It has been about a week since the Pirates drafted another group of young talent in the 2012 MLB Draft and some of them are already starting to come to terms with the team. So what I thought I'd do is go over who these guys are that have already signed and tell you how this might impact how the Pirates will go about signing the rest of the guys they have drafted.
The Pirates did not back off the rest of the draft like some thought they were going to after drafting Mark Appel the possible number one draft pick that fell all the way down to eighth overall. Appel is going to be an expensive sign so some thought that the Pirates might have to let some of their later round picks go free in order to save enough money for Appel. The Pirates have not done anything like that to this point, one week after the draft. The Pirates started early with their signings when Jon Sandfort (third round pick) announced on Seibel, Starkey, and Miller that he would go to Bradenton on Monday (yesterday) and sign his contract. In my opinion this was a telling sign for the Pirates because Sandfort had a commitment to play in college and seemed relatively serious about this commitment but the Pirates put enough money on the table to convince him to take the other route in going pro. The Pirates most likely did not save much money if any from this pick which is not necessarily a bad thing considering they locked up a good third round pitcher.
Soon after coming to terms with Sandfort the Pirates announced agreements with two other picks. The two other guys the Pirates locked up were sixth rounder Eric Wood and ninth rounder D.J. Crumlich. Wood the third baseman signed for $88,000 under what the suggested slot value was leaving that money for the Pirates to spend somewhere else how they please. D.J. Crumlich says that he graduates from U.C. Irvine on the 15th of June and will head to state college shortly after that to start his career as a professional baseball player.
The Pirates also came to terms with UNC Senior catcher Jacob Stallings. This could be a sign where the Pirates might save some money with the slot value being $148,000. A pitcher Stallings might be catching at State College is the one that they drafted in the twelfth round Dalton Friend who is expected so sign at around 100K or so.
The Agreement that excited me the most by far though was the one that the Pirates came to with second round catcher Wyatt Mathisen. If you read my post last week about the Pirates Top 10 Draft Pick's then you would of seen that Mathisen hardly played any catcher at all in high-school instead he played shortstop. Most of the time if you are big enough to play catcher and athletic enough to play SS then you will turn out to be a strong major league defensive catcher, and that only improves when you could pitch as well in high-school adding a strong arm to the mix. Mathisen also has a quick bat with power, and you would be surprised at the bases he can steal for a catcher. The Pirates probably didn't get a great deal on Mathisen but they did get a possible starter in the major leagues for about 746K.
To this point the Pirates have not saved a ton of money on picks but they have done a good job at getting a lot of good players signed early. The Pirates main goal is still to sign Appel and at this point I can't even say if I think they are going to do it or not. Luckily the Pirates have a while until they really have to get worried about weather or not they will get a deal done with the Stanford Junior. The negotiations will most likely pick up in the next few days or so as well because Appel's season has just ended as his team has lost in the NCAA super-regional to Florida State. I truly think it will be interesting to see how this whole situation plays out and to see how serious the Pirates are about their first round draft pick. If the Pirates don't get this guy inked the people in Pittsburgh will go crazy but I can't say that it will necessarily be the wrong move because there are such high penalty's for going over the Pirates 6.6 million dollar draft budget. The Pirates have historically good history with Scott Boras so I guess you can call me a glass half full kind of guy when it comes to Appel.
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