Pittsburgh Pirates: FanGraphs Add 2021 Draft Picks to Prospect Board

FanGraphs recently updated their top prospect lists to include 2021 draft picks, so let’s take a look at what Pittsburgh Pirates’ draft picks make their top prospect lists.

FanGraphs has updated their top prospect boards to include the 2021 draft picks. This includes the Pittsburgh Pirates list, which looks a whole lot deeper after the draft. If you want to view the entire updated list, you can click here to look through who moved up and down the rankings as well as other team’s lists.

The Pittsburgh Pirates used the number one overall pick in the draft to select catcher Henry Davis out of Louisville. Currently, FanGraphs ranks Davis as the number one overall prospect in the Pirate farm system. They also rank him as the 34th best prospect in all of baseball. He’s currently just one spot behind the number four overall pick Marcelo Mayer, who comes in at number 33. He’s the team’s only draft pick that ranks in the top 100, but there are plenty more who show up on FanGraphs’ ranked prospect boards.

The next highest ranked prospect the Pittsburgh Pirates drafted is Bubba Chandler. Chandler’s slot value was blown out of the water as he got way overslot money, earning $3 million for a slot value that was worth less than $900 thousand. The Pirates got a huge steal on Chandler who went #72 overall despite being a top 20 overall talent in the draft. He ranks as the team’s 10th best prospect and the Pittsburgh Pirates will likely use him as a pitcher. Currently, he has a 45 FV grade.

FanGraphs ranked the Pirates’ second-round pick behind Chandler. Anthony Solomento also got overslot value, but not to the extent of Chandler. Seen as the top left-hander in the draft, the high school pitcher took home $2.8 million compared to the slot value just a few hundred dollars short of $2 million. Solomento still ranks as one of the team’s top 20 prospects at #16, and with a 40+ FV. Between Davis, Solomento, and Chandler, the Pirates went $1,014,700 overslot. They spent $12.3 million of their allotted $14.394 million draft pool on the trio.

The next prospect FanGraphs ranked on the Pirates’ updated list is Lonnie White Jr. White Jr. was another prospect who the Pirates were able to get later than expected because of his commitment to Penn State. The Pirates have yet to sign White Jr., but if he does sign, he’ll likely get overslot money like Chandler and Solomento (White’s slot value is currently just over $1.05 million). White will rank as their 20th best prospect with the same FV as Solomento if they can land the high school outfielder.

Their 4th round pick Owen Kellington is another one of their draft picks who has yet to sign. The right-hander is yet another high school pitcher the Pirates took. Kellington would come in as the team’s 45th best prospect with a 35+ FV. Last but not least is college infielder Jackson Glenn. I recently covered Glenn as he was a bit old for a draft pick and could be in the majors as soon as 2022. Glenn followed the overslot picks of Solomento, Chandler, and White Jr., so the Pirates went well underslot to get Glenn. While the slot value was just over $420K, Glenn signed for $12.5K. He still ranks among the team’s top 50 prospects at 50 on the dot. He, like Kellington, has a 35+ FV.

Overall, the Pirates adding six prospects to their top 50 list is pretty impressive. That’s nearly 30% of all their picks coming up as noteworthy prospects. As a wrap-up, the Pirates have just over $1.5 million left of their draft signing pool left to use on picks who haven’t signed. They’ll likely use a decent portion of that to sign White Jr. with the remaining being used to pick up their late round picks.