Pirates Development Will Be Tested With High Risk, High Reward Top of Draft

After going heavy on college players in last year’s draft, the Pittsburgh Pirates used each of their first three selections on the first day of the 2024 draft on high school players.

In the first round, the Pirates drafted shortstop Konnor Griffin from Jackson Prep in Flowood, Miss. Griffin has a high ceiling and an intriguing skillset across the board with the potential to be a five-tool player.

The Pirates used their next selection to take 17-year-old right-hander Levi Sterling from Notre Dame High School in Sterling Oaks, Calif. Sterling is one of the youngest players available in this year’s draft.

To conclude the first day of the 2024 draft, the Pirates mirrored their first-round pick by taking another shortstop from the high school ranks. With the 47th pick, the Pirates took the sure-handed Wyatt Sanford from Independence High School in Frisco, Texas.

Although the Pirates went with three prep picks on day one, general manager Ben Cherington said that wasn’t necessarily the strategy heading into the draft.

“Best players on the board when it came to our picks,” said Cherington. “In all three of those spots, felt very strongly that those were the best talents on the board. Really excited about all three … we think we got three very different kinds of high school players tonight, all of whom have real upside and a chance to blossom in our system.”

Though it wasn’t by design, a couple of takeaways can be drawn from how the Pirates operated on day one.

For starters, going with high school teenagers instead of more polished college hitters and pitchers shows more of a high-risk, high-reward strategy.

Shortly after the Pirates selected Griffin in the first round, he joined a Zoom call with members of the media. Even he took notice after he was told the Pirates took Sterling in the compensation round.

“That kind of shows you they’re on the road to success in the big leagues right now,” he said. “They’re gonna stack up in their farm system and be good for a long time.”

But in order for the Pirates to get most out of their riskier strategy, the Pirates will have to trust in their development to get the most out of the players they took.

Since Cherington took over as general manager, the Pirates have had success developing pitchers drafted out of high school. Jared Jones has emerged has a legitimate rotation piece this season after he was taken in Cherington’s first draft class with the Pirates in 2020. Other pitching prospects such as Bubba Chandler, Thomas Harrington and Braxton Ashcraft (taken in 2018) are showing promise in the upper levels of the system.

However, the Pirates have struggled in developing position players. A handful of the Pirates’ top hitting prospects have had their share of struggles this season, so the biggest question mark in development will be tested with both Griffin and Sanford.

While Griffin has five-tool potential, his hit tool is the biggest question mark, but the Pirates are not as concerned with it as some others and feel he will thrive once he starts his professional career.

“There definitely was a narrative surrounding Konnor’s hit tool in the industry,” said first-year amateur scouting director Justin Horowitz.  But, the thing that we really believe in is Konnor’s contact ability. He doesn’t swing and miss much at all. He had a great spring. We think there’s even more upside with some of the potential adjustments that he could make in a professional player development environment, minor tweaks to his swing or certain things that might help him get to a little bit more consistent impact.

“But overall, we do not have serious hit tool concerns on Konnor Griffin. If that was the case, we would not have selected him. We’re confident Konnor is going to be a very talented hitter and is going to tap into some power and round out his game in an effective way.”

It won’t be known for years whether or not the Pirates’ unfamiliar draft strategy will pay off, but to get the most out of the three prospects — Griffin and Sanford in particular — the organization will need to prove its capable of developing position-player prospects better than the current track record shows.