40.2 F
Pittsburgh

Morning Report: Checking In On the Unsigned 2016 Draft Picks

Published:

The 2017 amateur draft begins one month from today, as the Pirates will make their first four selections that night. During the three-day event, they will select a total of 42 players. I can safely say that they will not end up signing all 42 players. Last year they took 41 players total and ended up signing 28 of them. Two of the players they didn’t sign, ended up agreeing to deals, only to decide to go back to school before signing. That happened during the previous draft as well. I wanted to take a look at the 13 players who decided to return to school for 2017 and check their progress. Of those players, 11 are eligible to be drafted this season. I’ve noted the two other players below.

Nick Lodolo – One of the two players who aren’t eligible to be drafted in 2017. He turned down $1,750,000 to go to TCU for three years, which had to be a tough decision. Lodolo has a 4.71 ERA in 57.1 innings over 12 starts. The team ERA is 4.10. He has 60 strikeouts, which sounds good, but almost every pitcher on the team has a similar strikeout rate. For a freshman, his stats aren’t that bad.

Hagen Owenby – One of three players drafted out of East Tennessee State (ETSU) by the Pirates last year and all three returned to school. He’s hitting .337/.434/.541 in 47 games. For perspective, the team has a .304 average and an .839 OPS, while opponents have an .832 OPS, so it appears to be a high offense environment. Owenby has the highest OPS on a team with a lot of hitters performing well, but he is well off the 1.086 OPS he put up last year.

Pearson McMahan – As a first year junior college player, McMahan had some pretty good leverage. He can return to JuCo for another year, then go to a four-year college for two more seasons, giving him three more chances to get drafted. Not signing looks like a great decision based on the stats because he’s pitching twice as much and showing much better control. He currently has a 3.49 ERA in 75.1 innings, with 32 walks and 94 strikeouts.

Austin Bodrato – He decided to go to Florida, which hasn’t looked like a good decision yet, although we don’t know what type of offer (if any) the Pirates gave him. Many freshmen don’t get a lot of playing time at major schools, so the next two years are more important to follow. So far, he’s just 1-for-6 in six games off the bench.

Michael Danielak – One of two draft picks who appeared on the Bristol travel roster, but ended up not signing. He has a 2.64 ERA in nine starts, which is much better than both his team and opponents ERA. He’s the second best starter (by stats) on his team. His stats are similar to last year, with the big difference being the amount of innings pitched. Last year he was a reliever for most of the season.

Chris Cook – Player #2 from ETSU. He’s hitting .333/.403/.527 in 47 games. See notes above in Owenby about the offense. Cook leads the team with 24 extra-base hits. He was injured most of last year, so the full season of playing could help his draft spot move up this year.

Ben Miller – A senior first baseman at Nebraska, he is hitting .276/.360/.374 in 44 games. That’s down from the .317/.388/.457 he had last year. He could be drafted much higher this year as a senior sign for some team to make bonus cap room in the 6-10 rounds, but the drop-off in stats as a senior isn’t a good sign.

Craig Dedelow – The other player who was scheduled to go to Bristol, only to return to school. Dedelow isn’t putting up big numbers as a senior at Indiana. Among starters, he is last on his team in average and next to last with a .313 OBP, while also striking out 47 times in 211 plate appearances. On the plus side, he has hit 12 homers. He has traded about 50 points from his OBP, in exchange for an extra 70 points on his slugging, while also watching his strikeout rate increase.

Dustin Williams – As a senior first baseman, he’s hitting .214/.384/.327 and striking out way too often. Those numbers aren’t far off what he did last year, but it is a drop.

Colin Brockhouse – A draft-eligible sophomore last year, he returned to Ball State, where he has a 2.28 ERA and a .167 BAA, with 31 strikeouts in 27.2 innings. It appears he made the right decision not to sign, although we never heard about any offers made to him.

Aaron Maher – The third player from ETSU and a draft-eligible sophomore. He’s hitting .323/.396/.470 in 47 games. Like Owenby, he also hit better last year.

Harrison Wenson – Returned to Michigan for his senior season. He’s a catcher hitting for some power with eight homers, but he’s also batting .201 and striking out way too often. Seems like that’s a pattern with players they didn’t sign.

Bret Boswell – Shortstop for Texas, who returned for his senior year. Hitting .243/.361/.395 in 48 games and playing second base this year.

PIRATES GAME GRAPH


Source: FanGraphs

TODAY’S SCHEDULE

Today’s Starter and Notes: The Pittsburgh Pirates lost 2-1 to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday night. The Pirates will send Tyler Glasnow to the mound tonight to make his seventh start of the season. He allowed three earned runs over 6.1 innings against the Milwaukee Brewers in his last start. He has given up at least three runs in every start this season. The Diamondbacks will counter with 27-year-old lefty Patrick Corbin, who has a 3.89 ERA, 33 strikeouts and a 1.40 WHIP in 39.1 innings this season.

In the minors, Luis Escobar tries to bounce back from one of his worst career starts. In his first two games this season combined, he allowed two runs over 11 innings while picking up 23 strikeouts. In his last four games, he has a 6.86 ERA and has served up five homers. He leads all Pirates with 46 strikeouts. Yeudy Garcia has thrown 10.2 innings without an earned run over his last two starts.  Kevin Kramer has a 28-game on base streak active. Cole Tucker currently has a 20-game on base streak.

MLB: Pittsburgh (14-21) @ Diamondbacks (20-16) 9:40 PM
Probable starter: Tyler Glasnow (6.33 ERA, 19:28 BB/SO, 27.0 IP)

AAA: Indianapolis (14-16) vs Norfolk (14-19) 7:15 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Cody Dickson (5.79 ERA, 12:12 BB/SO, 14.0 IP)

AA: Altoona (19-12) vs New Hampshire (11-22) 6:00 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Yeudy Garcia (4.74 ERA, 11:22 BB/SO, 19.0 IP)

High-A: Bradenton (22-13) vs Palm Beach (17-17) 6:30 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Logan Sendelbach (6.16 ERA, 3:15 BB/SO, 19.0 IP)

Low-A: West Virginia (16-18) @ Asheville (16-17) 7:05 PM (season preview)
Probable starter: Luis Escobar (4.99 ERA, 13:46 BB/SO, 30.2 IP)

HIGHLIGHTS

Here is a two-run homer by Jordan Luplow from Wednesday afternoon. It was his sixth of the year, the most by an Altoona player this season.

RECENT TRANSACTIONS

5/11: Chris Harvey assigned to Morgantown. Brent Gibbs assigned to West Virginia.

5/11: Nick Kingham assigned to Bradenton. Pedro Vasquez assigned to Extended Spring Training.

5/10: Albert Baur activated from West Virginia disabled list.

5/9: Jackson Williams assigned to Altoona from Indianapolis. Zane Chavez assigned to Morgantown.

5/8: Pirates add Max Moroff and Chris Bostick to roster. Elias Diaz and Phil Gosselin assigned to Indianapolis.

5/8: Adam Frazier assigned to Indianapolis on rehab. Just Maffei assigned to Indianapolis.

5/8: Boomer Synek retired.

5/8: Kevin Krause placed on disabled list. Logan Ratledge promoted to Bradenton.

5/7: Michael Suchy placed on disabled list. Jerrick Suiter promoted to Altoona.

5/7: Jess Amedee activated from disabled list.

5/6: Jameson Taillon placed on disabled list. Josh Lindblom promoted to Pirates

5/4: Brandon Waddell activated from disabled list. JT Brubaker placed on disabled list.

5/3: Jordan George activated from Bradenton disabled list.

5/2: Jackson Williams promoted to Indianapolis. Justin Maffei assigned to Morgantown.

5/2: Zane Chavez assigned to Altoona.

THIS DATE IN PIRATES HISTORY

Six former Pittsburgh Pirates players born on this date, including one that played eight seasons in Pittsburgh. Quickly through the players, we have relief pitcher Evan Meek (2008-12), first baseman Josh Phelps (2007), pitcher Johnny Hetki (1953-54), pitcher Hank Bowory (1950) and second baseman Harry Truby (1896). Hetki is 95 years old today, the third oldest living former Pirates player.

Infielder Alex McCarthy played eight seasons in Pittsburgh, from 1910 until 1917. He was a backup most of his time, splitting time between second, third and shortstop. McCarthy played in 372 games for the Pirates, serving part of that time as the backup shortstop to Honus Wagner. He was sold to the Cubs at the end of the 1915 season and returned during the middle of the 1916 season, so he didn’t spend all of his time in Pittsburgh, despite playing eight consecutive seasons with the team. McCarthy had his contract purchased by the Pirates at the same time as his minor league teammate, Max Carey, who went on to have a Hall of Fame career.

On this date in 1884, the Pittsburgh Alleghenys defeated the Brooklyn Atlantics by a 9-6 score to sweep a three-game series. Pitcher John Fox picked up the only win he would collect for Pittsburgh in seven starts. The Alleghenys later moved to the National League and later became the Pirates, while the Atlantics joined them in the NL a few years later and eventually they became the Los Angeles Dodgers. Those three games were the first time the two franchises met.

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

Related Articles

Article Drop

Latest Articles