The Pirates Went Safe in the 2026 MLB Draft and That Rarely Works

With the fifth overall pick, and one of the highest bonus pools, the Pirates focused on higher floors over upside.

The first draft I covered on Pirates Prospects was in 2009.

The Pittsburgh Pirates selected Tony Sanchez with the fourth overall pick.

For an organization that passed on Matt Wieters two years earlier to draft Daniel Moskos, having a fairly new General Manager go the signability route with Sanchez sent Pirates fans into an uproar.

What happened next was something the Pirates hadn’t seen. They went over-slot on their day two and day three picks, drafting hard-to-sign, projectable prep players. They saved money on Sanchez, but they added players who could potentially break out by getting them into the system early.

None of those 2009 prep players did break out, and it’s important to note the Pirates’ scouting department had yet to be overhauled by Neal Huntington.

Scouting and Draft Changes

By 2011, Huntington had replaced most of the scouting department with people who would lead to improved results, at least on the pitching side. The Pirates not only went with a big bonus pitcher in Gerrit Cole at the top of the 2011 draft, but they also went heavy over slot on prep players like Josh Bell, Tyler Glasnow, and Clay Holmes. Bell was a gift that fell to them, but Glasnow and Holmes were great cases of identifying and later developing up raw talent.

The decision process that led to that 2009 draft may have been better if the Pirates had a better scouting department. Maybe they identify different players for the upside picks. Maybe they take someone other than Sanchez. And the changes to the development process over the next few years might have also contributed to the results from Glasnow and Holmes.

MLB changed the draft after 2011, in large part because the big market Pirates exploited a way to outspend the Red Sox on players like Bell. Starting in 2012, teams were restricted from spending over their bonus pool.

Bonus pools were calculated by the slot values of the top ten round picks. You could go under-slot on any pick and use the extra money to go over-slot on another pick. You could also go up to 5% over your bonus pool without losing a draft pick, paying a 75% fine on the 0-5% overage. But you could no longer spend whatever you wanted without harsh penalties eventually crashing down.

To their credit, the Pirates never went considerably under-slot in the first round after the 2009 debacle. They saved a few hundred thousand on some first rounders, but they never went millions below slot to follow the same pattern as 2009.

That changed in 2021.

The Last Rebuild

Ben Cherington was in his second year as General Manager, and the Pirates were entering a rebuild. It was the exact same scenario as Huntington in 2009. Year two of a new General Manager. Massive roster selloff. The Pirates had a top four pick. This time they went first overall. Again, they went under-slot on a college catcher.

You could almost feel like this was a simulation. Or, a horribly disguised ruse.

The Pirates drafted Henry Davis and saved nearly $2 million. They repeated the 2009 approach by spending the extra money on middle round picks like Anthony Solometo (37th overall), Lonnie White Jr. (64th overall), and Bubba Chandler (72nd overall).

It’s too early to give a defining grade to that draft. The results have already been considerably better than 2009, and a lot of the scouts who oversaw that draft were people brought in during Huntington’s overhaul from 2009-2012.

Davis isn’t exactly a bust, but he’s nowhere close to what the Pirates were hoping to get. Instead of a power hitting catcher with questions about his defense, Davis has turned into a good defender who can’t hit, outside of power that is limited by his .157 average. He’s replacement level this year, after being below-replacement in previous seasons. This is his age 26 season, so he’s reaching the point where mass improvements are unlikely.

Chandler is the example that works to justify the over-slot approach in the middle rounds. He’s shown promise in his limited experience in the Majors, with a combined 4.58 ERA, including a 4.77 ERA this season. The 23-year-old shows flashes of being a considerably better pitcher than he is right now, and it’s common for pitchers to take a few hundred innings in the Majors before things really click. He’s at 125 right now, after about a year combined in the big leagues.

White is the wild card right now. After years of injuries, he’s finally healthy and hitting for power. The power surge started in the hitter-friendly Greensboro environment, but has carried over to Double-A for most of the first half of the season. He’s still 23, so there’s time for him to develop in the upper levels and see if he can add another piece to the big league roster.

I would argue that the approach in 2021 doesn’t look great. The justification for taking Davis largely rests on Chandler. However, if Chandler was the first overall pick, putting up these same numbers, there would be concerns about the quality of the draft.

Chandler gets some leeway due to being drafted in the third round, where expectations are lower.

Meanwhile, Davis is considered a disappointment as a replacement level catcher because he was taken first overall.

How Often Do the Pirates Go Under-Slot?

Expectations can often be unfair, and they cloud a lot of the MLB draft process.

The expectation for a first rounder, especially one in the top five picks, is that you land a potential impact guy. When the top pick turns out to be replacement level, that’s extremely disappointing relative to expectations. And when the justification for lowering your odds with the top pick is getting more value in the middle rounds, you raise expectations in a way for those picks.

Chandler won’t justify going under-slot at first overall in 2021. Chandler and White providing value might justify the decision to essentially trade down to improve the early middle rounds.

The Pirates haven’t gone back to this approach since 2021. All of Cherington’s first round picks have been slot or higher. They’ve had some over-slot picks while paying slot in the first round, which brings up the argument that they could have gone with a slot pick in 2021 while also creating enough money for Chandler.

I had a theory on draft day that the Pirates could be going back to an under-slot approach in 2026.

When the Pirates drafted Derek Curiel fifth overall on Saturday, my immediate thought was that they might be saving money again for middle rounders. Curiel wasn’t rated inside the top ten, and was the first pick after a consensus top four went off the board.

It’s possible that the Pirates like Curiel enough to offer him slot, and it’s possible his defensive value, hit tool, and speed could warrant close to the number five price.

The Pirates took a similar approach in 2015. They drafted Kevin Newman with their first round pick and gave him about $100,000 below slot. The difference here is that Newman was drafted 19th overall. Selecting a no-power, contact heavy middle infielder at 19 is massively different than going with the same hit-over-power, premium defensive value player at fifth overall.

In 2015, the Pirates didn’t have any players who went considerably over slot. The only prep player they drafted was Ke’Bryan Hayes, who received the full slot amount at pick 32. The Pirates didn’t even spend their full pool amount in 2015, despite signing 27 of their top 30 picks, with only two prep picks in the later rounds left unsigned.

This year, the Pirates didn’t really draft in a way that makes you think they’re going with a 2009/2021 approach of going over-slot in the middle rounds.

The more I break this down, the more my theory is killed that Curiel was an under-slot pick.

2026 Bonus Expectations

Prep shortstop Aiden Ruiz went in the second round, but with a $2.278 million slot value, it seems more likely that he was a situation similar to Hayes, where the Pirates drafted him at a spot where they wouldn’t need to go over-slot to sign him.

Chris Rembert was a college sophomore drafted at 51st overall, but again, he’s got a slot amount of nearly $2 million.

The only other top ten prep player was fourth rounder Andruw Giles. It’s possible the Pirates could need more than the $725,900 slot price to sign the young outfielder. They wouldn’t need to go millions under-slot with Curiel to make this happen.

After the tenth round, three prep players were drafted.

Spencer Evans was taken in the 11th round. The Pirates typically go over-slot on 11th rounders. They don’t usually go above the $500,000 range, and often the amount is lower. The first $150,000 for each pick after the 10th round isn’t counted against the bonus pool, so it’s likely Evans would only need a few hundred thousand in slot money at the most.

Damarcus Rideout-Carter, a right-handed pitcher drafted in the 14th round, doesn’t have a college commitment. It’s unlikely the Canadian prep pitcher would need a considerable over-slot amount to sign.

The most exciting pick of day two was Malachi Washington, an outfielder drafted in the 18th round. He’s already stated that he will be attending LSU. That could change if the Pirates decide to pay him an amount that could change his mind. But this might depend on saving enough money to get him. Realistically, I don’t think they would have saved money in the first round or even the top ten rounds to hopefully sign their 18th round pick.

Without saving any money in the top ten rounds, the Pirates have about $700,000 they could spend on over-slot picks before they would be penalized a draft pick. They would be fined on this overage amount, which would add an extra $525,000 to their $700,000 overage expenses if they spent up to the 5% limit.

Outside of the numbers, what does this mean for the 2026 Pirates draft?

The biggest thing is that I don’t think this is another 2009 or 2021 scenario.

The more apt comparison would be an earlier pick version of what the Pirates did in 2015 with Newman.

Safety Isn’t the Best Approach in the Draft

My criticism for this draft was that it followed a trend the Pirates had taken before the success of the last few years.

They went the safe route with Curiel, taking a player who projected as a good future hitter without a lot of power. This is exactly where they failed with Newman, and they’ve had similar cases where they’ve failed to develop power from a preference of hit-first prospects.

As I wrote in my day one recap, the success the last two years largely flipped that approach. The Pirates started investing in higher power grades, while gambling that the hit tool could be developed.

There’s a reason this is the better approach. Players who hit for power often have a power mindset. That’s a higher energy level that is more dominant. When a power hitter struggles to hit for average, it’s often because their approach is too aggressive. On the flip side, highly rated contact guys who don’t hit for power are often too passive.

One side is a proactive dominant approach. One side is a reactive dominant approach. The balance exists in the middle.

I don’t think it’s easy to change a mindset in either direction. I do think there’s more upside if a power mindset scales back their aggression, versus a more passive mindset finding a way to have a more dominant approach.

The leadership of the Pirates’ scouting department this year was largely the same group that oversaw the Newman pick and many other hit-over-power decisions. Granted, this group did draft Davis in 2021, so they haven’t been universally hit-over-power. Davis is a perfect example of the other side of the energy extreme.

What the 2026 draft looks like is a safe approach across the board.

The Pirates will spend enough to say they didn’t go cheap, but they won’t have much upside to show for it.

They added players who could generate immediate results in the lower levels, allowing them to hype up the early results as the college hitters are blasting home runs next year in the hitter-friendly Greensboro atmosphere.

Someone like Curiel could reach the majors faster, and provide the sense of that the immediate return means they avoided a bust, even if the upside still isn’t high.

The immediate return is what the Pirates received most in this draft.

Curiel’s skillset could lead to a quick rise to the Majors. The 34th overall pick was traded for two players who might not have long-term upside, but fill immediate depth needs. Those depth needs largely exist due to the poor job the Pirates did in the draft during the early years of Cherington’s rebuild, along with the poor trade returns from the selloff in 2021.

In a way, the 2026 draft mostly worked to quickly patch the failures from Cherington’s early drafts and initial rebuild.

What this draft seems like is a conservative approach by a front office that isn’t thinking long-term, but instead trying to find ways to get immediate help that could keep their jobs intact.

It reminds me a lot of the Dave Littlefield years, where the Pirates would often pass over high upside talent in order to take the safer, quicker to the Majors option.

I could be wrong. I haven’t fully scouted Curiel. I have said that I would have taken Eric Booth Jr. over him, opting for power with the chance to develop the hit tool. I also would have taken Drew Burress, Chris Hacopian, and even Bo Lowrance, who went 40th overall. The best outcome would have been Lowrance at 34th.

All of that is based on minimal looks at this draft, and doesn’t include my strength of listening to the players speak. That became my strength after years of interviewing hundreds of draft picks from the day they arrived in pro ball through the point some of them became some of the best Major League players in the game.

It really doesn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t matter how FanGraphs, MLB Pipeline, Baseball America, or any other source grades these picks.

The Pirates have indicated that they had top 15 grades on each of their top three picks. This is something any team would say to justify how good they think their picks were. And it’s important to note the Pirates didn’t hire a scouting director for this draft, which makes you question how the rankings were compiled.

But it ultimately doesn’t even matter what the Pirates think.

Time tells the truth.

The Pirates were able to safely kick the can down the road. They saved around $3 million by trading the 34th overall pick for depth. They drafted safe, high-floor players who will likely give the impression of the draft being a long-term success with their short-term lower level results.

I could be wrong.

If I am, it would mark the first time this type of approach has worked for the Pirates.

And now, the signing period begins…

-Tim Williams