Whether a coincidence or not, the Pirates have had success in the 5th round with college pitchers Waddell (2015 draft, left) and Wilson (2008 draft, right).
It’s hard to say that a team has a type of player they look for in a certain round. Every draft is its own living organism and teams are taking players they want based on talent and signing bonus demands. However, one could look at the eight drafts completed under Neal Huntington and say that the Pirates might have a thing for college pitchers in the 5th round.
The 2016 draft will take place from June 9-11, so the 5th round will occur on Friday the 10th. There’s a better than average chance that the pick will be a college pitcher, especially one that is considered somewhat polished from a major program. In eight drafts, the Pirates have drafted five college pitchers in the 5th round. (A 6th pitcher was a high school pick by the name of Tyler Glasnow, who is obviously shaping up to be the most successful 5th rounder of all eight). Interestingly, the here-to-now bookends of Huntington’s tenure, 2008’s Justin Wilson and 2015’s Brandon Waddell, were both lefties and both prominent members of College World Series-winning teams.
The Pirates are very methodical at their placement and movement of players within their minor league system. For the most part, it is one rung at a time, with certain exceptions for players performing well outside the curve. But there’s seemingly always one college-drafted pitcher that gets skipped over Low-A during their first full season in the Pirates’ system. That happened to both Justin Wilson and Brandon Waddell, in addition to 2012 5th round draftee Adrian Sampson, who was traded to the Mariners for JA Happ last July and is flourishing in Triple-A for them.
Wilson is well-known to you, loyal Pirate fan, but to quickly recap — cultivated as a starting pitcher, but his control issues of routinely posting 4+ walks per 9 innings precluded him from starting in the Majors, became a powerful lefty reliever, traded for Francisco Cervelli. Brandon Waddell may be less known to you. Waddell got a taste of the minors last year after his extended run to winning the College World Series with Virginia. As I mentioned, he was skipped over Low-A and assigned to High-A Bradenton where he proceeded to put up five dominant starts (4-0, 0.93 ERA, 29 IP, 13 H, 2 BB, 26 K). He was then quickly promoted even further to Double-A Altoona on May 3rd. This is fairly unprecedented for the Pirates, who are reticent to move players up quickly, especially not until mid-June after the fresh crop of draftees are in the system and prospect promotions typically happen. Waddell has acquitted himself well in Double-A with a 3-0/2.41 ERA/18 IP, 15 H, 2 BB, 12 K performance in three starts.
Even though Waddell is off to a sizzling start, his ultimate upside is probably that of a #3/#4 starter. His fastball sits 90-92 mph with a very good slider and workable changeup, as well. I fear he may be relying on his somewhat deceptive release to fool lower level hitters at this point in his career. Getting to the Majors at all is a great feat for a 5th rounder. There have been some studies a few years back that showed the rate is around 30% for all drafted 5th rounders to make the Majors and less than 10% will enjoy careers featuring more than 1.0 WAR.
Barring injuries, Waddell seems as if he has a strong tailwind of support from the Pirates’ front office and will be pushed accordingly until resistance is met. It appears the Pirates may have been having an internal debate over his initial 2016 placement then promoted him early once he proved someone wrong. It would be hard to envision him moving up to Triple-A this season, but with Glasnow/Taillon/Kuhl all possibilities to see Pittsburgh this year, someone is going to have to pitch in the rotation in Indianapolis. Assuming he stays in Altoona the remainder of 2016, Waddell seems to be a lock to start at Indy in 2017. With Cole-Liriano-Taillon-Glasnow shaping up to be the front four in the rotation for 2017, there may not be a lot of room at the inn for Waddell to see Pittsburgh mid-2017. But his ascent heretofore has been swift and somewhat unexpected, so a mid-2017 debut in the Majors wouldn’t be the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard.
Two weeks from now all eyes will be on the Pirates’ 1st round pick on Thursday, June 9th. But keep an eye on who they draft in the 5th round the next day, too. Odds are in favor that it will be a solid, college pitcher that the Pirates have strong hopes for.
]]>
Is Neil Walker expendable at the trade deadline?
Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images
I thought about starting this piece with a goofball take on the Pirates’ front office as actual pirates using actual players to fish for sharks but luckily for the readers:
1) I’m not that cheesy
2) I don’t feel like hating myself tomorrow morning
Regardless of how the piece begins, every fan needs to accept that in order to get something at the trade deadline, you need to give something of value up in return. To put it in hockey terms, Beau Bennett, Brian Dumoulin and a 4th round pick does not equal Brandon Saad. You can’t trade spare parts, busts and trash and expect a solid return like you can playing some EA game.
The Pirates are in a great position ahead of the August trade deadline thanks to depth in both the minors and at the major league level to make a real splash. That’s not to say that they will, but they can. Here’s a look at a few names I would consider trading. In a future post, I’ll look at who I wouldn’t trade.
5 Players To Trade
Josh Bell
Let me make it clear. I like Josh Bell and he’s one of my favorite prospects right now. With the emphasis on the shift, I like the idea of a line drive hitter who can just put the ball in play by spraying it to all fields. I also want a guy who can reliably put the ball in play in the middle of the order, as I believe Bell can. The power output right now is not ideal for first base, but there is a dearth of pure hitters in the league. He seems like a nice reliable security blanket that you just don’t need to worry about.
However, he could be well regarded on the trade market for teams looking for a near-ready bat and the return could be considerable. He might also be somewhat expendable if the Pirates feel confident they can land another Korean slugger in Byung-Ho Park. If the Pirates want to make a big move at the deadline, they’ll need to move a big prospect and Bell just might be the guy.
Neil Walker
Let’s be honest — Neil Walker’s days in Pittsburgh are numbered. An extension hasn’t materialized and with the smoother-than-expected transition to North America for Jung-ho Kang, the steady, but not spectacular progress in the minors by Alen Hanson and the breakout of middle round over-slot prep player Max Moroff, the need to keep him around dwindles with each passing day.
We’ve seen more and more selling teams over the last two seasons looking to buy established players. Walker could be attractive for a team down on their luck in 2015 that can to rebound quickly in 2016 like the Oakland A’s or one that incorrectly thinks they can like the Chicago White Sox.
Mark Melancon
From some people, this might seem like a scraps for treasure proposal. However, I’ve been one of a handful that wasn’t so quick to give up on the Shark this season despite the early velocity drop and his slow start. By slow start, I mean one blown save and a couple of hairy outings made closer than they needed to be. He’s rebounded considerably and put himself into a position to pitch the ninth in of the All Star Game for the National League.
Of course, now might be the right time to strike up a deal. Melancon heads into his final year of arbitration already making $5.4 million this season. With Tony Watson, Arquimedes Caminero, Jared Hughes and even Rob Scahill looking like late inning options, there wouldn’t be much need to keep Melancon on the payroll at $7-8 million next season. Do you trade him now when you get more value in the return or do you trade him later after you get more value on the field?
While MLB GM’s seem to be wising up about the returns they’re willing to shell out for a reliever in trades, this could be a great opportunity for the Pirates to trade strength for strength with another contender or simply replenish the system hurt by players they lost in other deals. Personally, I’d prefer they hold out on the latter option until the offseason, unless the buying team is willing to massively overpay with the Angels, Rangers and Rays all looking like suitable dance partners for the former.
Adrian Sampson
Sampson’s not a guy that any rebuilding organization is going to build their rotation around, but he could provide a useful building block that can eat innings now and later at the back end of a contending rotation. He pitched 167 innings last year between AA and AAA and sits in the top five in the International League this season for innings.
Problem is, there really isn’t anywhere for him to go in Pittsburgh. Vance Worley could come out of the pen if needed and Clayton Richard has likely supplanted him on the depth chart. He’s probably a coin flip with Casey Sadler for the eighth man right now and really that might depend on what day of the week it is. On top of that, there is the looming return of Jameson Taillon who will skip over everyone once sufficiently recovered from Tommy John surgery. Sampson had a two week window at the beginning of May where he had a real shot at sneaking into a major league debut, but that moment has passed and he’s buried again.
Just because he can’t help the Pirates doesn’t mean he can’t help anyone else. While he won’t land Cole Hamels, he could slide into the Phillies and a couple of other rotations tomorrow. He might also be a year or so away from helping a couple of others.
Reese McGuire
This might be an example of selling low, but it also might be an example of recovering some value from a sunk cost. McGuire’s an interesting case study. He’s showing outstanding defense in the early part of his career throwing out 31% of the runners who attempt to steal on him at a level where pitchers aren’t known to pay much attention to runners. He’s also showing excellent contact skills by only striking out 9.5% of the time, good for 5th best in the FSL. Problem is, he owns a .275 BABIP and has hit for virtually no power. While he’s got some time to save his season, there’s not a lot of success stories of guys who OPS around .600 in High A, outside of Martin Maldonado.
That said, McGuire is still young and has time to turn it around. Trade partners might be enticed by the combination of age, defense and contact and might bet that the rest of the package will develop. McGuire has shown the ability to spray the ball to all fields and he has hit a fair amount of line drives. The Pirates likely won’t get top 100 value for him, but it’s not out of the question that some organizations will see him as a B- bat with potential to develop into a solid option every third day.
***
In the end, the Pirates will need to make a package to complete any significant move, but the above choices could factor in. Some have more significant value than others, but each has something to offer partners. The moves could also turn into ones the front office will regret later, but you need to give something to get something.
]]>
When will Taillon debut in Pittsburgh in 2015?
Photo via Inside Pitch
Follow The Point of Pittsburgh on Twitter @thepointofpgh or like us on Facebook.
It’s prospect season! That’s the time of year between the end of the winter meetings and when pitchers and catchers report dedicated to organization ranking lists and Top 100’s. It’s down time for everyone but the nerdiest of fans. We at The Point of Pittsburgh decided to join the fun. Where most lists stop at ten or thirty, we’re going all the way up to forty making ours the nerdiest list around.
Each of us completed our individual lists and then aggregated them into a complete list. Today, we’ll look at the top ten. Ages in parentheses are as of July 1st, 2015. We projected what level the player will spend the majority of the 2015 season, as well. In case you missed them, here are some links:
10. Harold Ramirez (20) OF, A+
Kevin Creagh – Has all the tools to be a starting OF, but I am a sizeist. It’s hard to see his 5’10” frame (yes, I know Cutch is the same height) starting for the Pirates long-term. Probable trade chip in the future
Steve DiMiceli – I think people overlook what he’s done at his age. He’s a potential Five Tool centerfielder, and even though you wouldn’t know it from the Pirates organization, they don’t grow on trees.
Michael Bradley – Potential 4 tool guy (minus the power). Injuries robbed him of time in ’14 but he’s still very young.
9. Elias Diaz (24) C, AAA/MLB
Michael – A plus backup catcher floor with a ceiling to be an average starter. Diaz breakout in ’14 gives the “FranChrisco” tandem some depth and provides a bridge to McGuire.
Steve – Has the defensive makings of a solid back up catcher, but I’d like to see the bat play a little higher at AAA before I’d call him the heir apparent for the starting catching role as some presume.
Kevin –If he continues to progress at AAA in 2015, Diaz could be 2016’s opening day catcher. Bat could be above-avg for position
8. Adrian Sampson (23) RHP, AAA
Steve – Sampson is another great example of why you shouldn’t lose your crap on a player when the Pirates move them quickly. Looking like a great back-of-rotation innings eater, but I bet he’ll reach that ceiling somewhere else.
Kevin – Broke out in 2014, probably a #4 long term. Could see the Majors in 2015 down the stretch
7. Reese McGuire (20) C, A+
Kevin – Touted as catcher of the future. Defense said to be Major League ready right now, but alarming lack of power (even doubles) is a flag for me. Yes, he’s young, but it was an empty average in 2014
Steve – His solid contact skills and defense will carry him through the minors but his ceiling is Ryan Hanigan if he doesn’t develop a little pop.
Michael – When you have a player that scouts enjoy watching play defense you know you have a gem. McGuire supposedly handles pitchers like a ML vet and has hit enough to keep getting promoted. He hasn’t shown a giant platoon split yet and is crazy young for an American born player. Ceiling is HIGH but his bat could fail.
6. Alen Hanson (22) 2B, AAA
Steve – I still have questions about whether or not the bat will translate to the majors, but he still has upside even at second base if he gets it together.
Michael – While he might be lower on everyone else’s list, the fact that he could contribute TODAY gets him this high. He’s super young, doesn’t have a large platoon split, could play some short and has JHay potential.
Kevin – Brings a nice blend of power/speed to 2B position. Attitude concerns lead me to believe that Pirates would move him in the right deal. Kang may have been a hedge for such a move
5. Josh Bell (22) RF/1B, AA/AAA
Kevin –If the power develops this year, could be 2016’s 1B. Move to 1B dings his value a touch, so #5 feels right
Michael – Probably the lowest you’ll see Bell ranked. His hit tool is OK, his defense is OK, his patience and power is OK for a corner. He’s not super young anymore. He’s an good prospect that could turn into a Nick Swisher type or a switch hitting Travis Snider.
Steve – While his second half power outage was concerning, Bell makes for a rare combination of pop and plate discipline. He could be heading towards that high ceiling of his.
4. Nick Kingham (23) RHP, AAA/MLB
Michael – While he’s a pitcher and has some of the same drawbacks that pitchers do, his risk is less. First, he’s succeeded at AA and a little at AAA. Second, he has the command and control it’s just a question of whether his stuff is good enough.
Steve – There is no such thing as a safe pitching prospect, but my goodness does Kingham feel like it. He likely won’t be more than a 3 but his ability to eat innings will play anywhere in the rotation.
Kevin – Solid #3 for me, also on verge of Majors
3. Austin Meadows (20) OF, A+
Kevin – Dynamic talent that was beset by hamstring injury in 2014. If he performs as expected, should be #2 on this list next year behind Glasnow
Steve – Meadows is still so far away, but if he can stay healthy while mashing A+ pitching as a third year pro, I suspect he’ll earn elite status.
Michael – The ceiling (5 tool star), the fact he can stick in CF and mainly the fact that he’s not a pitcher vault him up to #1 (for me).
2. Tyler Glasnow (21) RHP, AA
Michael – He’s number two mainly due to the fact that very few pitchers reach their ceiling or stay healthy. Gerrit Cole was more talented than him and still is only a 2 WAR player so far.
Kevin – May have higher upside than Taillon, but control still a slight concern, plus needing to prove it at AA. Enviable problem to choose between them
Steve – Glasnow has the highest ceiling in the system, but I still have concerns with his floor thanks to control. I think he’s a major leaguer but will he start?
1. Jameson Taillon (23) RHP, AAA/MLB
Kevin – Still a #2 level pitcher for me, on verge of Majors, fastball-curve combo should make him AJ Burnett
Steve – Tommy John surgery doesn’t even scare me anymore. Taillon looked like he could jump into a major league rotation as a solid 4 when I saw him pitch in Altoona. He’s a great combination of ceiling and floor.
Michael -Tommy John and the lack of a third plus pitch overcome the makeup, the body and his stellar appearance as a Canadian pitcher in the World Baseball Classic.
****
Follow The Point of Pittsburgh on Twitter @thepointofpgh or like us on Facebook.
Follow Steve on Twitter @SteveDiMiceli
]]>
His years of control and ability to slot in as a #4 starter make Locke valuable
Photo via Broken Bats Baseball
Over the past five to ten years, it has become a staple in baseball circles to determine the value of a player. The best way to determine the value of a player is to do it in the terms of a trade where you must take all the factors of a player into account: age, years of control, contract, position scarcity and most importantly, ability.
Bill Simmons started the craze at ESPN (and now on Grantland) with NBA players, which led Dave Cameron to adapt it for the Trade Value rankings of MLB players at Fangraphs. Jonah Keri has joined in for the last few years at Grantland for baseball, too. Here at TPOP we will do our own Trade Value Top 25, but it will be just for the Pirates. The theory is that the player ranked 15th could be traded for the player ranked 22nd plus something else. Remember, years of control and contract status are VERY important in trade value. The number in parentheses is the player’s age during the 2015 season (using the standard July 1st cutoff date) and their projected 2015 level assignment is shown, as well. On to the rankings:
25. Adrian Sampson (23) RHP – AAA – 6 years of control, pre-arbitration
Sampson did not meet his Delilah this year; just the contrary. He’d probably be on my short list for breakout Pirate prospect in 2014. When you look at Sampson two things stand out. First, he’s young for reaching AAA as he’s only 23. Second, he has great control. In 148 AA innings this year he averaged only 1.8 BB/9. While his K/9 rate wasn’t great at 6.0 it wasn’t horrible either. It wouldn’t surprise me if he stalls outs and goes the route of Jared Hughes or Tony Watson, but it also wouldn’t surprise me for him to turn into a Jeff Karstens-type pitcher (extreme control) while hopefully having a couple better seasons.
24. Jeff Locke (27) LHP – ML – 4 years of control, pre-arbitration
Locke is a personal favorite of mine, solely because I’ve been to the little town he’s from in New Hampshire and have seen how much of a demi-god he is up in the land of free living. The message board folks often talk of Locke as a soft tosser because of some of his predecessors, but that cast doesn’t fit. Locke has real stuff, it just is sometimes hard for him to locate it, which led him to lead the league in walks in 2013. He improved his walk rate in 2014 from 4.5 BB/9 to 2.7 BB/9, but he could totally implode and end up back on the ski slopes in New Hampshire, or he could become a #3 starter. With already having some success, his youth and his cheap years of control would be desirable in a trade.
23. Mark Melancon (30) RP – ML – 2 years of control, second time through arbitration
When talking about possible DFA’s in November, Melancon was briefly mentioned since arbitration projections thought he would get paid higher than the $5.4M he received and the fact the Pirates don’t pay relievers much. Melancon has been VERY good the last two years. His cutter has been mentioned by many (most prominently Buster Olney) as one of the best pitches in baseball. His control is also excellent allowing for some amazing K/BB numbers. Melancon has two problems: his save totals might cause him to get expensive in arbitration and he’s a reliever. The Pirates have made it a point to jettison relievers as they get expensive, going back to Matt Capps. I think the Pirates will look to deal Melancon at the trade deadline. If not he could be traded for peanuts next fall. Remember, relievers don’t have much value to most teams. A crazy idea would be a team friendly extension, but Melancon might be able to break the bank in two years and probably would never consider it.
22. Cole Tucker (18) SS – Low A – 6 years of control, pre-arbitration
First, Cole Tucker has a great baseball name. Second, Cole Tucker impressed the crap out of the Pittsburgh media upon his introduction. Ironically, he played for ex-Pirate 1B Kevin Young on a summer league team in which his double play partner was ex-Pirate 2B Jay Bell’s son. The Tucker pick was a lightning rod in the Pittsburgh media. I think this was due to the fact that it surprised everyone, which could be a good thing. I will speak to the Pirates’ new drafting strategy in an upcoming article, but in reference to the Tucker pick, they bought low on a player with considerable upside. If he can stay at SS he could be a Jimmy Rollins-type. Or if he has to shift to 2B then Neil Walker isn’t a bad comp. I loved the Tucker pick and will speak more on this in an upcoming article.
21. Chris Stewart (33) C – ML – 2 years of control, second time through arbitration
I’ll admit the fact that a friend of mine knows Chris Stewart and says he’s a tremendous human being, which clouds my judgement slightly. I’m also clouded by my new school view of catcher defense and pitch framing. Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs and SABR acclaim lists Stewart in nearly every article he writes on pitch framing. That’s because a) Stewart is that good at it and b) that’s really all he’s good at, saving teams dozens of runs over the last few years. Well, it’s not surprising that on offense he is also good at managing the strike zone. Stewart had an abnormally high .361 OBP in a relatively small sample in 2014 but he has a career BB% of 14.0% in 888 ML PAs. The guy is going to walk and play good defense and will be cheap for another two years. His $1.225M salary in 2015 makes him a tradeable asset.
Tomorrow — #20 to #16
]]>
Justin Wilson was a 5th round pick in 2008 by the Pirates
Photo by Charles LeClaire (USA Today Sports)
About a week ago, I was cleaning up my personal Top 30 Pirates Prospects for our Pirates staff writer Top 40 that we’ll be running here very soon and something struck me. I’ve always liked the Pirates’ approach to developing pitching. Success in the minors be damned, Pirate draftees will learn to locate a fastball in the part of the zone where it is difficult to make strong contact. The idea is to efficiently pitch to contact, get ground balls put in play and let the defensive shifts go to work. Prospects threw the fastball 80% of the time and for some that carried all the way through to their time in Double A Altoona. Problem is, it may have cost some pitchers a little feel for secondary stuff. I liked their system even better when I heard they tweaked it to increase emphasis on the change up.
The emphasis for the draft the first four years under Neal Huntington was about getting high ceiling, projectable high school pitchers into the system and spending the money to get them signed. With no point of reference, however, it really felt like the Pirates were actually becoming a factory for making something out of seemingly nothing in the middle rounds of the draft when it comes to college pitchers and JUCO pitchers. Brandon Cumpton could be a number four pitcher in quite a few rotations around the majors, but he’s stuck as the number seven guy for the Pirates. His place could slip even further as the first wave of high school talent like Jameson Taillon and Nick Kingham look set to surpass him. Justin Wilson is the new set up man in the Bronx. Casey Sadler’s looking like a long man at worst, while fellow 20+ rounder Phil Irwin had a chance to crack the Texas Rangers’ rotation this past season after the Pirates released him. Then there are the sinker ball throwing, back of the rotation types my top 30 is littered with who haven’t yet reached the majors. It’s almost looking too easy.
Of course everything is relative, so rather than get overjoyed by my narrow framed and myopic observation, I decided to look at how the league in general was doing with the college pitchers they scouted, drafted and developed asking a simple question, how are the Pirates doing relative to other teams at getting college level pitchers to the majors?
To be clear, I’m only looking at those who made it. Frankly, I wasn’t all that interested in how those pitchers did when they got to the show for a couple of reasons. First, my observation was that they were looking like a factory which to me suggests mass production, not artisan craftsmanship. If their goal was to simply take overlooked prospects and develop them into decent pitchers who earn a shot as it seemed, they are getting value from the middle rounds anyway. Second, the Pirates’ priority seemed to be with the high school pitchers; any production they got from college pitchers felt like a bonus.
I employed a straight forward methodology. I looked at every teams draft from 2008 – 2011, Neal Huntington’s first four years on the job, and tabulated how many pitchers each team developed from the fourth to the twenty-fifth rounds. I started with the fourth to avoid supplemental picks and it seems like the earliest round where teams completely leave the script behind. Chances are they’re going off the reservation when it comes to pre-draft rankings and teams might get their best available player in the fourth and then the next player on their board in the fifth. I cut it off at the twenty-fifth because that was the end of the middle rounds in the old draft system. Teams were halfway home and it felt like a clean place to end my research. On top of that, I spent enough time on this piece looking at twenty-one rounds. In the end, there weren’t many success stories drafted in the late rounds and it would have honestly distorted the success rates of earlier picks.
So how did the Pirates fare? Short answer is they are above average, but I wouldn’t call what they did those first four years under the new front office factory – type production. Here is a chart of the top ten most productive teams:
The top MLB organizations at drafting college talent.
The Pirates ranked as the tenth best team developing almost one in five of their middle round college pitching prospects into major leaguers. The Padres and White Sox tied for the best, beating the Pirates success rate by about 10% while focusing almost entirely on pitchers from four year colleges.
The research also quantified what I could only assume in the past — that the Pirates focused almost entirely on high school pitching. In fact, they drafted a major league low twenty-one college pitchers from the middle rounds between 2008 and 2011, two fewer than the Los Angeles Dodgers during that stretch and six fewer than a few teams tied for third.
The Pirates’ philosophy appears to be changing as they drafted seventeen college pitchers in 2012 and 2013 alone. Part of that might have to do with their emphasis on stockpiling cheap picks at the back of the first ten rounds to hoard bonus money for above slot players after the tenth. Part of it might be that they’ve clearly seen some early returns from the college ranks. While I didn’t track high school draftees while tabulating the college data, it didn’t appear as if many prep draftees from the middle rounds between 2008 and 2011 have reached the majors yet. Certainly, some are still on their way, but the rate of return appears much higher for the college players.
While the Pirates haven’t been a mass produced major players from college pitchers so far, they fared relatively well. However, some teams might surpass them as the Pirates seem tapped out on remaining college prospects between 2008-2011 likely to reach the majors. Recent Rule 5 loss Tyler Waldron is now with the Cardinals, while 2009 draftees Jeff Inman and Ryan Beckman have outside shots at a cup of coffee if they can just stay healthy long enough to reach AAA. Both have stalled out in Altoona. That said, the real factory-style returns might be just around the corner. Of those 17 college pitchers from 2012-2013, one (Adrian Sampson) has already made it to Indianapolis. Two others, Pat Ludwig and Thomas Harlan have already pitched in Altoona while Chad Kuhl, John Kuchno, and Brett McKinney all appear set to start the year there. Shane Carle and Cody Dickson may not be too far behind. Traded prospects Kyle Haynes and Buddy Borden could follow similar paths for their new organizations. Ten of the seventeen will end the year on a normal development curve towards the majors, while Sampson could debut in the majors at some point in 2015.
The Pirates may not have an elite pitcher development philosophy as I suspected they might, but they do have a very good one that seems to work well with college-aged pitchers. They appear poised to improve their already strong numbers with their next crop of more experienced draftees as many move quickly through the system. In the end not all of them will make it, but the Pirates will be in better shape than most if they continue to beat the curve.
Follow The Point of Pittsburgh on Twitter @thepointofpgh or like us on Facebook.
Follow Steve on Twitter @SteveDiMiceli
]]>