As the Pirates’ picks started piling up on the second day of the draft, it became apparent pretty quickly that Neal Huntington was out to acquire arms. With their first ten picks, the Pirates took nine right-handed pitchers and seven of those nine were high schoolers. Things evened out a bit over the next 20 rounds, but I won’t pretend to know much of anything about the guys drafted after even the first few rounds. I think it’s fair to wonder what’s up with the slew of arms, though, and try to parse some meaning out of the strategy.
The statement that got repeated over and over again during Huntington’s big run on arms was very much along the lines of, “There are no hitters in the system. Why’s he drafting so many pitchers?” I’m not sure that’s an entirely fair statement, though. Andrew McCutchen was the Pirates’ best prospect and he’s now their best player with the team still holding five years of control over his contract. Pedro Alvarez is their best prospect now, and they should have him for six years after this year. Ordering prospects the prospects is kind of a crapshoot after that, but I think you could convincingly argue that the Pirates’ two best prospects after that are Jose Tabata, who’s bat is really coming around nicely in Triple-A this year, and Tony Sanchez, who’s supposed to be a Gold Glove caliber catcher and whose bat has been much better than expected. Beyond Brad Lincoln, who’s a nice mid-rotation prospect but not much more, there’s Bryan Morris and Rudy Owens, a bunch of questions about Tim Alderson, and a bunch of guys we know virtually nothing about from recent trades and draft picks.
After last year’s draft the pitching depth was improved greatly, but we know virtually nothing more about Zach Von Rosenberg, Trent Stevenson, and Billy Cain today than we did when they were drafted a year ago other than that they signed with the Pirates. After the strategy of taking a run of pitchers in the 4-10 area worked out well, I think that the plan coming into this draft was to repeat it. As the GM of a team like the Pirates, you can’t just draft Jameson Taillon or take a few pitchers one year and decide you’re done adding talented pitchers to your system; pitchers are harder to develop and harder to project and harder to keep healthy than position players.
But the draft is about more than adding pitching; it’s about adding talent. Neal Huntington was hesitant to take a high school arm with his first pick last year, but felt for a number of reasons that he couldn’t pass Jameson Taillon up. When Stetson Allie fell into his lap at #52, it seems pretty clear he felt like he didn’t have a choice. Those two, assuming they both sign, bring talent in spades to the Pirates’ system. In a year, we’ll be able to evaluate the high school draftees from 2009 much better and everyone, the front office included, will have a much clearer picture of what the system needs and doesn’t need. Until then, the puzzle’s not complete and I’m just not sure it’s worth criticizing at this point.
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