Pirates getting draft target stolen last summer now looks incredible for both sides

Around this time last year, Nick Kurtz was wrapping up his highly successful college baseball career at Wake Forest by doing what he has always done best: raking. He had some of the best raw power in the 2024 MLB Draft class and was an attractive target to virtually all clubs as a first-round pick.

Of course, the fact that he's a defensively limited first baseman automatically made him just a little bit less of a sure thing in the early rounds. Teams generally prefer an athletic catcher, shortstop, outfielder or starting pitcher with their early first-round picks; but the Pittsburgh Pirates were undoubtedly crossing their fingers that Kurtz would fall to them with their ninth overall pick in the draft.

We made our case for the Pirates going after Kurtz in June of last year, as did the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Sportskeeda, but a union between the slugger and his hometown team just wasn't meant to be.

Instead, Kurtz wound up signing with the team formerly known as the Oakland Athletics, and he's been absolutely crushing the ball to open the 2025 campaign. However, the Pirates ended up with young infielder Konnor Griffin, whose career is also off to an excellent start. Perhaps this wasn't such a massive whiff after all.

Pirates getting draft target Nick Kurtz stolen last summer now looks incredible for both sides

Kurtz has been raking in national attention all year long so far, and it's not difficult to see why. He's only 20 games into his Triple-A career but he's already hit seven home runs, driven in 24 runs and currently owns a cool .655 SLG and 1.040 OPS, to go along with a .321 batting average.

His first promotion to the big leagues appears to be imminent, but Griffin's early-career numbers are making the absence of a Kurtz selection hurt just a little bit less for the Pirates.

Griffin's numbers may not jump off the page quite like Kurtz's do, but he's not even 19 years old yet and he's shown a strong sense of pitch recognition and maturity at the Single-A level for Pittsburgh. He's made it into just 13 games, but he's already recorded four extra-base hits (including his first two professional home runs) with eight RBI and 11 runs scored. He's also 10-for-13 in stolen base attempts for good measure.

Griffin is extremely young, but he's looking to be one of the more advanced young prospects in the game. His .756 OPS is solid for a player of his age, and it's no wonder how he earned the No. 2 spot in MLB Pipeline's most recent Pirates prospect rankings list. Pipeline has his MLB ETA listed at 2028, but he's already taking strides and could easily move that up a year to a year and a half.