Improvement for the Pirates Must be Driven by the Draft

The prior Pittsburgh Pirates administration missed far too often in the draft. The new must correct those failures or they will suffer the same fate.

Before we get too deep into this column, let’s address the elephant in the room, Bob Nutting needs to spend more money. There, we said it together, now breathe. Nutting’s wallet is part of the equation, but it has never been that simple. Without building a proper pipeline for homegrown talent by drafting well, any money spent would be like starting your fireplace with wads of hundred-dollar bills. It might feel nice for a minute, but eventually you’ll regret the waste.

The Pirates have done well in the Neal Huntington era drafting first round picks, problem is, that’s not enough to build a team. Certainly, you need those players, but you must hit on some of the lower rounds too and the Pirates have been abysmal at that task for far too long. What you see on the field is a direct reflection of this failure. A small to mid-sized MLB club cannot afford to miss on that many picks because they can’t buy their way out of it.

To be successful you must build through the draft and fill in the missing holes when you’re close. This is where Mr. Nutting has really failed this club, and this city. When the perfect storm finally hit in 2015, the Pirates window was wide open. They had a slightly declining Andrew McCuthen, emerging Starling Marte and a pitching staff on the cusp of falling apart. Right there. That’s the exact time a choice needed made to head in one direction or another. Instead they chose to play the fiddle while Rome burned. They let J.A. Happ walk and sign a reasonable deal with Toronto. They did nothing to address their best pitcher not named Garrett Cole retiring, A.J. Burnett. There were options, but they chose to move hometown hero Neil Walker to New York in return for a pitcher named Jon Niece. 

Where were the reinforcements for the pitching staff? I suppose you could blame Jameson Taillon for being injured, but somehow that doesn’t feel right. Perhaps there should have been more in the pipeline, maybe even someone who wasn’t a can’t miss number one pick. 

You see that is where this club really needs to focus, and not just throw money at the problem. Despite all this failure, all this ineptitude, the Pirates outspent every single other team in baseball on the draft. Nutting doesn’t spend enough money to be sure, but when he does the wrong people made the wrong decisions and there absolutely must be lessons learned from where they’ve been.

If a rebuild is in our near future, the club could bring in some much needed talent that will pay dividends for versions of the team to come, but if this crucial aspect of the organization isn’t addressed we’ll be right back here, having this same conversation ten years from now.

As the Pirates new management staff is built, I hope they pay close attention to the type of organization they are and where the talent needs to come from. Spending money is important and I’m not entirely convinced Mr. Nutting has had an awakening. Either way the draft, scouting and development of talent at every level of the organization need to provide what the payroll won’t, talent. 

Follow Gary on Twitter: @garymo2007