Retrospective Torture: A Pittsburgh Pirates Draft Review - 2000-2009

Since Jose Reyes signed with the Marlins, Pujols with the Angels and CHENPOCALYPSE came to an anti-climactic end with The Legend Bruce Chen re-signing with the Royals, it’s been a generally slow offseason. All this time without baseball has led me to return to FanGraphs over and over to find some crazy stat to write about. Sure, I found out that Franklin Gutierrez has been the best defensive outfielder in baseball for the past 6 years, without it even being close. I found out that Michael Cuddyer’s wife was Justin Upton’s 10th grade English teacher in Norfolk, Virginia. I found out that Jeff Mathis is simply one of the worst players to ever exist. I found that in 2004, an unknown overweight pitcher named Yusmeiro Petit racked up 200 strikeouts in the minors in just under 140 innings with a fastball topping out at 86 MPH. Nothing really satisfied me. Then I found the Pirates.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have been purrrrrrrrty bad for a while now. But why ? Why do they continue to put metaphorical steaming piles of horse shit out on the field at PNC Park ? It all starts with the draft. Before we get to the bad, it should be known that the last two Pirates draft picks, pitchers Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon look pretty fucking awesome. Then again, that's what they say every year. So let's get started, shall we ?

Pirates GM Neal Huntington: "Trust me, I got this"

The Basics:

• The Pirates' first round picks have been in the following slots going backward chronologically from 2009: 4th, 2nd, 4th, 4th, 11th, 11th, 8th, 1st, 8th, 19th.
• In the first three rounds of those 10 drafts, the Pirates have drafted 29 players. One didn’t sign (Tanner Scheppers) and Chris Young never pitched for the Pirates.
• 12 position players, 17 pitchers
• 11 of those 29 have made the majors
• Four of those 11 are position players, seven are pitchers
• Those four (Pedro Alvarez, Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker and Brian Bixler) have combined for 3,903 plate appearances, 95 home runs, and a .693 OPS.
• Those four have combined for 17.5 WAR. 12.9 of that belongs to Andrew McCutchen.
• Over the last two seasons, Jose Bautista (who was drafted by the Pirates in the 2000 draft, and eight years later traded to Blue Jays for backup catcher Robinson Diaz, owner of one career home run) has hit 97 home runs in 1,388 plate appearances.
• The seven pitchers (Daniel Moskos, Brad Lincoln, Paul Maholm, Tom Gorzelanny, Bryan Bullington, John Van Benschoten and Sean Burnett) have combined for 2,408.2 innings pitched. 1,143.2 of those innings belong to Paul Maholm.
• The seven pitchers have also combined for 114 wins ! And 176 losses :(
• The seven pitchers have combined for 1,605 strikeouts. Tim Lincecum and Clayton Kershaw, both drafted within seven picks AFTER the Pirates took Brad Lincoln with the 4th overall pick in 2006, have a combined 1,872 strikeouts in 1,744.1 innings. Oh, and three Cy Young awards.
• The seven pitchers have combined for 20.6 WAR, 13.9 of which belong to Paul Maholm.

Summarizing what they've missed out on:

• 21 of the 2012 Scout.com Top 100 prospects
• 18 of the 2011 Baseball Prospectus Top 100 prospects
• 30 All-Stars
• Two MVP’s (Joey Votto, Dustin Pedroia)
• One World Series MVP (Cole Hamels)
• By my count, 98 Major Leaguers, but there are most certainly some that I missed.
• Four Rookies of the Year (Dustin Pedroia, Huston Street, Buster Posey, Craig Kimbrel)
• Four Cy Young winners (Tim Lincecum twice, Clayton Kershaw, and Zack Greinke)

On second thought...

Let's go year by year to rub it in !

• The Buccos took John Van Benschoten with the 8th pick of the 2001 draft. Besides being named John Van Benschoten, the guy didn’t have much going for him. He pitched 90 awful major league innings, going 2-13 with stellar 9.20 ERA. He also managed the rare and hard to accomplish negative WAR at -0.8. What did the Pirates miss out on 25 picks later ? WELL JEFF MATHIS OF COURSE (and some guy named David Wright five picks later).

"There's another run...why am I even here ?"

• 2002 was a fun year. The Pirates had the number one overall pick ! That’s so exciting ! Until you take Bryan Bullington. *facepalm* After starting his career 0-7, Bullington picked up his first career win in the year 2010 as a member of the Kansas City Royals. Selected within six picks after him were fairly notable players such as Zack Greinke and Prince Fielder. Yup. Them. Several picks later came this World Series MVP fella, Cole Hamels. In the 2nd round, the Pirates took pitcher Blair Johnson 42nd overall. Blair Johnson never made the majors. The guy that was taken two picks later, Joey Votto, won an MVP.

Bryan Bullington, heart of a champion.

• With the 8th overall pick of the 2003 draft, Pittsburgh drafted starting pitcher Paul Maholm. He’s been a consistent, below average innings eater for the Bucs since he made the majors in 2005. 21 picks later, after a few other solid big league pitchers were selected such as John Danks and Chad Billingsley, a legend was taken. ***RANDOM AND UNPLANNED BUT STILL WORTHWHILE TANGENT WARNING*** The Arizona Diamondbacks took Carlos Quentin with the 29th overall pick. Why is Carlos Quentin a legend ? He gets hit. A lot. Over the last two seasons, Quentin was hit 43 times. Over that same span of time and 162 more plate appearances, Yuniesky Betancourt drew 46 walks. Throughout his career, Quentin has been hit by a pitch in 4% of his plate appearances. Betancourt has drawn a walk in 3.3% of his. What. If we look back to Quentin’s stats at Stanford University, we find that his hit-by-pitch skillz are not a new thing. He was hit 48 times in college. Including his college career and minor league time, since 2001, Carlos Quentin has been hit by an astoundingly awesome 259 pitches. I think his stance might have SOMETHING to do with it.

"Alright, gimme something to hit..."

"GOD DAMN IT, NOT AGAIN."

• 2004 provided another “FUCK, WE MISSED AN MVP” moment for Pirate nation. With the 52nd overall pick, they selected Brian Bixler. Mr. Bixler has accounted for exactly zero major league home runs, and a solid -0.9 WAR. 13 picks later was an undersized infielder that resembled an elf. His name was Dustin Pedroia.
• 2005 worked out well for Pittsburgh. Yes, you can read that a few more times to make sure that's really what that says. They took Andrew McCutchen 11th overall, and he’s pretty fucking awesome. (If you don’t like McCutchen, it’s worth noting that Jacoby Ellsbury was taken 12 picks later)
• As already noted before, in 2006 the Pirates took Brad Lincoln over Clayton Kershaw and Tim Lincecum. I don’t even think that needs explanation. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they also missed out on Drew Stubbs, Max Scherzer, Ian Kennedy and the only human to ever throw a 99 MPH changeup, Daniel Bard.
• 2007 hauled in Daniel Moskos for the Bucs, several picks before young stars such as Matt Wieters, Madison Bumgarner, Jason Heyward and Jordan Zimmermann. They also decided that pitcher Duke Welker was a better second round selection than a guy who already has a legit shot at breaking the all-time home run record, Mike Stanton.
• 2008 netted the Pirates this fat, power-only “third baseman" Pedro Alvarez at 2nd overall. (I may or may not be being unnecessarily harsh because I drafted Alvarez REALLY high in many fantasy leagues and he sucked hardcore). The next pick was Eric Hosmer. THE HOSMASAUR. COME ON HUNTINGTON. Also this Buster Posey dude, and the growing Canadian legend, Brett Lawrie.

"Y'all crazy."

• Tony Sanchez, the 2009 4th overall pick, is a hardly promising young catcher. He’s yet to make it out of Double-A. Following this pick came about 20 fantastic young prospects including the number one prospect in all of baseball (even over Bryce Harper), Mike Trout.

So there. A little over 1,300 words on the tragic entity that is, a Pittsburgh Pirates draft.