First MLB Draft as Pirates GM will be telling for how Ben Cherington wants to build for future

Before his first MLB Draft as Pittsburgh Pirates general manager, Ben Cherington was asked about his philosophy on making a first-round pick and gave the type of answer that wouldn’t tip his hand.

“The simple, boring answer is best player available,” Cherington said last week on a conference call with Pittsburgh reporters. “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.”

Whichever way the Pirates pick at No. 7 overall on Wednesday night — high-ceiling high school prospect or closer-to-ready college star, pitcher or position player — will be telling about how Cherington wants to build the ball club for the future.

Over the past two decades, the No. 7 pick in the MLB Draft has produced seven All-Stars, including a three-time Cy Young Award winner and 2014 NL MVP in Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw, a 50-home run hitter in Prince Fielder and two-time Gold Glove shortstop in Troy Tulowitzki.

But under previous general managers David Littlefield and Neal Huntington the Pirates have mostly whiffed on finding superstars with top-10 picks in that span. Since 2000, they have drafted eight pitchers and four position players, 10 college players and two out of high school.

Only three became All-Stars: pitcher Gerrit Cole, the No. 1 overall pick in 2011, third baseman Pedro Alvarez (No. 3 in 2008) and outfielder Austin Meadows (No. 9 in 2013). Cole and Alvarez were each chosen once before leaving the Pirates, and Meadows wasn’t selected for the midsummer classic until after they traded him to Tampa Bay.

“We know that there are certain player demographics in the draft that carry more risk,” Cherington said. “Obviously, the high school players historically are going to carry more risk. There’s absolutely high school players that should be and deserve to be and have proven to be the right choices in the first round.

“It’s really weighing the upside and the risk together. If we’re doing that well, we’ll get the order right and there’s no particular demographic we would pursue or stay away from. It’s just how well can we bake in all of the inputs, all of the positive attributes, all of the limitations, all of the relative risk and get to the best order possible so that we take the best player when it’s our time to pick.”

With baseball shut down during the coronavirus pandemic, the baseball operations staff has had to conduct its scouting and player evaluations in the same virtual setting that MLB will do the draft that has been shortened to five rounds.

“It’s certainly been a new experience for all of us,” Pirates assistant general manager Steve Sanders told Bucco Talk host Dan Zangrilli on Saturday on 93.7 The Fan. “No matter how long you’ve been involved in the draft or baseball, for that matter, this is certainly a new way of doing things. Being over Zoom, working through technology, not being able to be in the same room and communicate face to face has certainly been different and a challenge in some ways.”

That the college baseball season was canceled before most conference play and high school season before it could even start only complicated matters for the Pirates. Cherington indicated the evaluation process favors the prep players because their summer baseball is against better competition, whereas college prospects are missing a pivotal season.

“The bottom line is, there’s less information than there normally is. We are missing weeks of information that we normally have,” Cherington said. “It’s an interesting debate as to what demographic that’s affected the most. You could make an argument that the college player is impacted just as much because in a normal year, the platform season or whatever you want to call it, the junior season for a college player is weighed really heavily. It’s the most recent piece of information. It also happens to be a time when you see college players often make significant leaps or steps forward in their performance. We don’t have that, other than a very small sample. …

“With a high school player, yeah, we’re missing some stuff. In some sense, if we talk about seeing high school players against competition, in some ways the summer before is just as important. With high school players, that’s when they’re facing the best competition. We do have that, and we have data from that. It’s hard to say. There’s a little less information on every player. I couldn’t tell you which player, which demographic is impacted the most.”

And if there’s one thing Cherington made clear before his first draft for the Pirates, it’s that he wouldn’t tip his hand, even if he could.