Draft over all

I think this is an okay draft.  It is not great by any means and can only be good if some of the day 3 guys sign (like Gage Hinsz and/or Colin Welmon).  Then you should not expect the same sort of excitement that we had last year with two top 15 picks.  Yes, the Pirates probably should have not reached for Cole Tucker at 24.  So his career is off to a really bad start as he will now be measured against a lot of other guys the Pirates could have signed.

I do think there are a few things to be excited about watching.  Nelson Jorge is a pretty big unknown coming from Puerto Rico.  How he does at SS and swinging the bat is one of the potential upside things out of this draft.  I am excited about Taylor Gushue as well.  I know he is behind McGuire at catcher, but he has potential.  I will be keeping an eye on his box score.  I do like Chase Simpson from round 14.  Power hitting 3Bs are always fun to watch.  And I will be watching to see whether Jordan Luplow can put up better numbers than Connor Joe.

But in the end, that is all that I am excited about.  And I am probably stretching it to add the Luplow v Joe battle.  Three guys that I am ready to see signed and on the field is not very many.  Of course if they were to manage to add Gage Hinsz or Colin Welmon they would immediately be added to the list of excitement.  I do expect they will make a real effort at Hinsz.

As I said earlier, I don't a mind a draft like this every now and then as long as they save money and put it into other areas.  Sometimes you do have to shift priorities to another part of the overall budget.  If this means a decent off season signing next year then I can live with this.  If this mean landing a big Latin American talent, then I am okay with this.  There are big league prospects in this bunch, so it is not as if we threw a whole draft away.  Mitch Keller, Trey Supak, Jordan Luplow, and even Connor Joe and Cole Tucker are big league prospects.  But they are not exactly All Star prospects.  It fills out the organization with more prospects, but these guys are not going to top the organizational charts at their position.  And coming away from a draft where we did not really add a new top prospect at any position is disappointing.  And even though I am no where near as high on Alen Hanson as most, I do think he will still be rated above Cole Tucker at SS leaving this draft class in some desperate need of big time production in short season ball to generate some excitement.

I will be interested to see a couple of front office interviews in the next couple of days.