First Pitch: The Pirates Look To Be in Good Shape To Sign Almost All Of Their Picks

19 Jul 2021

It’s starting to become apparent that the Pirates will probably have additional bonus pool money available after all of the top ten round prep pitchers have signed.

Henry Davis inked a deal for $6.5 million, paying him just outside of top four money in this draft, and giving the Pirates $1.9 million in bonus pool savings.

The Pirates also signed their rounds 5-10 picks for a combined $2.8 million under slot.

They can spend an additional $719,700 before losing a draft pick in a future draft, though they would pay a $539,775 penalty to the league, because MLB really doesn’t like spending on amateur talent, or even minor leaguers for that matter.

For the rest of this article, I’m going to assume the Pirates will spend every possible cent, up to losing a draft pick, because what else are they spending on this season?

Because the MLB draft is so confusing, even in our tenth iteration of this series, let’s break the spending down into two categories for the remaining players.

Remaining Picks: Anthony Solometo (2), Lonnie White Jr. (Comp. B), Bubba Chandler (3), Owen Kellington (4)

Combined Slot: $4,491,700

Money For Over-Slot Deals: $3,549,500

In total, the Pirates have $8,041,200 remaining to get the above four players before giving up a draft pick.

My estimate is those four will cost around $7.5 million combined, give or take a hundred thousand.

Let’s say that the Pirates have just $400,000 remaining to spend after signing the above prep players.

They can now take the extra money and offer it to one of the players drafted beyond the 10th round.

Any pick after the tenth round can be paid $125,000 before it counting against the bonus pool. Pay a guy $500,000, and only $375,000 counts against the pool.

So, if the Pirates ended up with $400,000, and they really wanted 14th round prep outfielder Braylon Bishop, they could offer him $525,000, which is mid-fourth round money.

But, let’s say they’d like to sign Bishop and 16th round prep shortstop Daniel Corona.

They could offer each player $325,000, which is late-fifth round money.

But those round prices are a bit inflated, since not all teams stick to those. The round 5-10 guys made a combined $572,500 due to the Pirates’ strategy. The players from the top four rounds will all make half a million or more. And it seems like if prep players don’t go in the range to make half a million or more, they’re not going to be signing.

My expectation would be that the Pirates sign their second through fourth round picks, and sign 8-9 of the players taken on day three.

You can follow along on the Draft Pick Signing Tracker to see how much the Pirates have after each signing.