After I spent last night and this morning wondering if the Pirates were ever going to try and acquire high-upside position players in the draft, the Bucs kicked Day 2 of the 2011 draft off with a bang by drafting Josh Bell with the first pick of the second round (61st overall). Bell, a Texas high schooler, was Baseball America’s 15th best prospect in this draft, their fifth-ranked position player, and their top corner outfielder. As a senior in high school this year, he homered 13 times and struck out five times in 139 plate appearances. He’s exactly the sort of player I wanted the Pirates to pick with the first pick in the second round, and he’s supposedly going to be next-to-impossible to sign. Of course, since he’s a Boras client (er, advisee, I guess) we won’t actually know whether he’s going to sign with the Pirates or not until about 1:00 AM on August 16th. With that sort of talent falling all the way to #61, though, he’s definitely worth the risk Neal Huntington and co. took on him today. The Pirates did way more than just draft Bell, yesterday, though, so let’s go through the interesting picks.
The Pirates followed Bell up with another power-hitting prospect: Alex Dickerson from Indiana University. Dickerson played some outfield with the Hoosiers, but profiles as a first baseman for the Pirates. His first two years at Indiana were excellent; he was the Big 10 freshman of the year in 2009 and the player of the year in 2010 after winning the conference’s Triple Crown. He dropped off a bit this year, though, and only hit 9 homers after combining for 38 in his first two college seasons. He’s apparently had some back problems, which could have been the source of his power outage in 2011, though there was also concern that college baseball’s new bats caused him problems and could be a bad sign for his transition to wood in the pros. Whatever the case, he was Baseball America’s 42nd best prospect this year and the Pirates got him with the 91st pick. As a college player, there’s a decent chance he’ll be a quick sign and we’ll have some idea of what he can do in pro ball by the end of the summer.
After taking two hitters, the Pirates went on a run of high school pitchers, taking five in the next six picks. Colten Brewer, Tyler Glasnow, Jake Burnette, Jason Creasy, and Clay Holmes all fit the Neal Huntington mold; they’re all 6’4″ or taller (Glasnow is 6’7″, Holmes is 6’5″), they all have college commitments except for Brewer, who’s committed to a JuCo, and they’re all the projectable type that will probably be difficult (read: expensive) signs. From what I can tell, Holmes, the ninth rounder, is the only one of the group in Baseball America’s Top 200, coming in at 140.
Sandwiched in with that group in the sixth round was Auburn third baseman Dan Gamache. He’s another college hitter that followed a good freshman and sophomore year with an iffy junior year, which raises questions about how he’ll fare with wooden bats. After hitting .365 with 15 doubles and eight homers, he hit .299 this year with 13 doubles and five homers. Again, he should in theory be a quick sign, so we’ll probably have an idea of what he’s capable of right out of the gate.
Starting with the pick of Taylor Lewis from the University of Maine-Orono in the tenth round, the Pirates picked outfielders and pitchers with every pick through the 19th round and except for Lewis and 18th rounder Josh Poytress (Fresno State), they’re all high schoolers. After that, some shortstops started popping up, though from what I can tell none of them seem to be all that highly regarded (we are, after all, talking about picks after the 20th round at this point). Honestly, it’s hard to say much about the guys that get picked after about the 10th round. As always, Pirates Prospects is the best place to go for more in-depth information on all of these guys.
The lesson to take out of Day 2, though, is that the Pirates are going to be spending plenty of money on this year’s draft again. Cole won’t be a cheap sign, and if they sign him and Bell they might surpass previous years’ budgets on two players alone. Given recent history, the Bucs will also almost certainly sign some of the high school pitchers they drafted to big bonuses as well. That’s very good news, of course; we’ve been saying since Huntington’s first draft in 2008 that spending big on the draft should be an every-year thing for a team like the Pirates and not an exception to the rule. There shouldn’t be any doubt remaining that it will be for this front office, unless the draft changes drastically in the near future.
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