Jonathan Mayo released his second mock draft on Friday and he still believes that the Pittsburgh Pirates will take Wichita State first baseman Casey Gillaspie. Mayo’s first mock draft was two weeks ago and at that time, Gillaspie was being mentioned often for the Pirates. That talk has died down a little until now. Gillaspie would give the Pirates a switch-hitting first baseman with power, who should move through the system quickly.
Yesterday saw a new mock draft from Baseball America that had high school outfielder Monte Harrison going to the Pirates. We also saw rankings from MLB.com that had prep pitcher Luis Ortiz ranked 24th overall. Both of players have been mentioned often for Pittsburgh, including Harrison going to the Pirates in the first mock draft from Jim Callis, who splits the draft coverage at MLB.com with Mayo.
Mayo has Harrison going 20th overall to the Tampa Bay Rays, while Ortiz is going 26th to the Boston Red Sox.
You can see videos and scouting reports from these three players here:
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.
I’m not in love with Gillaspie. He’s strong and he has good power, but he also looks very stiff and slow in the clips I’ve seen. There are other guys in that general range in whom I’d have more interest.
As much as it might seem a good fit, baseball is a bit like football, you take the best available player no matter position at least where they are this year. So while feasibly you could take a 1b who might fill a need, you might miss out on the next Matt Weiters. Now all things being equal on talent then maybe you take the 1B.
You had to bring up Weiters, didn’t you?? 🙁
Gillespie would be a huge get for the Pirates, so we would have a potential long term solution for first base, and not a short term platoon situation.
These mock drafts are silly. When outside the top ten there really is no way of knowing what the Pirates will do. Its not like in football when a team can draft for need. None of these guys will see the light of day for 4 years. I think the only thing one can speculate on is whether we would take a hitter or a pitcher. Other then that who knows.
The main reason for posting mock drafts, besides the fact they are popular articles, is to show people what kind of talent is available with the 24th pick this year. If you check the other links, you’ll see that the 24th best player could be an impact bat at 1B, a HS outfielder with HUGE upside, or a HS pitcher that throws 97 MPH with strong secondary stuff and command. It introduces people to the potential picks, gives them someone to pull for and basically tells you, that the team might be picking low this year, but there have been years where players like these three would go in the top 10-15. Basically, it’s a good year to be picking low. In years past, we had a much better sense of who they could get, but this year we don’t, we just know what kind of impact player will be available