Pirates honing in on target for No. 1 pick?

The 2021 amateur draft begins on July 11, and with the later date comes more time for analysis, predictions, smokescreens, rumors, and possible major changes up and down teams’ draft boards. With this in mind, there is quite a bit of uncertainty over which prospects will land with which teams as a real consensus has yet to develop in almost every single spot in the first round.

Baseball America’s Carlos Collazo, The Athletic’s Keith Law, MLB Pipeline’s Jim Callis, and ESPN.com’s Kiley McDaniel have all published new mock drafts within the last week, and one constant emerged between the four pundits — the Pirates taking California high school shortstop Marcelo Mayer with the first overall pick. However, the Pirates are said to be focused “only on position players at this point,” according to Law, so such candidates as Louisville catcher Henry Davis or high school shortstops Jordan Lawlar and Khalil Watson could still be in the mix. 

The Pirates’ $14,394,000 draft bonus pool is the highest of any team, and they plan to maximize value by drafting a player at No. 1 who is thought to be less willing to insist on the full slot price $8,415,300 slot price for the first overall pick. “I think that’s what Pittsburgh’s pick will come down to: taking the one that is clearly cheaper to sign,” McDaniel writes, which certainly isn’t welcome news to Pirates fans long frustrated by the team’s unwillingness to spend.

That being said, many teams have deployed the strategy of spreading around their draft bonus money in the past. The most famous example is the Astros’ pick of Carlos Correa (seen as a slight reach at the time) first overall in 2012. Houston signed Correa to a below-slot bonus and then used that saved money to sign 41st-overall pick Lance McCullers Jr. to an above-slot deal. It also isn’t like Mayer would be a controversial choice as first pick, considering that MLB Pipeline ranks him first on their top 250 draft prospects list, and McDaniel’s most recent prospect ranking has Mayer second overall.

While Mayer looks like the favorite at the moment, it is quite possible the perceived price tags could still fluctuate in the next three weeks. For instance, the three pundits all note that the Tigers love Mayer, so he isn’t likely to fall beyond Detroit at the third overall pick if the Pirates and Rangers (who pick second) both pass. As McDaniel observes, this impacts Mayer’s leverage in potential negotiations with the Pirates, since the young shortstop can be reasonably certain of at least landing a bonus in range of the $7,221,200 slot price attached to the third overall pick.

There is no consensus whatsoever in the mock drafts after a hypothetical Pirates/Mayer No. 1 pick, so if Pittsburgh went in another direction, the draft boards would be entirely blown up. To give you an idea of the wide range of scenarios, check out the players cited by Callis, Collazo, Law and McDaniel as possibilities for each team drafting in the top eight, along with which pundit selected which prospect for each top-eight team in their mock draft.

All four mock drafts are well worth reading in full, to get a sense of what the 29 teams with first-round picks are generally targeting this year or have historically looked for in past drafts. The Astros aren’t included, as they lost their first-rounder as part of their punishment for the sign-stealing scandal.

For more on the prospects themselves, you can check out the aforementioned lists from McDaniel and MLB Pipeline, Baseball America’s top 500 list, or some of the individual writeups from the Sports Info Solutions blog on such top college players as Florida outfielder Jud Fabian, Wake Forest right-hander Ryan Cusick, UCLA shortstop Matt McClain, and Mississippi right-hander Gunnar Hoglund.