Pittsburgh Pirates Take A Pair Of College Hitters in Sixth and Seventh Round

The second day of the Major League Baseball Draft is over halfway over.  The Pittsburgh Pirates continue to draft players from the college ranks.

So far, the Pittsburgh Pirates have only used two of their picks in this year’s draft on high school players.  Those were the team’s first two picks of the draft, when they took Quinn Priester and Sammy Siani at pick number 18 and number 37 respectively.  Since then, they took college players from the second round through the fifth round.

Well, they continued the college tend with their sixth and seventh round picks.  The Pittsburgh Pirates took a dual position player with their sixth round pick, taking outfielder and pitcher Will Matthiessen from Stanford University.  The Bucs announced Matthiessen as an outfielder, not a pitcher, so obviously the team likes his bat more than his arm.

The Stanford product continues the Bucs’ trend of taking big and athletic players.  Matthiessen stands at 6’6” and is pretty filled out weighing 225 pounds.  He had a really nice season with the Cardinals, batting .320 and hit nine home runs in 49 games.  He had 57 total hits which was good for over a hit per game played for the big right-handed hitter.  He is not ranked on either MLB Pipeline or Baseball America’s Top Prospect Lists.

With their seventh round pick the Pittsburgh Pirates stuck to the West Coast and drafted a college catcher.  The team selected University of Southern California product Blake Sabol.  Sabol is a big catcher standing at 6’4” and weighing 215 pounds.  He bats left-handed but throws with his right arm.  However, team actually announced Sabol as a right fielder, making him the fourth college outfielder they have drafted.

As mentioned earlier, Sabol was the Trojans starting catcher this year.  He put up a decent, but unspectacular slash line of .278/.360/.382 with only three home runs.  For his size, Sabol has not really tapped into any of the raw power that should be there.  However, he has shown a great eye at the plate.  The Bucs new outfielder only struck out 36 times in 51 games but has walked 29 times.  He ranked as Baseball America’s 174th best prospect entering the Draft.

The other interesting note about Sabol is that he is related to USC Alumni and Pittsburgh Steelers legend Troy Polamalu.  According to Sabol’s USC Player Profile page, they are second cousins.  Both Sabol and Matthiessen are raw prospects more than anything.  Both have good size and tools but have not really tapped into those tools yet.  Plus, both are transitioning to focus on one position for the first time, which could help them.