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.

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.

The Bucs held their usual press conference for new draft picks and Kristy Robinson recorded the video below. The one thing that wasn’t usual was seeing how large Josh’s Dad was in the Little League picture. The guy was huge with legs the size of a thirty year old oak tree. But the coolest thing was his Little League team was named the Pirates.

We really like watching Huntington about the 1:50 mark when Bell puts the Pirates jersey on for the first time since Little League.

It’s pretty cool that Bell had Scott Boras in town. Boras has many clients, interesting to see him sitting with one of his best.