If the College World Series proved anything, it’s that Jack Leiter’s draft stock is definitely higher than Kumar Rocker’s now.
Not that it matters much for the Pirates. All signs still point to them taking a position player first overall in the Amateur Draft on July 11, almost certainly either high school shortstop Marcelo Mayer, Jordan Lawlar or Kahlil Watson, or Louisville catcher Henry Davis.
Exactly who it will be still needs to be hashed out. Money will be a factor, because in a perfect world, the Pirates would sign the player they ultimately view as the best under the slot value, freeing up more money to spread over other picks.
The reason why the Pirates have shied away from Rocker has less to do with his signability and more about concerns about his durability. Ben Cherington has told me that one of the things they value most out of college pitching is durability, when a pitcher makes all of their scheduled starts.
“Guys that do that every year for three years, it does matter,” Cherington said.
That was a concern for Leiter coming into the year, and a midseason slump that only ended after he was skipped in the rotation didn’t exactly quiet that narrative.
But the last two times the Pirates had the first overall pick, they went with pitching. Bryan Bullington in 2002 was a doomed pick, but Gerrit Cole in 2011 was a hit. While he only pitched up to his potential one year with the Pirates, it’s hard to call him a failed pick considering how his career has gone.
Who knows how far those Pirate playoff teams would have gone without Cole. What’s undeniable is that Cherington’s “build” will need impact pitching.
It doesn’t have to come from 1.1 though. Actually, history would suggest it might be better if it doesn’t.
Since 2012, the start of the current bonus pool draft model, a pitcher has been taken first overall three times: Casey Mize in 2018, Brady Aiken in 2014 and Mark Appel in 2013. Mize is having a fine rookie season with the Tigers and is a legitimate pitching prospect. Appel, now 29, just returned back to professional ball this year after a hiatus. He’s never pitched in the majors. Aiken didn’t sign with the Astros, and his career appears to be over after failing to advance above Class A.
Taking the best pitcher available on draft day doesn’t guarantee anything.
Teams don’t have to invest a high pick to get a big-time pitcher. Since 2016, of the 26 different pitchers who finished in the top 10 in wins above replacement (WAR) in a season who came into professional baseball through the draft, only six were top 10 picks. Seven were picked in the fourth round or later.
To look at it from a Pirates point of view, take a look at last year’s draft. They selected Nick Gonzales with their first pick, but went with pitching the rest of the way. They emerged from that draft with one of the highest rated draft classes, and it has only looked better now that they’re playing.
Carmen Mlodzinski, picked 31st overall, is dominating Class High-A with Greensboro, pitching to a 1.72 ERA.
“He has an edge about him,” Greensboro Matt Ford told our Tom Reed.
Jared Jones, their second round pick, not only is pitching in Bradenton rather than the Gulf Coast League at age 19, is pumping upper-90s heat with plus breaking pitches. In hs last start, he struck out 11 over four innings.
“He’s got everything,” Bradenton pitching coach Fernando Nieve told me. “Everything does what it should be doing. It’s not like it’s a slider that looks like a curveball or a curveball that looks like a slider. Everything’s clean.”
It’s probably worth mentioning that Jones signed for an overslot bonus.
I’ve been told that last year’s third-rounder, Nick Garcia, would have been picked much higher had it not been for his pedigree of starting as a Division III position player. Stuff wise, he’s got upside.
“He’s got the tools,” Nieve said. “Now he’s putting everything into practice.”
Just through last year’s draft -- not counting any trades or other avenues of player acquisition -- the Pirates picked up three guys with middle of the rotation or better upside. Will all three reach that potential? Probably not, but with the improved player development, the odds are much better that at least one will pan out.
As Cherington has stressed throughout the draft preparation process, it’s about the whole class, not just pick 1.1. That goes for pitching especially this year, where Baseball America has more pitchers ranked in their top 500 prospects (292) than ever before.
There will be more opportunities to get arms.
MORE PIRATES
• Speaking of improved player development, I asked Nieve, who joined the organization in 2019, what changes he has seen this year. The two that stuck out to him were improving mental skills coaching and how players are absorbing information. When it comes to the mental side, new director of player and coaching development John Baker comes from that side of the game, while giving pitchers more analytically-skewed information has been a priority, given how far the organization had fallen behind before Cherington’s hiring. “Normally when you make those changes, it’s a slow process, but we’ve seen a lot of productive change,” Nieve said. -- Stumpf
• Anyone among the contingent of fans frustrated that their home broadcasters are still calling road games from a monitor in their home city can point their ire at the individual networks. According to a source with knowledge of the broadcast, the individual networks are choosing not to go on the road. There aren’t any MLB protocols preventing broadcast teams and trucks from going out and covering road games. This isn’t exclusive to Pittsburgh, but league-wide. Apparently, it would just take one network, be it AT&T SportsNet, Bally Sports Whatever or Marquee Sports to just start doing games from the road before the networks agree it’s worth the investment and time to follow suit. -- Gerard Gilberto
STEELERS
• I'm told all Steelers employees will be able to return to the UMPC-Rooney Sports Complex starting July 6 -- provided they are vaccinated. Non-vaccinated employees will not be permitted to return to the team's practice facility, where they could have contact with players. The Steelers have been working with a skeleton crew at the UPMC-Rooney Sports Complex for the past year, with the NFL limits on those who can be in Tier 1 and Tier 2. But that is starting to loosen up, something allowing the team's employees to return to the building shows. -- Dale Lolley on the South Side
• With the Steelers not able to to return to Saint Vincent College this year for training camp, the team has turned to Plan B when it comes to camp. Practices will be held at both Heinz Field and the UPMC-Rooney Sports Complex. Why both? Well, there are other things happening on the North Shore -- Pirates games, other events -- and preseason games that will be held at the stadium that will force the Steelers to move over to their facility for some practices. There are a lot of moving parts there. For example, Fall Out Boy will hold a concert at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 19, at PNC Park. The Steelers, who host the Lions two days after that, obviously won't want to deal with the traffic from an afternoon concert. -- Lolley
• Interesting that the Steelers signed placekicker Sam Sloman on Thursday. Believe it or not, Chris Boswell is already 30 years old. That's not old for a kicker, but it's not young, either. More importantly, Boswell missed three games last season with a hip injury. And he carries a salary cap hit of $2.6 million in 2021 that jumps to $4.77 million in 2022. Outside of a horrendous 2018 season, Boswell has been one of the best kickers in the league in his other five NFL seasons, including making 19 of 20 field goal attempts last season. But he's also getting pretty expensive. Sloman isn't just a camp leg. He was a seventh-round pick of the Rams in 2020 and made 10 of 13 field goal attempts and 18 of 21 PATs in eight games with the Rams and Titans as a rookie. This is a situation that bears watching. -- Lolley
PENGUINS
• Jim Rutherford doesn't seem to have been shocked by some of the struggles Tristan Jarry had during this year's Stanley Cup playoffs, his first as the Penguins' go-to goaltender. "He's a very talented goalie, and you have to live with those pains of watching someone develop as a No. 1 goalie," Rutherford said. "It's hard to do. It's hard to adjust to, but the right people are in place to help him. You have (Ron Hextall) right there. It's a good situation. It's a learning process, and if teams are patient, things can work out. And if they're not, they just move on to somebody else, and that goalie may go on to another team and do pretty well." Rutherford, who traded Marc-Andre Fleury and Matt Murray during his tenure as GM, noted that there had been numerous questions about Jarry even before the season began. "It's unfortunate, how it ended, but for people who are involved and have been following him closely, I don't think there are any surprises here," he said. "This is something that was discussed about the Penguins team from right out of training camp: 'Can the goaltending hold up?' The Penguins have been fortunate that they had Fleury for a long time, and then Murray had a couple of great runs to win Stanley Cups and then another young goalie in Jarry. It's just part of the learning process. The next question is, will he learn from it and be better for it, or not? I believe he will." -- Dave Molinari
• During the nearly five months since he succeeded Rutherford as GM, Hextall has established his credentials in this market as an articulate, thoughtful and fairly insightful interview subject. He has not, however, maintained a particularly high public profile. Pandemic-related restrictions surely contributed to that, and Hextall certainly has had no shortage of other duties that require his attention. Still, the Penguins could do much worse than to have him complement president of hockey operations Brian Burke and, to a lesser degree, team president/CEO David Morehouse as the public face of the front office as Hextall continues to settle into the job. -- Molinari
• Peter Taglianetti had been with the Penguins for about three months, and while he was well aware that the 1990-91 Penguins had some top-shelf talents -- guys like Mario Lemieux, Paul Coffey, Kevin Stevens, Mark Recchi, Joe Mullen and the recently acquired Ron Francis, among others -- he didn't really appreciate how the unthinkable was beginning to unfold for the previously star-crossed franchise. Not until the night of March 21, 1991, anyway, when he was speaking with a reporter who had followed the Penguins from their earliest days moments after an unlikely victory against the New York Rangers at the Civic Arena. Overtime had just begun when Stevens took a wrist shot from above the right circle. The puck went well wide of the net, but caromed off the end boards into the crease, where it bounced off the glove of Rangers goalie John Vanbiesbrouck and into the net. "We're in the locker room and (the reporter) came in and said, 'You don't understand. Stuff like that doesn't happen here in Pittsburgh,' "Taglianetti said. "(He was) so excited about it. The team was starting to play well, and we were doing OK. It hit me like, 'Wow. This is something different here, when you get reporters being excited about a break like that and we win a game.' " Two months and four days later, the Penguins won the first of their five Stanley Cups. -- Molinari
