I felt a certain mix of vindication and disappointment that Nick Kurtz went fourth overall to the Oakland Athletics.
Vindication, because Kurtz has stuck out to me for months as a rare first baseman whose contact/power combo is good enough to draft in the top ten picks, without worrying about upside.
Disappointment, because the Pittsburgh Pirates didn’t see him fall to number nine, where they could have taken their first baseman of the future.
I had Kurtz ranked fifth overall in my pre-draft rankings, and he was my ideal pick for the Pirates. This was a rare moment where a system need and the best available player could have intersected, and with Kurtz going five picks ahead of the Pirates, the best available tag for him would have been valid if he fell to ninth.
“Best available” is arbitrary, depending on what timeframe you’re using, and how much projection you’re allowing.
When it came time for the number nine pick, Konnor Griffin was the best available. And you could make an argument that Griffin was the best available in the entire draft.
Leading to that argument is the fact that no one had more tools than Griffin. He’s got an elite arm, with the potential for a plus fastball off the mound, though he’ll be a position player. He’s got plus power potential, and at least an average hit tool. He’s got elite speed, which combined with the arm gives him a chance to be a plus defender at shortstop or center field.
If all goes well, you could project a 30-30, Gold Glove center fielder in the future from Griffin. That future might not start until 2027-28, and the ceiling might not be reached until the end of the decade. And, there’s no guarantee that Griffin progresses as expected over the next 3-5 years.
There’s also no guarantee with someone like Kurtz. He has a more straightforward profile: Plus hit, plus power, and plus defense at first base. There’s less projection involved to get him to his ceiling, which would reduce the need for development. His ceiling could arrive before Griffin reaches the majors. That said, the ceiling is slightly lower than Griffin’s, due to the amount of optimistic projectability that comes from Griffin’s tools, and the singular question of how much Kurtz can hit to drive his value at first base.
The question that matters today is can the Pirates get the most out of Griffin?
The Development Woes of Position Players
The track record for developing position players to Pittsburgh isn’t a good one. You could also question their tendencies in the types of players they draft, although that trend is out the window this year.
Justin Horowitz took over as the amateur scouting director for the Pirates this past offseason, joining the organization after starting his career as an intern under current Pirates General Manager Ben Cherington with the Red Sox. Horowitz would bring a new set of preferences to the mix, which might influence the selections.
Maybe it’s not a coincidence that Griffin is opposite from most of the hitters the Pirates have taken in the past. From Cole Tucker, to Kevin Newman, to Will Craig, to Travis Swaggerty, and even into the Cherington years of Nick Gonzales and Termarr Johnson, the Pirates have largely trended for an advanced hit tool, with hope to develop power. Looking at that list of names, the selections have not developed as you’d hope from a group of first rounders — though Gonzales and Johnson give hope that things might be changing for the better.
The Pirates have gone with power over hit tool in the past. Henry Davis is the biggest example under the current front office, and Austin Meadows is the best example under the old front office. The scouting director for each draft was the same, with Joe DelliCarri influencing the decisions. Both Davis and Meadows progressed to being top prospects, though neither of them have progressed to being above-average or better starters.
The best results the Pirates have seen came from Ke’Bryan Hayes. That success comes from his defensive profile and a contact approach that is still trying to develop consistent power. And it’s not a great sign that they fired the hitting coach who helped Hayes to his best power results in the majors.
The only focus of the draft is selecting the best player available. This term comes from the player’s tools and projected upside in a vacuum. Griffin was the best player available for the Pirates at number nine, and he might have been the highest upside guy in the draft. The draft department did their job.
Now, it’s up to development.
Banking on Development
Even if I don’t trust the hitting development in the Pirates’ system, they absolutely shouldn’t shy away from drafting hitters.
For one, a good way to confirm that the hitting development is broken is if the Pirates keep drafting talented players who don’t work out. The failures also might reveal how the system is broken, and how it could be fixed. I’m not going to get into that topic today, even though I have some strong ideas on where the Pirates are going wrong with their hitting.
Today, I’ll point out that the Pirates didn’t just go with one projectable prep shortstop. They drafted three in their first five picks.
Wyatt Sanford was taken in the second round. He was one of the best defenders in the class, projecting to remain at shortstop at the big league level. His hit tool grades as average and his power tool is below-average, so there is a lot of work to be done with the bat.
Eddie Rynders was taken in the fourth round. He’s a bigger shortstop, who projects to eventually move to third base, due to his size and an arm that could develop into a plus tool. He’s also a power-first guy, with plus raw power from the left side of the plate. Rynders is fringe-average from a hitting standpoint, so just like Griffin, the Pirates are going to need to develop the hit tool.
Looking at this trio, you can dream about a future where the Pirates have a plus defender at short who can make contact in Sanford, along with power hitters playing plus defense at third and center field in Rynders and Griffin, respectively.
If one of these guys reaches that upside, it would be an overall victory.
In each case, the Pirates now turn these highly projectable position players over to a development group that will need to change for the better when it comes to developing the hitting side of the game.
If the hitting development is broken, I don’t think it will negatively affect these guys. The Pirates will have plenty of opportunities to fix that system before any of these three are negatively affected for their careers.
These three could be the first examples of a new, successful hitting development approach, displaying whether any future changes to the system have worked for the better.
Where the Drafting and Development Works
There’s no question that the Pirates can scout and develop pitchers.
Even before DelliCarri took over, this was a scouting group that found Tyler Glasnow in the fifth round. They landed Mitch Keller as a second rounder. They took Shane Baz in the first round, before trading him away. They couldn’t sign these two, but they drafted Nick Lodolo and Gunner Hoglund out of high school with top 50 picks.
There’s no question that the Pirates could identify pitching talent, and develop that talent up to top prospect status.
For a long time, there were legitimate questions about whether the Pirates could get their pitchers to their ceilings. Glasnow, for example, is one of many pitchers who found success after leaving Pittsburgh. From that same 2011 draft, Gerrit Cole and Clay Holmes reached their ceilings with other organizations.
Things seem to be changing. The biggest example of this comes from Paul Skenes. The Pirates certainly haven’t held him back. Following day three of the 2024 draft, Skenes started the All-Star Game for the National League, a little over a year after being taken first overall.
He’s joined by Jared Jones, who was drafted in the second round out of high school in 2020, and who is emerging as an above-average MLB starter in his rookie season. That duo of rookie pitchers is completed by Keller, who has shown improvements at the Major League level every year since 2020, and is now firmly an above-average starter.
The pitching development is working so well that it’s the opposite of the hitting. With the hitting development, you almost need to curb your enthusiasm when dreaming about achievable ceilings. With the pitching development, you can almost project some pitchers higher once they join the Pirates.
The Pirates took two prep pitchers in the draft. RHP Levi Sterling was drafted 37th overall, with their Competitive Balance pick. They finished the draft by taking RHP Taylor Penn in the 20th round.
Sterling projects to have above-average to plus control, with four average or better pitches. The pitch mix is led by an above-average fastball that hits 94 with command, and a potential for a plus curveball. Sterling has a projectable frame at 6′ 5″, 202 pounds, so you could dream on the fastball developing beyond average. The Pirates also do well to add secondary pitches with their pitching prospects.
Penn is another projectable guy, at 6′ 5″, 190 pounds, who currently gets his fastball up to 92. He pairs that with a slider that sits mid-70s. The Pirates can’t work magic, and I think expectations should be tempered with a 20th round pick when it comes to upside. That said, their development history shows that the Pirates can help improve Penn.
Righting the Ship
The prep pitchers are always going to be an exercise on dreaming of upside. The Pirates spent the middle rounds taking several college pitchers who have good stuff, but profile almost like young reclamation projects.
Third rounder Josh Hartle looked like a guy who could go in the top two rounds in 2021. He removed his name from the draft to go to Wake Forest. After an impressive sophomore season, he struggled in 2024 to the tune of a 5.79 ERA in 74.2 innings. He has three average or better secondary offerings, with the potential for plus control. The Pirates will need to develop the fastball, which took a step back in 2024.
Sixth rounder Matt Ager is another guy who struggled in 2024, following a breakout season in 2023. He’s got an average fastball, which has gotten up to 96. He has a projectable 6′ 6″, 225 pound frame to develop his velocity. He also throws a slider that flashes plus, with average control on his pitches. Ager is a two-pitch guy, but there’s a lot of development potential with that two pitch mix.
Eighth rounder Gavin Adams was one of my favorite picks of day two. Adams is recovering from Tommy John surgery, and has hit 100-101 with his fastball in the past. His secondary is led by an average slider.
The Pirates were successful with a similar situation when they took Hunter Barco in the second round in 2022. Barco is a lefty, and Adams is a righty, but the important progression is that the Pirates got Barco to a point of consistently harder velocity, with improved secondary offerings. If they can get Adams to a consistent elite velocity, while adding a secondary offering or two, he could emerge as a future Major League prospect.
The pitching development even works well for pitchers who had good results, like seventh rounder Connor Wietgrefe, who not only put up a 2.77 ERA with better control at Minnesota this year, but also looked good in two starts in the Cape Cod League. He’s got average control, with an average fastball and an above-average slider from the left side, with a need for a third pitch.
Sleeper Position Players
A year after going pitching-heavy in the draft, the Pirates only used 11 of their 21 picks on pitchers this time around. They went heavier on position players this year, even after the prep guys in the first few rounds.
All of the previous disclaimers about their results with hitting development still stand. With the college guys, there are results that show an existing skillset to build upon.
Camden Janik, a catcher taken in the 12th round, was one of the hardest hitters in Division I to strike out this past year. The Illinois slugger only struck out 11 times in 266 plate appearances. He also had a 44% caught stealing in 70 innings in the Cape Cod League. The plus arm behind the plate, and advanced plate patience, gives Janik a better foundation than most mid-to-late rounders.
The Pirates drafted Will Taylor in the fifth round. Taylor was similar to Hartle as a guy who could have gotten first round money in 2021. He instead opted to go to Clemson to be a two-sport player. He suffered an ACL injury playing football, which required two surgeries and has severely downgraded a speed grade that drove his previous potential. He also had a broken wrist which ended his 2024 season early. This was the first year Taylor focused on baseball only, and the hope would be the Pirates could develop his non-speed tools with that singular focus once he gets healthy.
Ninth rounder Duce Gourson hit well across three years with UCLA, combining for a .30/.435/.482 line. He struggled in a brief look in the Cape Cod League last year, and saw his power drop from his junior to senior season. Gourson projects for average hit and run grades, with the chance to be an offense-first guy at second base, especially if he improves that fringe-average power.
One year ago, the Pirates drafted Charles McAdoo in the 13th round. He’s since gone on to be one of the better hitters in the system this year, reaching Double-A Altoona one year after the draft with good initial results. You could be optimistic about what he’s shown so far, and project McAdoo as a future starter. Looking back at his draft day writeup last year, there was a trend that existed:
McAdoo was rated the 342nd best prospect by Baseball America, after hitting .325/.409/.543 in 234 at-bats with San Jose State. This was the second season in a row where he had impressive offensive numbers. He also hit well with a wood bat in the Northwood League last summer. He showed great plate patience (15.2% strikeout rate, 11.9% walk rate), and hit 22 homers combined the last two years. McAdoo profiles as a second baseman or left fielder, due to an average arm and slightly below-average athleticism.
The trend? McAdoo hit everywhere he went. He has yet to stop that trend.
There was one hitter this year who followed that trend the most.
Tenth round catcher Derek Berg improved his power over the last two years with Army, while also hitting well in the Cape Cod League last year. He’s also moved behind the plate the last two years, showing the potential for above-average defense at catcher. If the offense is to be believed, he has a chance for an average contact/power combo.
I also like the progression of 15th rounder Ethan Lege. He transferred to Ole Miss in 2023, and didn’t have the best results while playing third base. He saw offensive improvements in 2024, batting .323/.424/.645 with 13 homers, while limiting his strikeout totals to 16 in 191 plate appearances. Lege also hit for a .922 OPS in three seasons with the Texas Collegiate League. He moved to corner outfield this year, but the Pirates announced Lege as a third baseman, and will no doubt try him at the more difficult position.
Berg and Lege are both college seniors, so they will sign. No player should be expected to do what McAdoo has done this year. Establishing that as an expectation would take away from how good McAdoo has been. The expectations also shouldn’t be high for college seniors taken in the mid-to-late rounds. However, they have both shown they can hit in college, and that’s the first step toward hitting in pro ball.
My pick for this year’s McAdoo-level sleeper would be Janik. I also think between him and Berg, the Pirates could at least develop an upper-level catcher who could threaten to crack the Majors.
Overall Grades
The Pirates went heavy on upside with the 2024 draft.
They used four of their first five picks on prep players, with three of those being position players.
The college players they took were filled with players who either graded well out of high school, or fared well early in their college careers, only to take a step back. That’s not all bad. If third round right-handed pitcher Josh Hartle hadn’t taken a step back, the Pirates probably wouldn’t have gotten him as low as the third round. The same could be said for other players.
Now the focus will shift to the development group to get as many of these players as close to their ceilings as possible. That has been a reliable operation on the pitching side, with very little positive outcomes on the hitting side.
One thing is for certain: This hitter-heavier draft will definitely test the development abilities of the Pirates.
It’s easy to give this draft an “A” grade, in terms of drafting upside and talent. Whether the Pirates can get such a great end result in the future will be determined by the development group.
If they can get things right, they might end up with the best player from this draft in Konnor Griffin. And a few more Major League players to join him.
