Pittsburgh Pirates: Looking at Previous #1 Overall Picks

2011

The 2011 draft is very notable for two reasons. One, it had the chance to be one of the most organizational-changing drafts in the history of Pittsburgh Pirates. Two, the Pirates’ super aggressive spending on draft selections is the main reason we have draft slot values today. The 2012 draft would be the first draft to have slot values.

With the top pick in the 2011 draft the Pittsburgh Pirates selected highly-skilled right-hander Gerrit Cole. Cole, who held the highest signing bonus for any draft prospect ever until Adely Rutschman broke his record in 2019, showed all the makings of an ace through the first few years of his career. The first 3 years of his career saw him pitch to the tune of a 3.07 ERA, 2.89 FIP, and 1.15 WHIP.

With Cole’s strikeout rate rising, walk rate dropping, and home run rate remaining at a very strong sub-0.8 rate, the Bucs seemed to want Cole to experiment more with pitch-to-contact strategy. This led to his downfall as a Pirate pitcher and was traded to the Houston Astros for what ended up being a lopsided trade, but one that’s looking better.

The Bucs were able to salvage it to some degree when they received back a strong prospect package for Joe Musgrove and Colin Moran has been trending upward the last two years. Both were the main pieces in the trade.

Cole has since turned into an ace, finishing 2nd behind teammate Justin Verlander in Cy Young voting in 2019, receiving the richest contract for a pitcher ever the following off-season by the New York Yankees, and looking like he could take home the hardware yet again.

The Bucs broke a second signing bonus record in the second round when they drafted switch-hitting slugger Josh Bell in the second round. Bell’s time with the Bucs was very inconsistent. All told, he hit .261/.349/.466 with a .343 wOBA and 113 wRC+ with the Pirates. However, his well below-average defense led to him having an fWAR of just 3.4 in 552 games/2191 plate appearances. That’s just below 1 fWAR across 150 games. Bell’s wildly inconsistent bat led to his end in Pittsburgh and was dealt this prior offseason to the Washington Nationals where he currently has a 43 wRC+, albeit in 64 plate appearances.

Sadly, there’s another 2021 American League Cy Young contender in this draft class. With their 5th round pick, the team selected flamethrower Tyler Glasnow. Glasnow had awful control with the Pirates, walking 13.9% of all the batters he faced. That, combined with a 1.3 HR/9 led to a 5.79 ERA and 4.90 FIP in 141.1 innings. Glasnow was dealt to the Tampa Bay Rays at the 2018 trade deadline as part of a three-player package for Chris Archer. Glasnow spent most of the 2019 season hurt and was inconsistent in 2020. However, he’s currently dominating batters in the AL East with a 2.05 ERA, 1.81 FIP, and 0.75 WHIP through 30.2 innings this year.

Glasnow’s downfall with the Pittsburgh Pirates was for a similar reason Cole had a downfall with the Pirates. He was forced into the “pitch-to-contact” mold the Pirates essentially forced on their young players in the previous regime.

I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t anything else notable about this draft class. The team broke a third signing bonus record, this time in the 9th round when they picked Clay Holmes. In the 20th round, they selected Nationals’ star shortstop Trea Turner. Alex Dickerson, their 3rd round pick, was one of the Giants’ best hitters in 2019-2020.

Two other players from this draft have made the majors. Their 4th round pick, Colten Brewer has pitched 90 innings in the big leagues from 2018-2020. Eric Skoglund was a 16th round selection but did not sign. He would later be picked by the Kansas City Royals in the 3rd round of the 2014 draft and has pitched a total of 109 innings in the bigs from 2017-2019.