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Pirates Receive Comp B Draft Pick, Larger International Bonus Pool

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The Pittsburgh Pirates received a Comp B round draft pick on Wednesday morning for the 2017 amateur draft. The order hasn’t been set yet this year, but Comp B round last year consisted of the 71st through 77th overall picks in the draft, so it should be close to that range. That means that the Pirates could have four of the first 80 picks in the draft in 2017. They will pick 12th overall (see update below) in the first round based on their 2016 record. They get the 42nd overall pick for failing to sign Nick Lodolo this year, and they have a second round pick that will likely end up in the 50-55 range.

The Pirates also found out their 2017-18 international bonus pool on Wednesday. Under the new CBA, the compensation picks now are tied into the international bonus pools. The Pirates will have $5.75M to spend during the 2017-18 international signing period, which runs from July 2, 2017 until June 15, 2018. That is over $3.5M more than the bonus pool they have during this signing period.

The old system based the international bonus pools on the standings, and with the Pirates posting the second best record in baseball in 2015, they had the second lowest bonus pool. Now each team has an international bonus pool between $4.75M and $5.75M, which is now a hard cap. If the Pirates received a Comp A round pick this year, their international bonus pool would have been $5.25M in 2017-18.

The interesting part is that teams that went into the penalty for going over their international pools the last two years, will still have their penalties carry over. Not only did they pay the 100% tax on the overage, they also can’t sign anyone over $300,000. Some teams will have that penalty for one year, some for the first two years. With the larger bonus pool for the Pirates, they will now be able to sign players for bigger bonuses, and for the first two years there will be fewer teams competing for those players. The Pirates have been going quantity over high price tags since international bonus pools were put in place. Now they can do both quantity and compete for the top players since the hard cap will keep each team from signing more than a few top players each year.

UPDATE 11:30 AM: The Colorado Rockies have agreed to a multi-year deal with Ian Desmond according to Ken Rosenthal. They had the 11th overall pick in the 2017 amateur draft, which they will now lose. That means the first round pick of the Pirates will now be the 12th overall pick.

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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