Neal Huntington’s pitching strategy

One of the more interesting aspects of Neal Huntington’s talent acquisition plan thus far has been the way he’s gone about acquiring pitching talent in the draft. Rather than pay heavily for the Matzek/Shelby Miller types, he’s picked an interesting mix of college and high school arms. The goal is clear; rather than put all of their eggs in one very talented basket, they’re spreading the bonus money out to a bunch of guys that maybe the scouts don’t think quite as highly of, but are talented and projectable in their own rights and hopefully one or two or more will blossom into something very good, but if they don’t the monetary loss isn’t quite as high and there’s more to fall back on.

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with this plan and the Pirates seem to be executing it quite well in the draft so far, picking up guys like Zach Von Rosenberg, Quinton Miller, Billy Cain, Trent Stevenson, Victor Black, Brooks Pounders, Justin Wilson, and Nate Baker. The strategy also carries the risk of ending up a whole bunch of Zach Dukes and no Clayton Kershaws or Rick Porcellos, but that’s something to worry about down the road and not right now.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any easier to read stuff like this tweet about the spring debuts of former Pirate draftee Tanner Scheppers or recent Reds’ free agent signing Aroldis Chapman. I don’t think sinking $30 million into an unproven pitcher is a good idea (I wholly agree with Charlie on this one) and unlike a lot of Pirate fans, I think the team handled the Scheppers situation about right (remember that they did, in fact, offer him a signing bonus about in line with where he was drafted in the early second round, but he thought he was worth more and the team had very legitimate concerns about his shoulder at the time), but this sort of thing is an illustration of how far the Pirates’ system still has to go. I’ve been asked a few times in the last month or so why the Pirates don’t have more prospects in this or that top 100 list, and it’s because they’ve drafted guys that will have to pitch their way onto those lists.