The Major League Baseball amateur draft is just days away, and while Ben Cherington and the Pirates have prepared as if it is a normal draft, even though it will last only five rounds, they don't know yet who they might take June 10.
"If you want to tell us who we’re taking, you have as good a guess as I do, probably, at this point," Cherington joked during a Zoom call this week.
Well, with two first-round draft picks -- including seventh overall -- and one of the largest bonus pools, they have options. They have six picks, including that additional first-round competitive balance pick at No. 31. That gives them a draft pool of $11,154,500, the fifth largest of all teams. They can spend an additional 5 percent without being penalized future draft picks, bringing their max total to $11,712,225.
While teams across the league have been budget-conscious during the shutdown, the draft will be only a modest cost. Each pick will receive just $100,000 of their bonus in 2020. The rest will be deferred to the next two years.
So which players will the Pirates target June 10?
“The simple, boring answer is best player available," Cherington said. "If we’re doing the job the way we want to do it, then the way we rank players would effectively consider both the upside and the risk."
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