Rather than selecting high school athletes Tuesday, the Pirates used all eight of their Day 2 picks in the MLB Draft on college pitchers or position players. Although more experienced, the newest members of the draft class offer a combination of raw athleticism and questions about past production.
The Pirates chose shortstop Connor Kaiser, a three-year starter at Vanderbilt who batted only .222 one year ago, in the third round. They followed with University of California reliever-turned-starter Aaron Shortridge in the fourth round, Arkansas catcher Grant Koch in the fifth, Arizona pitcher Michael Flynn in the sixth, N.C. State outfielder Brett Kinnemann in the seventh, left-handed pitcher Zach Spears from Miami (Ohio) in the eighth, Louisiana-Lafayette pitcher Logan Stoelke in the ninth and Oregon State third baseman Mike Gretler in the 10th round.
Kaiser, a junior who went undrafted out of high school, is batting .298/.397/.452 for Vanderbilt this season and has three home runs with a team-high 45 RBIs. That's a remarkable improvement from his sophomore season, in which he batted just .222 with only nine extra-base hits and 44 strikeouts in 194 at-bats. A right-handed hitter, Kaiser was ranked by Baseball America as the No. 211 prospect in the draft, although he was viewed as one of the top defensive shortstops in the class.
His stock began to rise last summer when he recorded an .873 OPS in the wood-bat Cape Cod League, and he was a three-year starter in the SEC, an achievement in and of itself. Kaiser received national attention over the weekend when he hit three homers with an NCAA Tournament record-tying 10 RBIs in a 19-6 win over Clemson to reach the super regionals.
"Connor has grown in his strength, in his young-man strength," Joe DelliCarri, the Pirates director of amateur scouting, said. "He's athletic. He proves it in his reliability, durability and athleticism staying on the field. In the batter's box he's grown. ... You're going to see those kind of players grow in areas of his game. ... He's going to continue to grow there."
Shortridge, on the other hand, was moved into Cal's starting rotation at the beginning of the season. After leading Cal with a 1.99 ERA in 14 relief appearances as a sophomore in 2017, Shortridge threw three complete games in 12 starts this season, striking out 74 with only 18 walks in a team-high 91 innings.
He's an athletic, 6-foot-4 right-handed pitcher with a 93-mph fastball, slider and changeup. Baseball America had him ranked as the No. 365 player in the draft, saying he has the "ceiling of a back-of-the-rotation starter in the future." Although he lacks experience in the rotation, DelliCarri said the Pirates are confident he can continue in that role upon joining the organization.
"It's nice to see the innings," DelliCarri said. "It's nice to see him throw strikes and pour it in the zone, his athleticism and who he is. ... We certainly believe he can do this moving forward."
Koch, a right-handed hitter, was a first-team All-SEC selection as a sophomore in 2017 when he batted .264 with a career-high 13 home runs and 42 RBIs in 63 games. He also had a .866 OPS with 33 walks and threw out 16 of 24 stolen base attempts, which led analysts to tab him as a potential Day 1 selection in 2018.
However, Koch regressed this past season, slashing .250/.366/.397 with seven home runs and 34 RBIs in 53 starts, although he had 34 walks to 36 strikeouts. He was a teammate of Pirates first-round pick Travis Swaggerty on USA Baseball’s Collegiate National Team last summer, where Koch batted .372 with 10 walks to 11 strikeouts in 43 at-bats.
It's the second consecutive year the Pirates selected at least one catcher in the fifth round or higher. They picked Jason Delay of Vanderbilt and Deon Stafford of St. Joseph's in the fourth and fifth rounds, respectively, in 2017.
Flynn, a 6-foot-3 right-hander, missed this past fall season because of elbow soreness and returned this spring to appear in 22 games, including four starts, with 49 strikeouts to 13 walks in 52 innings. He won five games and lost none, posting a 3.29 ERA. Flynn spent his entire sophomore season in the rotation with 72 strikeouts in 73 2/3 innings.
Reports indicate his breaking pitches were improving as his junior season progressed, leading to a 12-strikeout performance against UCLA last month.
Kinnemann, a left-handed left fielder for the Wolfpack, is arguably the Pirates' most intriguing pick on Day 2. He batted .274 with a .923 OPS, 17 home runs and 61 RBIs this season, striking out 65 times with 46 walks. That followed a sophomore season where he batted .282 with 10 home runs, 41 RBIs and 36 runs.
He rose up draft boards earlier this spring, when he hit 12 home runs in his first 106 at-bats, but he had only one homer in his next 80 at-bats.
"He's grown as a hitter right in front of our eyes," DelliCarri said of Kinnemann.
Spears, a 6-foot-7 lefty, struggled as a sophomore, posting a 5.85 ERA with a team-high 69 strikeouts in 2017, but he learned to better command his fastball this past season. That led to a 3.73 ERA with 88 strikeouts to 39 walks in 83 1/3 innings. Spears was not ranked among Baseball America's top 500 prospects.
"Ball comes out good, Zack throws the ball good," DelliCarri said of Spears. "Development of his pitches, changeup, he's hitting his breaking ball a little bit."
In a move to potentially save slot money to allocate elsewhere, the Pirates chose Stoelke at No. 264. Stoelke, a senior 6-foot-4 right-hander, pitched only 47 2/3 innings during his collegiate career, including 33 1/3 innings in 21 relief appearances this past season. He held opponents to a .165 batting average while striking out 36 with 15 walks.
Stoelke appeared in 42 games as mostly a defensive replacement in the outfield last season.
"We look at the innings as a positive, with what he can do and where he is right now, where we can take him," Dellicarri said.
Gretler opted to return to Oregon State for his senior season after he was drafted by the Pirates in the 39th round last summer. The right-hander is batting .314 with a .785 OPS, seven home runs and 43 RBIs this season. The Pirates entered the draft with a bonus pool of $10,390,400 — eighth-highest in the majors — and can choose how to allocate that money throughout the draft.
Choosing a pair of seniors on Day 2 could allow the Pirates to aggressively spend more money in the earlier rounds, which could be necessary to sign two of their three first-day picks: high school pitchers Connor Hoglund and Braxton Ashcraft.
"It wasn't that we walked away from players because we couldn't afford them," Neal Huntington said. "We walked away from players maybe because they didn't fit in our pool, or we chose the players we liked the best."
The Pirates chose 11 players over the first two days of the draft and rounds 11 through 40 will begin Wednesday at 1 p.m.