Pittsburgh Pirates 2019 Draft: Team Signs 8th and 10th Round Picks

The Pittsburgh Pirates have already begun signing some of their 2019 draft picks.  They announced that they came to terms with a few more picks.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have been pretty active in signings their top picks.  The Bucs signed their first round pick two days ago and followed that up with a few more of their top picks yesterday.  With all the signings, the Bucs were able to save about $400,000 against their draft bonus pool, having signed four of their top five picks.

Well, the Bucs apparently have signed a couple more of their 2019 Draft picks as well.  The Pittsburgh Pirates announced that they had signed eighth round pick Blake Sabol and 10th round pick Cameron Junker. Both Sabol and Junker were juniors, so they could have gone back to school for their senior years, but that was not expected.

In Sabol, the Bucs are getting a big, athletic prospect who was the University of Southern California catcher this past year.  Upon drafting Sabol, the Bucs announced the 6’4” left-handed hitter as an outfielder.  The team used the 214th overall pick on him, which carried a bonus slot value of $206,500.  The Bucs and Sabol agreed to an over-slot deal that was worth $250,000.  This is a little bit of a surprise as college players in the mid rounds are usually close to or under slot value.  However, the Bucs must really like Sabol to give him an over-slot deal.

The Pittsburgh Pirates also signed 10th round pick Cameron Junker.  Junker just finished his junior year up at Notre Dame and is a big-framed, hard-throwing starting pitcher.  He can hit as high as 96 miles per hour on the gun, but he has had some command issues over the years.  Although, he has improved his control issues each year in school.

The Bucs used the 304th overall pick on Junker, carrying a bonus slot value of $143,900.  Junker and the Pirates agreed to a below-slot deal that will pay the Notre Dame product $125,000.  By doing so, the Bucs saved about $19,000 against their draft bonus allotment.

Apparently, the Pirates have signed their eighth round pick as well, but details have not been released about his bonus as of yet.  Sabol is the only prospect that has gotten an above-slot deal, but that was only $43,500 over value.  Before these two signings, the Bucs had saved about $405,000 against their pool.  They added another $19,000 from the Junker signing to give them a total of $424,000.  With Sabol’s bonus accounted for, the Pirates are at $380,500 saved against their bonus pool.