The Pittsburgh Pirates have announced nine draft pick signings this morning. Some we announced last night, but here is the full list along with their round. I’ve included links to the draft articles for all of the players in the top ten rounds:
4. Jason Delay
7. Jared Oliva
8. Blake Weiman
9. Bligh Madris
10. Beau Sulser
13. Tristan Gray
15. Gavin Wallace
24. Nick Valaika
As mentioned last night, there are more players signing today. These all appear to be from yesterday, while a number of players are signing today, or have agreed to sign, such as sixth round pick Cody Bolton, 16th round pick Hunter Stratton and 19th round pick Jake Webb. We may not hear those signings until tomorrow.
Jason Delay and Nick Valaika will report to Bristol. With Delay going there, that’s a senior college catcher with excellent defense, who will be in charge of a young pitching staff with a ton of upside, so that’s an important assignment. Normally he would be going to Morgantown, but he could help the Pirates out a lot more by working with the Bristol staff.
The rest of the players will report to Morgantown. Expect to hear some bonus amounts throughout the day. We will post them here. Keep updated with our draft tracker, which has player pages for all of the players above.
UPDATE: 5:40 PM: Deon Stafford signed for $315,000 according to Jonathan Mayo, so there was some savings there for the Pirates. They are still slightly over their pool with the three known bonuses, but that should change when the rest from today come out. Draft tracker has been updated.
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.
Where is Baz going?
GCL
Wonder why college SS Nick Valaika is going to Bristol..??
The Pirates drafted 3 college and one junior college SS ahead of 24th rounder Valaika, plus Andrew Walker is already there. Crowded field, someone has to go to Bristol.
As I usually do, post in the most inappropriate place, but I’m sooo old give me some slack… :)…. The 2017 buccos seemingly rising, who knew Cole and Cutch were important 🙂 :)… This could be fun… I get that lots of you think I’m a genius, I accept that but I think others, difficult to point out who, have good opinions as well 🙂 :)… I would say go get them tomorrow but every time I say that we lose, so go play hard tomorrow, maybe that works 🙂
If all of these guys go to Morgantown what happens to the guys who are there right now or are they playing short right now?
Bristol only had 20 players on their travel roster. Morgantown had five open spots on their roster, so guys there could either go to Bristol or be put on the DL.
Let’s redo this.
Prep guys go to bristol, college guys go to Bradenton Pirates ?
It’s usually college to Morgantown. The Pirates will need to send some to Bristol and the GCL though this year because both rosters are very-shorthanded. The GCL Pirates have just seven position players right now until they start assigning players there.
Don’t think they’ve started yet
Morgantown started yesterday