The Major League Baseball amateur draft is just days away, and while Ben Cherington and the Pirates have prepared as if it is a normal draft, even though it will last only five rounds, they don't know yet who they might take June 10.
"If you want to tell us who we’re taking, you have as good a guess as I do, probably, at this point," Cherington joked during a Zoom call this week.
Well, with two first-round draft picks -- including seventh overall -- and one of the largest bonus pools, they have options. They have six picks, including that additional first-round competitive balance pick at No. 31. That gives them a draft pool of $11,154,500, the fifth largest of all teams. They can spend an additional 5 percent without being penalized future draft picks, bringing their max total to $11,712,225.
While teams across the league have been budget-conscious during the shutdown, the draft will be only a modest cost. Each pick will receive just $100,000 of their bonus in 2020. The rest will be deferred to the next two years.
So which players will the Pirates target June 10?
“The simple, boring answer is best player available," Cherington said. "If we’re doing the job the way we want to do it, then the way we rank players would effectively consider both the upside and the risk."
There's going to be a lot of risk taking this draft. Most high-school players did not get to play competitively this spring because of COVID-19, though scouts still got a good look at them last summer in showcases and tournaments. In many ways, that might be their greatest competition ahead of the draft.
As for collegiate players, they at least got to play the beginning part of their season, but few got into conference play.
"The junior season for a college player is weighed really heavily," Cherington said. "It’s the most recent piece of information. It also happens to be a time when you see college players often make significant leaps or steps forward in their performance. We don’t have that, other than a very small sample."
Speaking of college players, what's their outlook on draft day?
"It does feel like college pitching, in a relative sense, is a strong demographic this year," Cherington said. "[It's] deeper. I think there’s college pitching that will go after the first round that is pretty good, so that feels like a strength."
Cherington is not alone in this assessment. This is a particularly deep draft for college pitching, and a lot are going to go off the board early. FanGraphs and MLB Pipeline each have 19 college pitchers among their top 50 draft prospects. Baseball America has 17.
The Pirates commonly have been linked to college pitchers in mock drafts, with two of their most common targets for their seventh-overall pick being right-hander Emerson Hancock from Georgia and left-hander Reid Detmers from Louisville. Max Meyer, a right-hander from Minnesota, also has been a top-10 pick in just about every draft, and his high-risk, high reward profile mimics what the Pirates' new assistant general manager, Steve Sanders, did when he led the Blue Jays' drafts, taking Nate Pearson and Alek Monoah with first-round picks. Pearson is arguably the best pitching prospect in baseball, and Monoah is a fringe top-100 player.
This would be a huge deviation from the norm for the Pirates, who didn't invest heavily into collegiate pitching for most of Neal Huntington's tenure. After being spurned by their 2012 first-round pick, Mark Appel, they never again picked a college pitcher in the first three rounds of the draft.
They rarely gave big money to college arms. Since the new draft rules were instituted in 2012, the Pirates gave a pitcher a signing bonus of at least $500,000 12 times. Eleven of those bonuses went to high school players, and the other, Jacob Taylor in 2015, was a junior college pitcher who was committed to Louisiana State University, giving him basically the same leverage as a prep prospect.
Five of the Pirates' six picks carry a slot bonus over $500,000. It wouldn't be that much of a stretch for even their fifth-round pick, which carries a bonus of $402,000, to potentially clear that half-million figure.
It's a deep draft for collegiate pitching, and Cherington and his draft team have taken notice. For the Pirates to get one of those arms, though, it would likely require spending more money than the previous regime would on a college pitcher.
MORE PIRATES
• As for the size of the Pirates' draft board, they have whittled it down a bit, but they started by casting a large net. "I think at the point of shutdown, the number of players we had in the system for the draft this year, amateur players, that our group had submitted was pretty similar to what it would be in a normal year," Cherington said. "What’s changed now, just as we’ve gotten closer to the draft, we’re probably focusing our time on a smaller group of players than we normally would, which maybe is a good thing in a year that we’re having to do that virtually and use technology." -- Stumpf
• Losing Chris Archer creates a hole not just in the rotation, but potentially in the bullpen. When discussing the state of the rotation, Cherington noted that Joe Musgrove and Trevor Williams had earned rotation spots, and he heavily implied Mitch Keller and Derek Holland will also be part of the starting five. Steven Brault has recovered from his spring training shoulder injury, so he should be a front-runner for the fifth spot. Originally, it looked like Brault and Holland would have to fight for the fifth spot, while the other would provide left-handed relief out of the bullpen. Now, the Pirates don't have that clear lefty reliever, though Derek Shelton said in Bradenton that it wasn't a guarantee the Pirates were going to carry one. “[With] the three-batter rule, I think we’ll take a hard look at how we’re going to do it [bullpen construction],” Shelton said in March. But with extra roster spots, it makes sense to have at least one lefty reliever. Sam Howard is the only other southpaw pitcher on the 40-man roster, and non-roster invitee Robbie Erlin seemed to be in the mix for a spot before spring training was suspended. -- Stumpf
• Thoracic outlet syndrome is usually bad news for a pitcher's fastball velocity, especially for those over 30, like Archer. Nick Burdi had TOS surgery last year -- coincidentally by the same surgeon, Dr. Robert Thompson at Washington University in St. Louis -- and saw his fastball velocity reach triple-digits for the first time. However, the Pirates' director of sports medicine, Todd Tomczyk, said it's an "oranges to apples" comparison since Burdi's issue was with his elbow. Archer's surgery was for his shoulder. "It’s two different cases, two different body parts," Tomczyk said. -- Stumpf
STEELERS
• One of the more troubling aspects of the Steelers being forced to run their training camp at the Rooney Sports Complex will be how both the Steelers and Pitt's football team are supposed to function there at the same time. That was one of the issues the Steelers asked the NFL about once news reached them the league would be forcing teams to hold camp at their own facilities. The Steelers are the only team in the league that shares a facility with a college program and both will be wanting to use the Rooney Sports Complex fields at the same time. That's 90 players for the Steelers and 100 or more for the Panthers. The two also share the indoor practice facility, which has just one full-length field. But the league didn't care. In the interest of keeping everything the same for all teams, the NFL told the Steelers tough when it came to asking for the chance to hold camp at Saint Vincent College for the 54th consecutive year. It seems that having more than 300 people -- players, coaches and support staff -- in one place just didn't matter to the NFL. -- Dale Lolley on the North Shore
• Because of that whole continuity thing, it's looking more and more like there won't be a Hall of Fame game this year. The Steelers and Cowboys have been scheduled to play in that game Aug. 6. But with the league very concerned about not giving one or two teams advantages that others don't have in the coronavirus world, it could scrap the Hall of Fame game to keep all teams reporting to camp at the same time. The Steelers and Cowboys would get an extra week of training camp and an extra preseason if the game is kept in place. Still no word, however, if the league does scrap the game if the Pro Football Hall of Fame will move its induction ceremony, which is currently scheduled for Aug. 8. -- Lolley
• We've seen precious few veterans signed in the month following the draft. There are number of reasons for that. First, teams still can't bring guys in for physicals or workouts. And many of the players still left unsigned would need one or both. Second, teams still haven't gotten a good look at their rookies on the field. And with there being some apparent trepidation on perhaps having minicamps later this month, they might not until they report for training camp. Third, nobody is sure what the revenues for this season are going to be for next year. That has slowed contract extension negotiations to a standstill. And it's perhaps made some teams wary of signing anyone new beyond the 2020 season. The Steelers like to sign veterans to deals that are at least two years in length. They could still potentially sign outside depth help at safety, inside linebacker and outside linebacker. But that likely won't happen until they know whether or not there will be fans in stadiums or not. -- Lolley
• One of the main things that could get lost in the shuffle this season are camp battles, especially if camp and/or the preseason is shortened. How do you adequately judge one player against the other when you have just a handful or practices and perhaps fewer preseason games? That means many coaching staffs could go with known commodities over younger players at certain spots. For the Steelers, that could mean Stefen Wisniewski gets the nod at left guard -- at least to start the season. The Steelers might not have time for camp battles, meaning they might lean toward keeping Matt Feiler at right tackle. That doesn't mean Chuks Okorafor is a failure. It just means he ran out of time to win a job because of things outside his control. The teams that will really be hurt will be the ones counting on rookie starters. For example, will Joe Burrow be ready to lead the Bengals based on the 20 or so practices he gets in the preseason? Will Patrick Queen and Malik Harrison, who both had just one year of college starting experience, be ready to take over two of the three starting linebacker spots for the Ravens with a similar amount of work? There will be a lot of rookie mistakes early in the season. The teams that have continuity in their starting lineups will be better off in 2020, even more so than usual. -- Lolley
PENGUINS
• The Penguins haven't announced their postseason roster yet, and probably haven't even settled on it yet. (Early indications, however, are that Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin look like good bets to get a spot.) Teams will be allowed to have a total of 28 forwards and defensemen and an unlimited number of goaltenders in their 50-member party when games begin later this summer, and one of the most intriguing decisions the Penguins could face is whether to include wingers Samuel Poulin and/or Nathan Legare in their group of 28. Poulin, their No. 1 draft choice last June, is coming off a 32-goal, 45-assist effort in 46 games with Sherbrooke in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Legare, their third-rounder in 2019, had 35 goals and 36 assists in 61 games with Baie-Comeau of the QMJHL. Both were impressive during training camp last fall, but neither has skated a shift in the NHL, so the possibility of having to drop them into a high-stakes series has to be daunting for management. What's more, if either would be pressed into service and would appear in 10 or more games, it would burn the first year of his entry-level contract. -- Dave Molinari
• The NHL has been shut down for nearly three months because of the coronavirus pandemic, and it's possible for just about everyone -- including pro athletes -- to get numb to all the statistics that have circulated that time, from infection rates to mortality totals. So with the Penguins likely to begin small-group skating sessions soon, it's possible that some players might have been inclined to shrug off concerns about the virus and the dangers it poses. That, presumably, changed Thursday, when the team announced that a player, who has not -- and should not -- be identified has been diagnosed with the disease. According to a press release issued by the team, that player is not in this area and is "recovered and feeling well." Nonetheless, knowing that a guy who dressed in the next locker-room stall or might have been a linemate or defense partner got such a diagnosis had to make an impression, and presumably will result in players who might have been lax in sticking to guidelines for limiting exposure to the virus a little more inclined to embrace them. -- Molinari
• There is a detail in the NHL's return-to-play framework that might have gone largely overlooked, but could have repercussions once games resume. The league's plan calls for the four teams in each conference that won't be involved in the qualifying round to play a round-robin inside the conference, with the outcomes having an impact on seedings for the traditional 16-team Stanley Cup playoff field that will follow. Those games will be contested under regular-season rules, which means ties will be settled by a three-on-three overtime lasting up to five minutes and then, if necessary, a shootout. However, teams in the play-in round, including the Penguins, will operate under playoff regulations, which means the teams will play as many five-on-five overtimes as needed to break a tie. That there are different rules for the two groups is peculiar, and should the NHL stick with its plans, should be taken into consideration when scheduling games, three of which apparently will be played each day at the two "hub" cities. Because the "bye" teams' games have established end points, those should be the first played at both sites every day. If not, the entire day's schedule -- which will be even more significant that usual, since the league will want to maximize TV viewership because fans will not be allowed to attend -- could be blown up by a qualifying-round game that goes three or four or five overtimes. Getting the round-robin game out of the way early will cut the number of start times that could be severely delayed by a multiple-overtime game in half. -- Molinari
