The official Elias rankings have been released, and as expected, the Pittsburgh Pirates have four players who qualify as Type B free agents. The four players are Ryan Doumit, Chris Snyder, Derrek Lee, and Ryan Ludwick.
The Pirates can get a first round compensation pick for each player in the 2012 draft. In order to do so, they’d have to offer arbitration, and then the players would have to decline and sign elsewhere.
The Elias rankings have a numerical value which ranks all of the Type A and Type B free agents in order. Ryan Doumit is the highest ranked Type B free agent for the Pirates. He is followed by Chris Snyder, then Derrek Lee, and finally Ryan Ludwick. The rankings are used to determine which pick the team gets in the compensation portion of the first round.
Tim started Pirates Prospects in 2009 from his home in Virginia, which was 40 minutes from where Pedro Alvarez made his pro debut in Lynchburg. That year, the Lynchburg Hillcats won the Carolina League championship, and Pirates Prospects was born from Tim's reporting along the way. The site has grown over the years to include many more writers, and Tim has gone on to become a credentialed MLB reporter, producing Pirates Prospects each year, and will publish his 11th Prospect Guide this offseason. He has also served as the Pittsburgh Pirates correspondent for Baseball America since 2019. Behind the scenes, Tim is an avid music lover, and most of the money he gets paid to run this site goes to vinyl records.
I see two of the four getting offers – Lee and Doumit. That would potentially give us 4 picks out of the first 60.