will be successful targeting high OBP/low strikeout guys.
The one key difference here is that Craig could have some power, which a lot of the previous picks have lacked. That puts him in a totally different category. There’s also the fact that he was a first round talent, while most of the college draft picks that fit the same trends have been middle round picks. So you’d expect more out of Craig and his skills.
Then there’s the prep pitchers — Nick Lodolo and Travis MacGregor. It seems like lazy analysis to just say that the Pirates know what they’re doing with prep pitchers. Only, that’s the exact same thing that scouts say to me when discussing young pitchers in the lower levels. And it’s not lazy analysis when you’re talking about a system that is in place, and drafting players who fit in that system.
The Pirates have a good system with prep pitchers. They target projectable guys who could see improvements with their velocity and other pitches if they add muscle to their frame. They get them on a daily throwing program, meant to build up arm strength. They get them into strict diet and weight lifting programs to add muscle. But the thing about prep pitchers is that this won’t work for everyone, which is why you have to take so many of them.
Several years ago, I talked with a younger scout who had pitched in college. He didn’t make it past college, he said, because he was one of these tall, projectable pitchers, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t add muscle and weight to his frame. That conversation always stuck with me, because it’s not just as simple as drafting a guy and automatically watching them add velocity.
This is what happens with guys like Zack Von Rosenberg or Trent Stevenson, who never added velocity. On the other side, guys like Tyler Glasnow and Nick Kingham saw their velocity shoot up from the upper 80s/low 90s to the mid-90s in a year.
With these prep picks, I never look at them as individual picks. I look at them as a group effort that spans over many years. You go in knowing that most of them won’t work out, and hoping that you get one or two of them that will. Gerrit Cole cost the Pirates an $8 M bonus in 2011. They spent about that much on over-slot prep pitchers after the first rounds from 2008-2011. That group of pitchers yielded Tyler Glasnow, Nick Kingham, Clay Holmes, and whoever else can emerge from the remaining pitchers like Jason Creasy and Colten Brewer. Even if it’s just Glasnow and one other player that makes it, that’s a nice return on the overall investment.
Likewise, the Pirates have continued going over-slot on young pitchers in recent years. They went with Mitch Keller, Trey Supak, and Gage Hinsz in 2014. They signed Neil Kozikowski and Billy Roth in 2013. They got Hayden Hurst in 2012. And last year they went with Jacob Taylor, Ike Schlabach, and Nathan Trevillian. Some of those guys already haven’t worked out, while Keller and Hinsz are looking like the standouts (and it’s too early to tell with the 2015 group). Lodolo and MacGregor are just two more names to add to this group, increasing the chances that the Pirates come away with a top prospect from the middle rounds.
And that’s the takeaway from today’s draft picks, and where the Pirates are with their new position picking in the bottom third of the draft. They’re not getting Gerrit Cole’s, Jameson Taillon’s, or even an Austin Meadows or Reese McGuire. They need to find ways to get talent. On the hitting side, they’ve been focusing on high OBP/low strikeout guys. On the pitching side, they’re going with the same projectable prep pitcher approach, only with fewer opportunities to sign those guys. And in each case, we have to wait and see if these approaches pay off, which is something that definitely isn’t clear on draft day.
**Subscribe to Pirates Prospects to Get Our 2016 Draft Coverage and Much More. If you’re not a subscriber, you should definitely sign up for our draft coverage, especially in time for day two, which is our busiest day. This update has information on subscribing, along with some of the additions we’ve got coming to the site (which makes it relevant for subscribers, too).
**Pirates Add a Big Bat and Two Prep Pitchers on Day One of the 2016 Draft. The day one recap, for subscribers. Quotes from Will Craig, Neal Huntington, and Joe DelliCarri in there, plus over 2,000 words on the first three picks. This one went up around 1:30 (and it’s 3:08 as I wrap up this First Pitch article), so I hope you guys do a lot of reading in the morning. Especially since John Dreker will also have a day two preview in the Morning Report.
**Here are the articles for each of the draft picks today, along with their player pages:
- Pirates Draft 3B Will Craig With Their First Pick in the 2016 Draft / Player Page
- Pirates Draft LHP Nick Lodolo With the 41st Pick in the 2016 Draft / Player Page
- Pirates Draft RHP Travis MacGregor in the Second Round / Player Page
**Prospect Watch: Tough Start for Gage Hinsz, Meadows Continues Hit Streak. We had regular articles today too. Gage Hinsz made his second start for West Virginia, and it didn’t go as well as the first. Meanwhile, Austin Meadows is on fire.
**Pirates Option Jameson Taillon to Indianapolis, Recall Kyle Lobstein. A lot of anger over this move, and I really don’t think it will matter in the long run. I think Taillon comes back up as soon as he’s eligible, which could even be before his ten days are up, if the Pirates can get creative.
**David Todd Podcast: Pirates Draft Talk, Taillon’s Debut, Josh Bell, and Gage Hinsz. My weekly interview with David Todd.
