With new amateur scouting director, Pirates prep MLB Draft board

A year after the Pittsburgh Pirates selected a generational talent in Paul Skenes with the No. 1 overall pick, general manager Ben Cherington had different reason to be excited for the MLB Draft.

The Pirates have the No. 9 pick in the first round — their sixth consecutive year with a top-10 pick but lowest choice since drafting 18th in 2019 — so Cherington considers it “an exciting time of year” and a “really important, critically important, event for us.”

Saturday served as the first formal meeting for the Pirates’ baseball operations staff and scouting department at PNC Park, where their draft board was unveiled in advance of the three-day draft from July 14-16.

“We want that board to already be in a pretty close to final spot,” Cherington said. “And then we use the next week to stress test that, dig deeper on specific questions and maybe work on strategy — and certainly communication with players and families and representatives, etc. But we want to come into the draft room with the list in as close to a final spot as possible.”

It will be the first draft for new Pirates amateur scouting director Justin Horowitz, who spent the previous 11 years with the Boston Red Sox where he worked his way up from baseball operations intern when Cherington was their general manager to a special assistant. Horowitz is working with his predecessor, Joe DelliCarri, now the vice president of scouting, to determine the Pirates’ draft candidates.

“It’s been really cool to see Justin and Joe work so closely together during this year,” Cherington said. “I feel like we’re getting the best of both worlds with some new ideas, combined with the wisdom that Joe brings all the time.”

In a draft class loaded with college position players, multiple mock drafts project the Pirates to pick Florida State outfielder James Tibbs III, who hit 28 home runs this season. They also have been linked to first baseman Nick Kurt of Wake Forest, right-handed pitcher Trey Yesavage of East Carolina and middle infielder JJ Wetherholt, a Mars graduate who plays at West Virginia.

Cherington maintained the Pirates will pick the “best player, best talent” available while keeping in mind that there are areas of need the organization wants to address.

“I always felt like the draft, it’s hard enough to begin with, to do that well, to find the right players,” Cherington said. “Layering any need thing on top of it, it’s taking something that’s already hard and making it harder, and we want to avoid that. The group will be focused on let’s get the most talent we can with the picks we have.”

With outfielder Bryan Reynolds, third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes and staff ace Mitch Keller under contract through at least 2028 and shortstop Oneil Cruz and rookie right-handers Jared Jones and Paul Skenes under club control through the same window, Cherington will be under pressure to draft a player who can make an impact as soon as possible.

But he isn’t committing to “specifically” focusing on college prospects, as draft preview publications have mentioned Jackson (Miss.) Prep shortstop/outfielder Konnor Griffin — an LSU commit who was the Gatorade national player of the year — and Harvard-Westlake (Calif.) shortstop Bryce Rainer as potential possibilities.

Cherington has used five of his six first-round picks for the Pirates on college players, taking second baseman Nick Gonzales (2020), catcher Henry Davis and reliever Carmen Mlodzinski (2021) and right-handers Thomas Harrington (2022) and Skenes last year. Second baseman Termarr Johnson, selected No. 4 overall in 2022, is the lone high school prospect the Pirates have used a first-round pick on under Cherington.

“We’re know where we are. We know where our major league team is. We know that we want to improve, keep improving,” Cherington said. “Part of that, as we’ve talked about, is the internal improvement, and part of that is the responsibility I have — and baseball operations has — to find ways to make the roster even stronger. Whether that’s this month, whether that’s the offseason going forward, combination, all of the above. I think we can do both of those things. Just really honor the draft process. Take the best player, best talent, available. Not put the thumb on the scale in terms of proximity.

“That input is kind of baked into the process. We’re aware of proximity in that’s an input in the process. Players that are further away have just different kind of risks.”