COMMENTS ON PIRATES' 2005 DRAFT
The 2005 draft was probably the most peculiar one conducted by the Pirates in a very long time. After years of showing little or no interest in power hitters and corner players, they went overwhelmingly after both. Their eighteen Day One picks included seven outfielders, a first baseman, and two middle infielders who both have shown good power. Four of the outfielders were center fielders, but all except one of them have shown some power or at least power potential. The Pirates took position players with their top four picks and six of their top eight. Their draft also had strong college and starboard tilts. After the first pick, the Pirates took twelve straight college players. They didn't take a LH hitter or pitcher until their first pick on Day Two, although they did take a switch-hitter in the 3rd round.

The Pirates' draft had several other noticeable aspects. For one, several of their early picks appeared to be significant overdrafts. Their picks in rounds 2, 3 and 5 all were generally regarded as prospects who would go after the first five rounds. Their 2nd rounder, Brad Corley, even expressed surprise at going so early, and RHP Jeff Sues, taken in round 5, has a history of elbow problems. The Pirates also went heavily for hitters with dubious plate discipline. Corley has never walked much. James Boone and Brent Lillibridge, the 3rd and 4th round picks, have had serious problems making contact, as Boone has fanned in about a third of his ABs and Lillibridge in about a fourth. Finally, the Pirates went very heavily for college seniors, who are considered easier, and cheaper, to sign, but who have already been passed over at least once and therefore, except in unusual cases, are not considered to have high ceilings. They took four seniors among their first ten picks and seven on Day One. Normally, college seniors would be expected to go mostly in the later rounds.

So what are the explanations for this draft, which was strongly out of character for the organization in many respects? There were probably several factors at play.

One undoubtedly was the current state of the farm system. The results of the team's poor amateur scouting since Dave Littlefield was named GM are becoming very conspicuous this year. Lynchburg has a remarkably old roster, especially among their position players. They don't have a single position player under age 23, and only two pitchers. An ideal age for a legitimate prospect at that level is about 21. Most of the Hillcats' hitters are within a few months of 25, or older. This reflects the absence of legitimate prospects and the resulting need to stock the roster with minor league veterans. Hickory has a different problem. The Crawdads' roster isn't loaded with veterans. Instead, it's loaded with position players who simply can't hit. Despite playing in a hitter's park, the 'Dads are last in the South Atlantic League in runs, slugging, extra-base hits and OBP, the first three by a wide margin. In fact, as I write this, their .328 team slugging average is the lowest in all of organized baseball, with only a couple of teams even close. This state of affairs is not a new development, as both Williamsport and Bradenton have been largely devoid of power the last two years. Littlefield's scouting staff has instead focused on drafting speedy singles hitters, while the international scouting has yet to produce a single bona fide prospect. To top it off, both Lynchburg and Hickory are short on pitching prospects as well.

The middle parts of the system are faced with the possibility of fielding very bad, uncompetitive teams over the next few years. Most of Hickory's position players have struggled so badly that they're unlikely to be able to last long in pro ball. The collection of players remaining in extended spring training is, at best, very similar to the one already at Hickory, so help isn't going to come from that quarter. The team's farm system was in similar shape when Mickey White became scouting director for the last three years of Cam Bonifay's tenure. White has said that he found the system filled with several dozen players from independent leagues. So many of the Pirates' prospects had quickly flopped in the preceding years that the organization had had to scrape together players just to fill out the minor league rosters. One of his main priorities was correcting this problem. The Pirates now are evidently trying to do the same thing, drafting college hitters who should be able to reach Hickory and Lynchburg quickly. Even though some of them will not pan out as prospects, it should help to have quality players throughout the system. Many baseball people— specifically including the Pirates' current farm director, Brian Graham—consider it important for the legitimate prospects to play on competitive teams in the minors.

Other factors beside the need to retool the system seem to have played a strong role in this draft. One, obviously, is the fact that the Pirates under Littlefield fall at the "tools" end of the tools-vs.-performance-analysis spectrum. They've seldom placed any emphasis on plate discipline, in particular, at any level of their organization. The results have been evident for years at the major league level, as the Pirates annually find themselves near the bottom in offense. The one exception was 2003, when the team had a veteran lineup that included a number of patient hitters. Of course, it's always possible that, this time, the Pirates will get the opposite results from their scouting approach, but what are the odds of an approach that's failed them consistently in the past suddenly starting to work?

One thing that's striking about the Pirates' sudden interest in college players is how it differs from the approach taken by teams like Oakland and St. Louis, which have had strong college orientations in recent years (although not this year). Those teams have stocked up on college players with the idea of replenishing their systems with low-risk players who'll move quickly to the upper levels. The trade-off is that they've had to draft players with low ceilings. The Pirates, however, have gone in this draft for hitters who need to make significant adjustments in their approaches. As a result, the players they took may be both high-risk and low-ceiling, the worst of both worlds.

Another conclusion that's difficult to escape is that there are financial reasons for the Pirates' draft approach. The Pirates have increasingly pointed to the farm system as the recipient of their extensive revenue sharing funds. CEO Kevin McClatchy has retreated from an earlier statement that those funds were going partly on debt service, which is prohibited by the collective bargaining agreement. Instead, he's resorted to vague and highly suspect claims that the money is being spent on the farm system. The team's 2005 draft, however, brings those claims again into question. Top pick Andrew McCutchen stated early on his eagerness to sign, leaving little doubt that he'll sign for slot money or less. One of the team's backup choices in case they couldn't get McCutchen was Cliff Pennington, who was not considered worthy of the 11th choice and who signed with Oakland the day after being selected. Corley, Boone and Sues were all drafted several rounds earlier than expected and are also likely to sign for less than slot money. Finally, the inordinate number of college seniors chosen with early picks is likely to lessen the team's bonus spending, as seniors have little leverage due to their college eligibility being up.

There may be another, indirect financial motivation for the college-heavy draft. McClatchy has often in the past few years pointed to W/L records and playoff appearances by the Pirates' minor league affiliates as evidence that the franchise is making progress in increasing its talent level. Sophisticated fans know that winning games in the minors and developing good prospects for the majors have little to do with one another, at least when the wins are mainly the product of overage rosters, which has been the case with the Pirates' system in recent years. In fact, Baseball America, in an article this past spring about the poor state of the Yankees' farm system, cited George Steinbrenner's desire to see winning records in the minors as the largest factor in the system's problems. Many fans, however, don't understand the importance of factors like age in assessing minor league prospects. They think that, if a 26-yr-old player hits 25 HRs in AA, he should hit a lot of HRs in the majors. The Pirates' sudden, overwhelming interest in college players may have resulted from ownership's concern that many of the affiliates might start producing very poor records, eliminating one of McClatchy's favorite spin tactics.

One final factor at play might also be the recent rumors that McClatchy and his partners will put the team on the market after it hosts the 2006 All-Star Game. If that is indeed the plan, draft bonuses paid to players who won't reach the majors for a couple years at best, even if they are college players, would do nothing to enhance the current ownership's profits at the major league level. Getting some help quickly for the middle levels of the farm system, however, might enable McClatchy to continue pointing to wins in the minors as evidence that the organization is getting stronger, which in turn might help stave off criticism of ownership's unwillingness or inability to fund a major league payroll. When the bill comes due, in the form of a once-again barren farm system, McClatchy and his partners may be gone . . . and much richer.

Return to Introductory Page