‘That’s the Expectation Every Year,’ Pirates Hoping to Keep Draft Momentum Going After Front Office Change
PITTSBURGH – You’d be hard-pressed to find a better stretch when picking in the first round than the Pirates have had the last three years.
In 2023, they took eventual Rookie of the Year and Cy Young winner Paul Skenes with the top pick. The following year, they used the ninth pick on Konnor Griffin, who signed a franchise-record contact extension after emerging as the top prospect in baseball. Last year, they took high school right-hander Seth Hernandez, who has already been labeled as one of the very best pitching prospects in the sport.
Three potential cornerstones in three straight years.
“Candidly, that’s the expectation every year,” said Pirates assistant general manager Kevan Graves when meeting with reporters at PNC Park on Tuesday. “We set out to add the most talent collectively to the organization, and certainly, when we’re drafting up top or towards the top, the best individual player that we can. You hope it plays out like it has the last few years.”
While the end goal is the same, the process will be a bit different for the Pirates this year. Justin Horowitz, who was in charge of running the last two draft operations, departed in the offseason to become an assistant general manager for the Nationals.
As part of Graves’ expanded duties in his assistant GM role, he will oversee the amateur draft in Horowitz’s absence.
Graves said the transition has been a smooth one.
“We worked incredibly closely together the last couple of years on the draft. I felt like the transition in that sense was really seamless, the relationships that we’ve built throughout the entire sort of domestic amateur group,” Graves explained.
“I think the biggest thing that stuck out to me this entire spring is just a group of really incredible teammates throughout the staff, both at the leadership level, the ground level, a lot of our skilled experts, everyone who’s been contributing to the draft for years now. How much they’ve really leaned into this, supported me, sort of rallied around each other. Feel like it’s gone really well. Feel incredibly prepared for this weekend. So I think we’re in a good spot”
The Pirates will have the fifth pick in the first round of this year’s draft, which gets underway on Saturday. Pittsburgh, who has four of the top 51 picks and five of the first 80, has the largest bonus pool of any of the 30 teams in the league ($19,130,700).
While their bonus pool, the largest in MLB history, could be advantageous in terms of strategy, Graves said it’s hard to say exactly what the Pirates will do until they see how everything unfolds. With that being said, he thinks highly of this year’s class.
“We feel good about this draft class,” he said. “We feel good about the players that might be available to us at five and beyond, and we’re certainly open to add to that group of talent that’s joined the organization the last few years.”
With or without Horowitz, the Pirates have had the same draft philosophy for when they’re on the clock; best player available trumps organizational need, especially with their top picks.
Under Graves, that will continue.
“We’re looking for the best possible player at each pick. We’re looking to add the best collection of talent across our 20-plus picks,” he explained. “Ultimately, we honestly give very little consideration to what may be a need, certainly at the Major League level. Organizationally, I think that’s where you might see a little bit of consideration, as you get down the board. When you talk about your top picks, it’s really all about adding the best player.”
In the final few days leading up to the draft, Graves and his group will refine the list of players they want to target at certain points of the draft and continue to connect with agents among other tasks. But when the time comes for the Pirates to turn in their draft card, they will again look to take the player that makes the most sense for the organization, and hope for the same success they’ve had the last three years.
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Except for the need for another frontline starter at #5 or a reliever prospect with one of the other top 3 picks, there is no need to draft for organizational need, except, perhaps 3B (who knows if we can afford Gonzales in free agency as he has increased his stock this year) or C (there several prospects are in the top 25). Flora has the talent and a quick path to the majors and we should treat it like our window is 2-3 years (with Barco, Henandez and Flora it is likely we could fill out a nice rotation as Keller might be washed up). We have a lot of prospects and players in the outfield, especially with the emergence of Valdez and our #2 prospec (Florentino) and #4 (Garcia), we are in good shape there. Extend our 2B and with our SS, do not take another middle fielder prospect as there are several high ranked prospects on the farm. My favorite pick (ignoring the top 3 are mostly set in stone and if one should fall snatch them, but avoid high schoolers as we do not have time for their development in order to use what is a fairly good roster now that is on a small market budget), would be Flora, if he makes it to us.
Loved, how I received a negative, downpost. Keller stunk it up again today and caused us to dip into the vastly weak, Santana-lead, bullpen. Points I made in which the anonymous expert differed, apparently. Sorry, as a fan, except for 1 and 2 it is time to move Termarr or other prospects, but not the competitive balance pick as that provides a great opportunity to advance the organization in order to obtain a reliever for this season as we are still in it. We can only keep Lowe and others so long as a small market team with a stingy owner, except last off-season, let us assume our window is tight based upon those factors and get a real closer.