Pirates Insider Podcast, Episode 36 (MLB draft preview)

The MLB Draft begins this weekend, and the Pirates have four of the top 51 picks. Pirates senior vice president/assistant general manager Kevan Graves appeared on the Pirates Insider Show and discussed the team's approach, as well as what recent success has meant for confidence in making those selections. It's also a Paul Skenes Day and a crucial one at that.

Transcript

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What's up, everybody? This is the Pirates Insider Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Mackey, coming to you on a Tuesday. We're going to be starting a series, Pirates, Atlanta Braves at PNC Park. It's Paul Skeens Day. Very exciting and an important homestand for the Pirates Skeens. We'll start twice. Pirates looking to gain some traction before the all-star break. And we will talk a little bit about that. But I actually wanted to dedicate today's episode to the upcoming MLB draft. It's going to be on Saturday, July 11th. That's the first four rounds. And then Sunday, you have rounds 5 through 20. Saturday gets going at 1 o'clock, and that runs through about 8 o'clock. Sunday starts at 11:30. It's that time of year where it's just complete insanity. You have the draft going on, the futures game, the home run derby, the all-star game, first half concluding, picking up in the it's just it everything all the time. But the Pirates have the number five selection in the draft. They also have the most bonus pool money of anybody. That's $19,130,700. It's a great opportunity to upgrade, to improve, to go out and seek out and find a bunch of talent. And so on the Pirates Insider show on Sunday, I had Kevin Graves on there as the senior senior vice president, assistant general manager. Want to make sure I get that right. But Kevin's a great guy, and uh he's been overseeing the draft this year. Not necessarily his traditional role, does a lot of scouting and evaluation and other things, but with Justin Horowitz leaving where they did in the year, uh Kevin Graves has sort of stepped in and run that. So uh talk to Kevin about a variety of things on the Pirates Insider show, about kind of the flavor of this draft, what the Pirates have opportunity-wise. They have four of the top 51 picks in this year's draft. Um, to me, a lot of pressure, but also a lot of opportunity. Given where the Pirates have been able to find talent, how how impressive that talent has been, I'll say it that way, at the top of the draft, talking, of course, about Seth Hernandez, Connor Griffin, Paul Skeens. Uh, and so I I asked that of Kevin Graves, you know, what what does that mean? What does it do for the confidence level of everybody? And and Kevin, I thought, gave a very insightful answer about the sort of honest assessment they have to have after every draft, stepping back, saying, what are these processes? What did we do that works? Um, and so uh they're gonna continue to do that. Another thing he highlighted is the synergy with their player development group. And I thought that was interesting because you've had different types of players. Uh, they had a college pitcher in Skeens, a high school position player in Griffin, and a high school pitcher in Seth Hernandez. And, you know, Skeens is very major league ready. Um, obviously. Connor Griffin was pretty darn major league ready, required just one year in the minors, and then you know, Seth Hernandez is a little bit further out. But that's one of the things that uh later in the interview, Kevin Graves was telling me I I asked him about um guys that have a lot of tools in the draft, and you know, how do you go about determining what tools you want to work on, um, and just what is make what what tools are appealing to the organization, and how do you, you know, how do you take those tools and make them skills is where Graves took it, and I thought that was a a really smart way of looking at it. I'll be honest with you, what I had in mind was somebody like Eric Booth Jr. And if you've read into the draft, he's a high school outfielder from Mississippi. Pirates do well with those things, um, you know, and and somebody who has really loud tools, but do you want to, you know, what what goes into making that selection versus like a Jackson Flora or something, the top college pitcher in the draft? Because that seems to be what the Pirates' decision is going to be. I'll highlight a couple other guys that I see linked to them, but um so Kevin anyway went on and talked a little bit about uh it's uh the what they're doing is trying to find like a hyper alignment with their skill development people, uh, and they target skills that they really think they can turn into tools and they're most capable. This is a quote of influencing, refining, tweaking, maybe adding something to it. Uh, and that includes the research and development part department, mental conditioning, body athlete experts, whatever. So there's a whole lot that goes into it, but the idea is to take something in the MLB draft that you feel like, okay, we have a way to influence this. This is what we this is where we see it now, this is how we're gonna develop it, etc. So that's something they're looking at. I'd imagine that it, you know, where they're at in the draft, number five, you're probably this isn't by any means to make it sound like they have to take a project, but that they could have to have that choice, and that's that's sort of why I'm bringing it up. But um you've seen the mock drafts by now, probably UCLA shortstop, Rock Kalowski expected to be the first overall pick. Uh Jacob Lombard, that's George Lombard Jr. He's a Yankees prospect that's been linked to the Pirates. He's a shortstop, high school shortstop. He's been um he's very high up there. Um Von Lackey from Georgia Tech. Uh Booth is on on a lot of mock drafts. Flora mentioned him, Drew Burris from Georgia Tech, Gio Rojas, a high school pitcher from Florida. So, I mean, that's basically your list if you're the Pirates looking at it. Rock Kalowski, Jacob Lombard, Von Lackey, Jackson Flora, Eric Booth, Drew Burris, somewhere in there. The the mock drafts I've seen have them either taking the high the college pitcher, excuse me, in Flora, or Booth, the high school Toolsy outfielder. And just a reminder, Pirates have four of the top 51 picks, fifth, 34th, 44th, and 54. 51st, excuse me. They have an additional second round pick. Unheld Cervantes from last year, a right-handed pitcher. They didn't sign him, so they get a little bit more. But um I don't know if I have a huge preference between Flora or Booth. Um, I I don't think you can ever go wrong taking pitching. And Booth has been dominant. 106 ERA in 102 innings last year, uh, predominantly fastball slider. Um he's the best college pitcher in the draft, hands down, went 12-0, had a whip under one. Um, you know, well, what what's the problem here? You know, struck out 133 and 102 uh in 102 innings, like I said. But um Booth intrigues me. Um it's one of those things, sort of like Connor Griffin. There's talk about swing concerns with him, um, which yeah, it's funny to think there were talk about swing concerns with Connor Griffin, but uh, give me a break. Anyway, uh, has a ton of speed. That's his identifying characteristic, has 70 grade speed on a 20 to 80 scale, um, and won the home run derby, the 2025 perfect game, all American classic. So the hit tool can't be that bad. Um, there's some power in there. So uh to me, the decision is kind of between those two. Um, but uh Burris is another guy, I think about uh again. That's Drew Burris, an outfielder from Georgia Tech. Um there's there's a lot there too. Had a really productive college season. Um see it theoretically undersized, but the numbers are great. 358 average, slugging 657. Um, seen as a potential center fielder of the future, has some power in there. Um so we will see. We will see. Um, but the MLB draft, like I said, Saturday, Sunday, this weekend, and all of the things are happening at the same time. Pay attention to the Pirates and what they have going on. And also, if you want to go back and listen to that interview with Kevin Graves, that is available on the Odyssey app. Uh oh, one other thing I did want to highlight uh is I get this a lot where the Pirates look at you know what the Major League needs are and you know to go shopping in the Major League draft. Um and so I asked Kevin Graves a version of that. Uh the short version is that they don't, um, don't link the two. Um and but it I thought it was interesting. Uh, I'm gonna read another quote from Kevin, but he said the Major League Baseball draft is so unique relative to some of the other major sports. We're fortunate to have Paul and Connor, but that's an atypical pathway. And yes, it is. If you kind of get outside of Pittsburgh, that's not normal. We've kind of got conditioned here where you take a guy in the draft and he goes and addresses a major league need. But um, you know, Kevin Graves goes on to say, and I'm gonna lean on his words, that's entirely independent of what's going on in the big leagues, what's going on with the major league team. Um, so you hope a guy reaches the big league quick quickly, but they don't really, you know, they don't go into it expecting that. So if I'm if I'm talking about you know Jackson Flora or Eric Booth or Drew Burris or whomever it is, like the Pirates are not taking these guys with the attempt the idea that they're gonna you know plop right onto the Major League roster. That's not normal that that stuff happens. Uh anyway. All right, so let's talk a little bit about Paul Schens and the Major League team as we get away from the draft stuff. Um where are we at with this? Seriously. I mean, I am not panicking about schemes, and I've talked on here a lot about you know various numbers, and you know, you can look at the fastball performance, um, you can look at expected numbers, you can, you know, kind of look under the hood. At the same time, we can acknowledge that there's something that needs to happen or needs to be proven, right? You know, don't totally know the right phrasing, but like we can look at this week and say this is a big one for Paul Schienes, right? We can look at this week and say this is a big one for the Pirates. They're in a stretch of 22 straight against teams 500 or better, and you've got the team atop the National League Central later this week, the team atop the National League East. Um, if if you're gonna fashion yourself as a playoff team, I would think that your race against two very, very good teams, you have to have the outcomes there, right? So um very curious given how much this has become a topic with Skeens, how he looks. Uh, and I have I've maintained this. I do not think he's injured, I do not think he's concealing something. People do not just randomly conceal elbow injuries, especially not somebody as as smart and as plugged in to his body as Skeens. Um, I think it's an idea of trying to do too much, trying to be too fine, um, maybe thinking a little bit more than I would like to see Paul think. Uh trying to, you know, be just so exact with everything he throws and so calculated. I'd like to see him get away from some of that. I'd like to see him get back to just sort of how do I say this in a nice way? Just like that physical I want to say like Neanderthal, but that's not that's not what I mean. But just that that primal, I have something that you cannot hit. I'm going to throw it, the heck with you, you're irrelevant to me. I'm going to challenge you. Would it? You get the idea. Like that's the way Paul Skeens pitched at the beginning of his tenure in the major leagues. And now we're sitting here, he's he's very calculated working around the zone, he's got seven pitches, there's finesse. Like, I want to see him go away from the finesse. I want to see him pound it. And if you look at the fastball velocity, I don't think he's suddenly incapable of throwing this. Uh, but I do think he's veered away from it more than I would like. Uh if you it's his last outing in Philadelphia is the one that just kind of raised some alarm bells. Like I can I can understand him dialing it back a little bit and hovering around 97, 98. If anything, that's something I don't totally understand about pitching today where everybody's got to throw a hundred. No. If you're throwing 97 and locating it, it works. Look at Braxton Ashcraft. But you go down to 93, 94, that's problematic. I want to see Skeens flip a little bit. I want to see him get back to it against the Braves against Sunday. I mean, if he's opposite Jacob Mizarowski in Milwaukee or from Milwaukee, that's gonna be a lot of fun. But anyway, it starts tonight. I want to see him fill up the zone. I want to see him get back to being the Paul Skeens of old. All right, that's the Pirates Insider Podcast on a Tuesday. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you from PNC Park tonight. Pirates Braves 640. Looking forward to it. Make sure you download this and uh continue to grow the popularity of this podcast. It's been so much. Thanks for listening, everybody. Talk to you later.