The 2013 Major League Baseball draft just got really interesting for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates will now get the ninth overall pick in 2013.   If you can vanquish the dreams of Mark Appel in the system from your mind, the team will have some serious cash to move around and could exploit a weakness in the CBA during the 2013 MLB Draft.

We think this is very important because of the number of talented players in the top portion of the 2013 draft.

The Houston Astros were spurned by Mark Appel and it inspired the team.   In fact, one could argue that the Astros exploited Bud’s new system this year with the moves they were able to make.

The new draft system favors teams with a large pile of allocated cash in their draft pool.   The Pirates are going to have that in 2013 and it could just get bigger. 

Just think about this for a moment, the Bucs now get the ninth overall pick in 2013. The team will also get their normal first round pick based on how the season turns out for the ballclub–the last pick if you think the Bucs will be the World Champs.

More picks means more cash to use to sign those picks.   It could get a lot better, too. Just imagine if the Pirates were to be a winner in the new Poor Ballclub Lottery and get another pick perhaps somewhere in the 30′s?

Adding those three picks up, should all of the stars align, will give the Buccos a 2013 draft pool somewhere in the neighborhood of the six million dollar range.

That’s a lot of cheese. 

Thinking that players like Kris Bryant from San Diego, lefty Carlos Rodon from NC State, Ryan Eades of LSU, Chris Rivera the slick shortstop from El Dorado, HS, or Austin Wilson of (gulp) Stanford could be in the system is really exciting.

Sure not getting Mark Appel hurts.  No question.  But this should turn out ok. 

The Pirates should be coming off their first winning season since most of us can remember and the amateur draft could be a bonanza for the Bucs too.  It’s just another reason to look forward to 2013.

June 8, 2012; Tallahassee, FL, USA; Stanford Cardinals pitcher Mark Appel (26) in the fourth inning of game one of the Tallahassee super regional against the Florida State Seminoles at Dick Howser Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Melina Vastola-US PRESSWIRE

Ohio State pitcher John Kuchno was signed for $125,000.  It will hit the pool for $25,000.  The clock is ticking Mr. Boras.  Kuchno throws hard, touching 95mph and has a plus to average curveball based on who you speak with regarding the Buckeyes skills. 

As we sit now, the Pirates have three players in the first ten that are still unsigned.  Obviously first-rounder Mark Appel, fourth-rounder Brandon Thomas and eighth-rounder Kevin Ross.

The Pirates should be active this afternoon and get some deals done. 

Jon Heyman said the one hope in getting Appel signed might be intervention in this interesting article.  The Pirates have experience dealing with Boras.  That much we do know. 

But never under the new laws of Bud Selig.  If the Bucs don’t sign Appel, it will piss a lot of people off, and could also bring lawyers into the situation.  Now that’s a lot of fun.

There is nothing to indicate Appel is about to change his mind, and the Pirates are believed very unlikely to raise their offer because it would mean the loss of a coveted 2013 draft choice, so the somewhat slim hope for a deal may rest on some sort of intervention by MLB higher-ups, or the ability to prove a flaw in the rules or how they were followed by other teams. There is no accusation or thought the Pirates did anything wrong.

Does Heyman have Boras in his ear telling him that teams colluded against signing Appel?  We never really thought about it that way. 

The Pirates covered their ass for the next few hours this afternoon back on the draft days.  We have to believe the line of thinking in all of this ballsyness by the Pirates was if Appel wouldn’t sign, other options in later rounds could be there for the taking.

The one pitcher we were dreaming about in that scenario was this guy.  Walker Buehler.  The team could give him over $800,000 today. 

We got some scoop on Buehler after the draft.  The word we received was Buehler was going to be very, very hard to sign. 

Shit. 

Not really surprising, but it doesn’t hurt to dream.  But as of 12:30pm, we doubt Buehler signs for that number.  Just in case you want to drool here is what we wrote when the Bucs grabbed him.

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Remember when you were little, and you would get in the toy aisle of your favorite store? So many choices – it was always so bright, each of those toys glimmered in your eyes. It was never easy to pick just one toy, was it? We think that’s the way the Pittsburgh Pirates view the MLB draft. The team picked a bright, shiny, expensive toy Monday night in Mark Appel, and then yesterday the Pirates grabbed another one.

The Bucs always pick expensive toys, and they did it again when they selected Walker Buehler in the 14th round. Baseball America rated him the 50th best prospect in the draft. He was named a 2012 Rawlings second-team All-American. He was supposed to go much earlier in the draft, but all of the rules have changed this year.

The right handed pitcher attended Henry Clay High School in Kentucky. He took a 16-12 record, 2.11 ERA and 234 strikeouts into Kentucky’s High School Region Tournament. As always, the career won-loss record is deceiving, which is quite apparent considering his career ERA is 2.11, with only 75 walks in 166 innings. He has seven losses over the last two years when his team has scored a total of three runs in those seven games.

Buehler has committed to Vanderbilt, but if he went early in the draft it was thought he would sign. What happens now will be interesting: could the Bucs peel a few dollars back so that Buehler could get almost third round money?

It’s easy to pick out the big toys, getting them past the new cash register this year is a different story. But the Pirates have always seemed to make it happen in recent drafts. Let’s trust the Bucs can walk out of the store with both Mark Appel and Walker Buehler.

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Buehler is on twitter: @buehlersdayoff (the Vanderbilt background scares me quite a bit….)

Some raw video footage of Buehler is here:

Video of Buehler is here:

It’s probably in the very back of the Boras manual, under “Emergency Preparations.”  After we picked our chin up from the bar floor, we knew there was some work to do.  We had articles prepared on who we thought the Bucs would take, but those were of no use to us now.  What a shocker.

So, as we tried to wipe the smile from our face, we thought about our first step in finding out more about Appel.  “Aha!” we thought to ourselves,  “Let’s check out Appel’s twitter account!”

Hmm… interesting avatar.  He loves Christ.  Cool.  We need all the prayers we can get for the Buccos!

What is the big right-hander’s twitter handle?   Oh, look at this…..

Refined.  Clean.  Efficient.  God, we love this kid and we trust he can pitch exactly like this.  Doesn’t the Lord work in mysterious ways?

But then it got strange when we went to the timeline.  Dead.  Silence.

Shit.

The silence continued,  hours after Appel plummeted from atop everyone’s mock draft boards…. and then, finally,  a statement was released.  Appel wouldn’t speak with the Pittsburgh media.  Nice.

“I’m currently concentrating on winning a national championship and finishing my academic endeavors at Stanford. I will address the possibility of a professional career in due time.”

Well, that’s some great writing, Mr. Boras.  In other words – after the free fall, all the leverage that Appel and Boras have is the possibility of a return to Stanford for Appel’s senior season.

Neal Huntington countered the silence with the following statement:

“Our worst-case scenario is the ninth pick next June.  Best-case scenario, he joins Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon and all the pitching in our system. I’m optimistic we have a legitimate shot to sign him.”

In other words, it’s on.  We will take Huntington.  We love his chances.