Each Sunday through the end of the season, we are going to take a look at the updated 2020 MLB draft standings. The Pittsburgh Pirates have 26 games left in the regular season, which ends four weeks from today on September 29th at home against the Cincinnati Reds.
Before we get into the updated standings, we start with a look at the standings from last Sunday morning:
- Tigers 39-88
- Orioles 42-88
- Royals 45-85
- Marlins 46-82
- Blue Jays 53-79
- Pirates 54-75
- Mariners 55-75
- Rockies 58-72
- White Sox 59-70
- Padres 59-69
As you can see, the Pirates were holding the sixth overall draft spot, moving up one spot from the previous week. You’ll also notice that the eighth place team on that list is the team that they are playing this weekend. The Pirates won the first three games of the series already, so that clearly hasn’t helped their draft position. In fact, last night’s win changed things below.
Now here are the updated standings:
- Tigers 40-93
- Orioles 45-90
- Royals 48-89
- Marlins 48-87
- Blue Jays 55-82
- Mariners 57-80
- Rockies 59-78
- Pirates 59-77
- White Sox 60-75
- Padres 63-72
The Pirates not only dropped behind the Mariners again, but they lost a spot to the Rockies last night. It doesn’t stop there though. The White Sox went 1-5 last week, so the Pirates could easily end up behind them by the time we take a look at the updated standings next week. Chicago is headed to Cleveland for a series, so those are going to be tough games for them.
The upcoming schedule for the Pirates has a game today against the Rockies, then the Pirates are back home on Tuesday to play three against the Miami Marlins. When we first started looking at these draft pick standings a few weeks ago, those games looked more important. With this recent stretch though, the Pirates aren’t catching the Marlins in the race for a better draft pick. A bigger series is the one against the Seattle Mariners at home on September 17-19.
So right now it appears that the best (or is it worst?) the Pirates could do is finish with the fifth overall pick. The Blue Jays will be facing the best of the AL East over the final month, so I can’t imagine that they will finish strong.
