After selecting the best college pitcher in the country with the first overall pick in the draft, the Pirates followed up by focusing almost exclusively on adding more collegiate pitching to the farm system.
The 2023 MLB Draft continued Monday afternoon with Round 3-10, and the Pirates used seven of their eight picks on college arms:
Round 3 (No. 73): Garret Forrester, 3B, Oregon State ($990,300 slot value)
Round 4 (No. 104): Carlson Reed, RHP, West Virginia ($646,900)
Round 5 (No. 140): Patrick Reilly, RHP, Vanderbilt ($455,600)
Round 6 (No. 167): Hunter Furtado, LHP, Alabama ($351,400)
Round 7 (No. 197): Jaden Woods, LHP, Georgia ($273,800)
Round 8 (No. 227): Austin Strickland, RHP, Kentucky ($216,900)
Round 9 (No. 257): Danny Carrion, RHP, University of California-Davis ($184,500)
Round 10 (No. 287): Landon Tomkins, RHP, Louisiana Tech ($171,200)
The crop of college arms gave the Pirates a number of under-slot candidates, and all profile as pitchers that need development by the club in order to find success.
"I think you’re getting a collection, in a general sense, of a lot of traits that are important to the organization," said Pirates senior director of amateur scouting Joe DelliCarri. "We had a chance to spend a lot of time with these players at the field, around the field, off the field, getting to learn who they are and what they’ve been exposed to, what the upside is in different places. We believe this collection definitely has some unique opportunities in some different areas to take advantage of growth and big gaps in growth that we think we can tap into with our coaches and player development."
The Pirates started the day off by taking Forrester, the only position player selected by Pittsburgh on Monday. Heading into the draft, Forrester was ranked as the No. 116 prospect on MLB.com's Top 250 and No. 159 on Baseball America's Top 500.
He was an All Pac-12 first-teamer, and hit .341 with 10 home runs and 52 RBIs last season. He also tied for the team lead with 59 walks, reaching base on balls 19.4% of the time. He profiles as a future first baseman, but needs to grow more into his 6-1, 208-pound frame. Baseball America gives him a 50-grade power tool, which would need to improve if he were to eventually make the move across the diamond.
Forrester's calling card is his plate discipline, as he finished with a .480 on-base percentage in 2022 and a .485 OBP in 2023. He pairs that with good bat-to-ball skills and a line-drive swing.
"He does have very, very good swing decisions coming into this thing," DelliCarri said. "Coming into professional baseball, he's been around it a long time and how he sees, he sees well. He's a high-contact hitter that does hit the ball hard. So there's a lot here. I think there's an opportunity to get even more out of Garret."
There's always potential for more power, but this seems to be an under-slot signing.
Reed was the first pitcher selected on the day, coming in as the No. 196 prospect on MLB.com and No. 180 in Baseball America's Top 500. His fastball is his bread and butter, despite sitting in the mid-90s. It explodes on hitters due to his length and extension down the mound.
At 6-4 and 200 pounds, he could fill out a bit more and reach triple digits with that fastball. With a decent changeup and a really good slider, but also really needing to work on his control, Reed probably profiles more as a reliever right now. He split time as a starter and reliever in 2021-22, but pitched exclusively as a reliever in 2023. He posted a 2.61 ERA over 38 innings with a 34.7% strikeout rate.
Reilly is another projectable arm. He's got some good stuff, including a plus fastball with ride that touches 98 mph. He's a fastball/slider/cutter pitcher and has a good frame at 6-3 and 208 pounds. However, inconsistency held him back from being a higher-graded prospect, explaining why he posted a 5.77 ERA over 48 1/3 innings in 2023.
If he can figure out command, Reilly has the stuff and delivery to become a starter. If not, he's a power reliever.
Furtado comes from an athletic family as both his parents played college sports and his sister played volleyball at Tennessee Tech. Furtado was exclusively a reliever with the Crimson Tide, posting a 4.75 ERA through 36 innings in 2023, with a 24.8% strikeout rate and 11.1% walk rate. He throws a 93-95 mph fastball that gets up to 98. While he used the fastball 63% of the time this spring, he also has thrown a low-80s slider and a changeup around 80.
Furtado has pitched as a starter in the past, most notably in the Cape Cod and South Florida Collegiate summer leagues. He might get a shot to start once he turns pro, especially given his projectable frame and quality secondary pitches. Not unlike the other pitchers taken on Monday, that depends on how much he can improve his command.
Woods is strongly built, and is athletic with a quick arm. He has a nice delivery, even though he pitches out of a half windup. His first two seasons at Georgia were spent in the bullpen, and was quite successful in that role earning SEC All-Freshman honors in 2021 and had a 32.4& strikeout rate in 2022.
He moved to a starting role in 2023, but couldn't quite find the same success. He posted a 5.77 ERA in 10 starts and 48 1/3 innings, and he missed about a month at the end of the season due to bicep soreness. He profiles as a hard-throwing lefty reliever.
The Pirates kept things going with the SEC arms, selecting their fourth in a row in the eighth round, even though Strickland wasn't ranked on MLB.com's Top 250 and comes in at No. 302 on Baseball America's Top 500.
According to Baseball America, Strickland has a well-controlled delivery and attacks with a three-quarters slot, mainly pitching off a fastball/curveball/slider trio. In the 2023 season, he posted a 5.04 ERA in 55 1/3 innings with a 24.3% strikeout rate and 8.4% walk rate. He projects as another upside selection that profiles as a future reliever.
The Pirates broke the SEC streak by selecting Carrion in the ninth round. Carrion was, however, the first player selected by the Pirates that wasn't ranked by either MLB.com or Baseball America. He worked primarily as a reliever in three seasons with the Aggies, posting a 5.61 ERA in 61 career innings. His 2023 campaign was a huge step forward, posting a 2.45 ERA and 1.16 WHIP in 29 1/3 innings and 19 appearances.
Carrion's most notable accomplishment is he never surrendered a home run in 61 career innings.
Tomkins was a fifth-year senior, so he's most likely another under-slot signing. He led Louisiana Tech with 30 appearances (six starts) in 2023, posting a 3.52 ERA and 1.32 WHIP with 75 strikeouts in 76 2/3 innings. Tomkins' fastball touched triple digits this year, and produces swings and misses with his slider and changeup.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Pirates banked hard on upside with these eight selections, and can afford to save some bonus pool money with several under-slot candidates.
However, just because some of the numbers don't jump off the page, it doesn't mean this is a terrible haul thus far. Currently, the No. 7 prospect on MLB.com, Evan Carter, was virtually an unknown coming out of high school and the Rangers were blasted for taking such a player in the second round of the draft. Now, he's turned into one of the game's brightest prospects.
The Pirates have a similar situation with J.P. Massey, who earned a trip to the Futures Game in Seattle. In case you don't remember, he had a 6.70 career ERA with the Golden Gophers before the Pirates made him their seventh-round selection in the 2022 draft.
"I think J.P. Massey is a really good example of -- whether it's in high school or in college -- just about all of these players are far from finished products," Pirates assistant GM Steve Sanders said. "It highlights the importance of looking beneath the surface of results. We're looking for traits. With pitchers specifically, like J.P., we saw a lot of really, really, really good traits, ingredients and athleticism. He's a goods mover. Again, we got to know J.P. as a person and fully bought into the human being and the worker. I think what we're seeing is him just starting to scratch the surface of what we think he's capable of. All of these guys that we took today and yesterday are different. But, certainly we hope for the same strides forward. I think he's a good example of somebody who probably can't be judged by the ERA and strikeout and walk rate in his junior year. We certainly hope to see similar success stories out of this group."
As far as the string of SEC pitchers, the Pirates didn't make any concerted effort to focus solely on that conference. Rather, it just speaks to the strength and depth of the pitching there.
"If you probably looked across the industry and the draft in the first 10 rounds, there are a lot of good arms that come out of that conference as well as a lot of the power conferences," Sanders said. "There are only so many guys that can start on some of those better pitching staffs. A lot of those places do have some pretty impressive arm talent up and down their roster and we were fortunate to grab a few of them."
The MLB Draft wraps up Tuesday afternoon at 2 p.m. with Round 11-20.
