PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – It’s a change in the Pirates philosophy in the last year or two that played strongly into what most are calling a successful 2021 MLB Draft.
Where before they would have their evaluations of players set days before the draft, now they continue to gather details up until getting on the clock.
“I think we stayed an open mind and an open book all the way until the end in every way possible that we could to take it all the way to the 11th, the 12th and all the way to today,” said Pirates Director of Amateur Scouting Joe DelliCarri. “Quite frankly, there was some information passed the last couple of days that we were still learning about the players and what they were doing on the field even the last couple of days came into our room.”
It's something Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said last week that when he made mistakes in the past it was because they stopped working on a player.
“I think we can laugh and say that our guys are tired of me asking questions when they have to answer it two and three times over to be certain and test their conviction in the moment that we have quality information,” DelliCarri said. “They say they talked to the player two times, the coach two times. I said did you talk to them in the last five minutes or the last ten minutes, and they get tired of that.”
“We took players with an open mind all the way until the end. Even through their combines and summer leagues. We were still out there scouting and finding out information about changed grips and what they were working on.”
“It is unending how much you can continue to learn all the way until the end. I think that’s the biggest step forward we’ve done with our staff over the last couple of years. You are only as good as your last conversation and then things change.”
With a group of about six players who could have gone number one overall, the Pirates planned to likely sign a player for under slot in the first round to take chances on high school players with each of the next four selections.
“Strategically the way it’s set out each pick you make sets up the next one,” DelliCarri said. “The way it presented itself with our first selection allowed us to keep going after the highest talent on the board. Keep taking shots or opportunities at the most ability.”
It ended up the Pirates drafted 11 pitchers and 10 position players. Two-thirds of them are college players
“We’re excited by the large group of diverse talent,” said Pirates Assistant General Manager Steve Sanders. “We sought out with the broad goal of adding impact to the organization. We were able to do that in a number of different ways. I feel good that we drafted 21 really good human beings. That’s a testament to the work the scouts do.”
That goes back to the work of the area scouts, the easy part is what is on the field. What can separate picks on a draft board is the knowledge gathered about their personalities, work ethic, signability.
“The guys who we took up top will get a lot of the attention, but feel really good about the talent we were able to add in rounds 11-20,” Sanders said. “Hopefully a really talented draft class that is going to help us for a long time.”