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.
