Pirates 2023 Draft: Where Is The Money Going To Go?

After getting the first overall pick signed, the Pittsburgh Pirates are starting to see their bonus pool free up, but who is left to spend it on?

With the signing of the first overall pick, LSU RHP Paul Skenes, the biggest domino has fallen when it comes to their 2023 draft class.

As of the Skenes announcement, the Pirates have two of their 11 picks in the first 10 rounds left to be signed.

According to Ethan Hullihen on Twitter, the Pirates have a tad north of $2 million in extra money they can use to go over slot with one of their draft picks. That’s without factoring in what ever is added/subtracted with Hunter Furtado signing as well, whose bonus is unknown as of writing this.

So, who is still left, and where can the Pirates use that money?

The Obvious Answer

The Pirates used the 67th overall pick on Zander Mueth, the big 6’6” righty from Illinois. It’s a tactic the Pirates have employed often under Ben Cherington, drafting prep pitchers in the early rounds that they can kind of mold into the pitcher they want.

Jared Jones was the first prep player drafted in the Cherington era, and at 21-years-old is pitching Triple-A. Another example, Anthony Solometo, is in Double-A and at 20-years-old is one of the youngest players in the Eastern League.

Cherington had to go over slot on both of them to get them signed, so the expectation would be for them to have to do the same with Mueth, who is currently committed to play at Ole Miss should he go the college route.

So, while it may take a little extra to get Mueth to sign, based on other signings going on right now, it may not as difficult as you would think.

Just four picks later, the Washington Nationals drafted Travis Sykora, another prep right-handed pitcher who was generally ranked higher than Mueth received a $2.6 million bonus. The slot for the 71st overall pick was $1,032,300.

Josh Knoth, drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers 33rd overall, received a $2 million bonus (slot: $2,543,800). He was MLB Pipeline’s 98th ranked prospect in the draft.

One pick after Sykora, the Oakland Athletics took Steven Echavarria, handing him $3 million to sign (slot: $1,005,700) and was ranked as the 60th prospect by Pipeline.

Teams have their own big boards, that have several other factors in it than just talent, maybe the most important thing being how willing they would be signing at the amount a given organization has available.

Adding Landen Marauds, who was drafted by the Blue Jays 121st overall, four of the most similar prep pitchers when it came to ranking and draft position all signed for an average of just under $1 million.

So, if that’s what Mueth signs for, the Pirates will still have some room to operate.

Other Options

The Pirates have a few other players that generally fall into the ‘over slot deal’ type, most noticeably infielder Daniel Cuvet, a University of Miami commit, who actually owns some of the best raw power in the draft among prep players.

He’d be a super enticing player to get signed into a system that could really use some added power bats, but at least for the moment it doesn’t seem likely. He posted a short video on Instagram pointing towards him attending Miami next year.

Both his scouting reports on MLB Pipeline and Baseball America note some swing and miss concerns, with a hit tool at just a ‘40’. The raw power is intriguing enough, but the risk for the player to expose himself to professional hitting this early probably isn’t worth it - realistically on both sides.

The other would be John Lopez, a prep catcher out of Puerto Rico. He’s committed to Bethune Cookman, and isn’t ranked in Pipeline’s Top 250 or Baseball America’s Top 500. It would be understandable if he wanted to go to school and try to raise his stock.

Or the Pirates know his commitment isn’t that strong and knew they could work something out. Not much is known on Lopez right now, but in a sense, he does fit the mold of a potential over slot signing.

Another Option?

Kristian Curtis was taken in the 12th round out of Arizona State, another potential college reliever. The righty dealt with injuries, along with ineffectiveness last year with the Sun Devils.

Both Pipeline and Baseball America do buy into his talent, and Curtis could leverage his injury as the reason for his performance struggles and could go back to school to reestablish his stock. Baseball America had him ranked 126 on his board.

Final Plan

The 2021 draft probably slanted some fans view on the draft in general, as that isn’t something that happens year-to-year, one of the reason the national media hyped up what the Pirates.

Still, with every draft pick signing for under slot, plus another college senior that needs to be signed, it’s hard to make all the numbers fit as to where all the money will be going.

At the pace they were going, they probably could have given Skenes a bit more, but they obviously have something planed out to get them to their allowed spending total.