This year’s Rule 4 draft is Neal Huntington’s fifth draft as the General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates and it will require a very different approach to those of the previous four drafts from the front office.
I’m a big fan of the draft. It was something that was new to me when I first started to follow baseball and I’d really like something like it to be introduced into English football (although it would be impossible to do). The new collective bargaining agreement has brought changes that I did not want to see (and I would not like to see draft picks becoming tradable either) – the only change that I would have liked was regarding draft pick compensation.
This year is the first year since 2005, when Andrew McCutchen was taken with the 11th overall pick, where the Pirates pick outside of the top four picks. In Huntington’s first draft in 2008, Pedro Alvarez was taken with the second overall pick; in 2009 Tony Sanchez was selected with the fourth pick; in 2010 Jameson Taillon was taken with the second pick; and last year Gerrit Cole was picked first overall back the Bucs. With the eighth pick this year and a weak draft class, I would have imagined that the plan would have been similar to the approach taken in 2009 – taking an easy sign college bat first and then spending the leftover draft budget on high upside players with signability concerns later in the draft.
The problem with that strategy is the new slot bonus pools that are in force due to the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Since Neal Huntington became the General Manager of the franchise they have generally been among the biggest spenders on the draft but this year they will have just $6,563,500 to spend on the first 11 draft picks – the 16th highest bonus pool, despite finishing with the 8th worst record in the major leagues. That total will be reduced if a team fails to sign a player and any player signed for more than $100,000 after the 10th round will also count against the draft pool. There are harsh penalties under the new CBA for teams going over their bonus pools. A team must pay 75% tax on spending up to 5% over recommendation, 75% tax and loss of first round pick for spending from 5.1% to 10% over recommendation, 100% tax and loss of first and second round picks for spending 10.1% to 15% over recommendation and, finally, a 100% tax and loss of two first round picks for spending greater than 15% over recommendation – so Huntington does not anticipate going over the slot bonus pool.
The bonus for the eighth overall pick will be $2.9M, which is $4.3M less than the first pick. In comparison, the Pirates spent $16,445,700 on the first ten rounds of the draft last year, almost $10M more than the pool for this year, so the likelihood of another Josh Bell is completely out of the question. Teams could attempt to underpay with some picks, as Dave Cameron of FanGraphs suggests that the Pirates could attempt in this article, however I would expect that the starting price for every agent will be the slot recommended bonus and Tom Tango discusses the problem of the player rejecting a low offer and not signing – so the club would have to have began negotiations prior to the draft with someone who is guaranteed to be available at that spot for the strategy to work.
There appears to be a clear top tier of seven prospects for this draft, which does not help the Pirates with the eighth pick. The top seven are Albert Almora, Mark Appel, Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa, Kevin Gausman, Kyle Zimmer, and Mike Zunino, though a healthy Luc Giolito would make this eight and Max Fried could break in the group. There has been a lot of talk of Zunino falling to the Pirates, but he has also gone as high as third in other mock drafts. The Pirates have been rumoured to be interested in Deven Marrero, however now both Keith Law of ESPN and Jim Callis of Baseball America have the Pirates taking David Dahl in their latest mock drafts, a prospect that Law ranked 20th and Baseball America ranked 17th among draft prospects, so Cameron’s idea of taking a lower ranked player early may be something that the Pirates front office has considered.
I’m not in a position to say who I believe that the Pirates should take. Like most fans I can only rely on the opinions of others – and then it depends on who goes prior to the Pirates make their selection. I’d personally like to see a focus on bats, as it is something that the system is lacking – so that would be Zunino did fall to the eighth pick (that would be a no-brainer), though I’d also be very happy with someone like Richie Shaffer (ranked 11th by Law). Saying that, the overall result of this draft will not be known for a number of years, so it would be hard to make any criticisms prior to a player making his pro debut – and I doubt that the front office will be in a position to make an error like Dave Littlefield did with taking Daniel Moskos over Matt Wieters tonight. Nonetheless, the selections after the first pick this year will be very different for the Pirates. Signability will be one of the primary concerns – something that was not really considered in previous drafts – so the likelihood of there being many (or even any) high upside prep prospects with strong commitments to college taken in later rounds is remote.
I’m a big fan of the draft. It was something that was new to me when I first started to follow baseball and I’d really like something like it to be introduced into English football (although it would be impossible to do). The new collective bargaining agreement has brought changes that I did not want to see (and I would not like to see draft picks becoming tradable either) – the only change that I would have liked was regarding draft pick compensation.
This year is the first year since 2005, when Andrew McCutchen was taken with the 11th overall pick, where the Pirates pick outside of the top four picks. In Huntington’s first draft in 2008, Pedro Alvarez was taken with the second overall pick; in 2009 Tony Sanchez was selected with the fourth pick; in 2010 Jameson Taillon was taken with the second pick; and last year Gerrit Cole was picked first overall back the Bucs. With the eighth pick this year and a weak draft class, I would have imagined that the plan would have been similar to the approach taken in 2009 – taking an easy sign college bat first and then spending the leftover draft budget on high upside players with signability concerns later in the draft.
The problem with that strategy is the new slot bonus pools that are in force due to the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Since Neal Huntington became the General Manager of the franchise they have generally been among the biggest spenders on the draft but this year they will have just $6,563,500 to spend on the first 11 draft picks – the 16th highest bonus pool, despite finishing with the 8th worst record in the major leagues. That total will be reduced if a team fails to sign a player and any player signed for more than $100,000 after the 10th round will also count against the draft pool. There are harsh penalties under the new CBA for teams going over their bonus pools. A team must pay 75% tax on spending up to 5% over recommendation, 75% tax and loss of first round pick for spending from 5.1% to 10% over recommendation, 100% tax and loss of first and second round picks for spending 10.1% to 15% over recommendation and, finally, a 100% tax and loss of two first round picks for spending greater than 15% over recommendation – so Huntington does not anticipate going over the slot bonus pool.
The bonus for the eighth overall pick will be $2.9M, which is $4.3M less than the first pick. In comparison, the Pirates spent $16,445,700 on the first ten rounds of the draft last year, almost $10M more than the pool for this year, so the likelihood of another Josh Bell is completely out of the question. Teams could attempt to underpay with some picks, as Dave Cameron of FanGraphs suggests that the Pirates could attempt in this article, however I would expect that the starting price for every agent will be the slot recommended bonus and Tom Tango discusses the problem of the player rejecting a low offer and not signing – so the club would have to have began negotiations prior to the draft with someone who is guaranteed to be available at that spot for the strategy to work.
There appears to be a clear top tier of seven prospects for this draft, which does not help the Pirates with the eighth pick. The top seven are Albert Almora, Mark Appel, Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa, Kevin Gausman, Kyle Zimmer, and Mike Zunino, though a healthy Luc Giolito would make this eight and Max Fried could break in the group. There has been a lot of talk of Zunino falling to the Pirates, but he has also gone as high as third in other mock drafts. The Pirates have been rumoured to be interested in Deven Marrero, however now both Keith Law of ESPN and Jim Callis of Baseball America have the Pirates taking David Dahl in their latest mock drafts, a prospect that Law ranked 20th and Baseball America ranked 17th among draft prospects, so Cameron’s idea of taking a lower ranked player early may be something that the Pirates front office has considered.
I’m not in a position to say who I believe that the Pirates should take. Like most fans I can only rely on the opinions of others – and then it depends on who goes prior to the Pirates make their selection. I’d personally like to see a focus on bats, as it is something that the system is lacking – so that would be Zunino did fall to the eighth pick (that would be a no-brainer), though I’d also be very happy with someone like Richie Shaffer (ranked 11th by Law). Saying that, the overall result of this draft will not be known for a number of years, so it would be hard to make any criticisms prior to a player making his pro debut – and I doubt that the front office will be in a position to make an error like Dave Littlefield did with taking Daniel Moskos over Matt Wieters tonight. Nonetheless, the selections after the first pick this year will be very different for the Pirates. Signability will be one of the primary concerns – something that was not really considered in previous drafts – so the likelihood of there being many (or even any) high upside prep prospects with strong commitments to college taken in later rounds is remote.
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