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Morning Report: How Much Do the Pirates Have to Spend on Over-Slot Deals?

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If there’s one thing I love about the current draft system, it’s the speed in which we see picks signing deals after the draft. One week after taking him in the first round, the Pirates announced that they had signed right-handed prep pitcher Quinn Priester.

In the old days, you’d draft a guy in mid-June, and wait until mid-August at a midnight deadline to sign him. That prevented him from playing during that season. By comparison, Priester will go to the GCL this year, and based on history will probably get about 25 innings of work.

I don’t know if the extra work will make a huge impact in his development timeline. It does give the Pirates their first look almost a year earlier than the old draft system, which means they can evaluate Priester this summer and during instructs, and make any adjustments necessary heading into next season. The old system gave them a first look in instructs, making it more difficult to get a read on a player.

I’d expect a lot more players to be signing soon, especially with the short-season leagues starting so quickly. And that brings me to the other part that I like: We’re going to get a good idea very soon of how much the Pirates have to spend on their over-slot candidates.

Priester signed for $81,300 under slot. That doesn’t sound like much, but consider that any pick after the 11th round can receive $125,000 before counting toward the bonus pool. This means the Pirates can give any player a $206,300 bonus right now — almost in line with the seventh round pick — and they wouldn’t be over their bonus pool.

They can go over their bonus pool by 5% without losing a future draft pick. They’d pay a 75% fine on the overage, but that’s something they’ve done often to get extra talent in the later rounds. When factoring that money in, they have $578,500 to spend right now on over-slot picks.

This means you can give any one player $703,500 without losing an extra pick.

Or you could split that up between two players, and they each could receive $414,250, which would be about 4th-5th round money, and closer to the top end of bonuses that are usually handed out beyond the 10th round.

Distributing that money to three different players amounts to $317,833 per player. And it continues, dividing the remaining pool money up, and adding $125,000 of non-pool money to each pick.

The amounts are low right now, but the Pirates will almost certainly save money on some of their day two picks. If they can save just $500,000 on their remaining picks, which shouldn’t be difficult to do, then they’d have enough to give $484,500 to three different players, or about $400,000 to four different players beyond the 10th round.

The Pirates took six prep players on day three of the draft. I don’t think they’ll get all of them signed, just because some players might be set on college. They should end up with enough money left over to sign several of those players, plus some harder-to-sign college guys for over-slot deals as well. And as the top ten round picks continue to sign, we’ll get a better idea of how much they have to spend on those over-slot deals.

PLAYOFF PUSH

Altoona is in fourth place in their division, seven games back with nine games remaining in the first half.

Bradenton is in second place in their division, two games back with six games remaining in the first half.

Greensboro is in second place in their division, six games back with six games remaining in the schedule.

TODAY’S SCHEDULE

Today’s Starter and Notes: The Pittsburgh Pirates lost 13-7 to the Atlanta Braves on Monday night. The Pirates will send out Chris Archer today for his 11th start of the season. He gave up one run over six innings against the Braves on Thursday. He gave up four or more runs in each of his previous five starts. The Braves will counter with right-hander Mike Foltynewicz, who has a 5.89 ERA in 44.1 innings, with 37 strikeouts and a 1.26 WHIP. He opposed Archer five days ago and gave up three runs over six innings. His previous outing was five runs over five innings against the Detroit Tigers on May 31st.

The minor league schedule includes the fifth start of the season for Luis Escobar in Indianapolis. He has been stretched out to five innings now and should be able to go full strength for the first time with the normal starter limits. Escobar has not allowed more than one run in any of his four starts. Austin Coley will make his fourth start for Altoona. He has pitched just six innings total due to limited pitch counts in each game. Nicholas Economos starts for the fifth time for Bradenton. He has a total of 74 strikeouts in 57.1 innings, which ties him with Mitch Keller for the most strikeouts among all Pirates. Colin Selby starts for Greensboro. His worst start came against today’s opponent (Hickory) back on May 26th when he allowed four runs on seven hits and four walks in 4.2 innings.

MLB: Pittsburgh (30-35) @ Braves (37-29) 7:20 PM
Probable starter: Chris Archer (5.20 ERA, 53:28 SO/BB, 53.2 IP)

AAA: Indianapolis (35-26) vs Buffalo (27-34) 7:05 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Luis Escobar (2.33 ERA, 19:9 SO/BB, 19.1 IP)

AA: Altoona (30-30) vs Portland (21-38) 6:30 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Austin Coley (3.00 ERA 6:1 SO/BB, 6.0 IP)

High-A: Bradenton (35-28) @ Charlotte (33-30) 6:30 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Nicholas Economos (2.55 ERA, 24:9 SO/BB, 24.2 IP)

Low-A: Greensboro (41-23) vs Hickory (38-23) 7:00 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Colin Selby (3.70 ERA, 27:10 SO/BB, 24.1 IP)

DSL: Pirates1 (5-3) vs Cubs1 (2-6) 10:30 AM (season preview)

DSL: Pirates2 (6-2) vs Mariners (4-4) 10:30 AM  (season preview)

HIGHLIGHTS

From Indianapolis on Sunday. A nice play from Ke’Bryan Hayes and a home run from Pablo Reyes.

Reyes

Tim Williams
Tim Williams
Tim is the owner, producer, editor, and lead writer of PiratesProspects.com. He has been running Pirates Prospects since 2009, becoming the first new media reporter and outlet covering the Pirates at the MLB level in 2011 and 2012. His work can also be found in Baseball America, where he has been a contributor since 2014 and the Pirates' correspondent since 2019.

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