Analyzing Pittsburgh Pirates Amateur Draft History

Every professional sports league has its version of an amateur draft. The National Football League is the most popular selection process which the league has turned into a major event every year. That draft process has changed dramatically since I attended five straight drafts in Madison Square Garden back in the 1990s. Just take this year’s draft as an example. The estimates of attendance at the outdoor event in Detroit was an estimate of 775,000. That’s absolutely amazing.

Of course, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League all have their drafts but pale in comparison to what the NFL stages. The NBA would be the next best thing to the NFL draft in most opinions and then very few pay attention to the NHL and MLB’s draft process.

We Pittsburgh sports fans have been treated to amazing players drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers, many of whom became Super Bowl champions. Their baseball counterparts, the Pittsburgh Pirates have had their share of talented players that arrived through the annual amateur draft.

For the MLB, their draft process began in 1965 and unlike the other leagues they hold their process midway through the season as teams are still playing. What follows is a history and summary of the Pittsburgh Pirates draft which was highlighted this year when they had baseball’s first overall pick and selected Paul Skenes right out of LSU and with a short stay in the minors, Skenes has won two of his first three starts and been dominant in the process. 

The Bucs have had just six overall first round picks in their history with all six players having played their ball in college. Aside from Skenes this season, the first time Pittsburgh had the league’s first pick came in 1986 when Jeff King was the choice after a career at the University of Arkansas. King was a tremendous third baseman who had a solid pro career. King lasted 10 years in MLB, eight of them with the Pirates. 

10 years after King was drafted, along came Kris Benson, a big 6’4” 190-pound hard throwing pitcher out of the University of Clemson. He would last nine seasons in the majors. In 2002 the Pirates swung and missed on taking Bryan Bullington from Ball State University as he lasted just two seasons with the Pirates appearing in only six games and then bounced around from the Cleveland Indians to the Toronto Blue Jays and finally ending his career in Kansas City where he got the most playing time, 13 games with a 1-4 record.

It's too early to judge Paul Skenes’ career as he is only a rookie with three starts. However, in 2011 the Bucs may have made their finest overall first pick the best one in their history. That’s because they drafted Gerrit Cole who had an outstanding career with the Pirates only to seek greener pastures and leave the team for more money in 2018 after five full seasons with Pittsburgh where in 2015 he won 19 games. 

The Buccos had one more opportunity to have the first overall pick in baseball’s draft before getting the chance to pick up Skenes this year and that was three years ago with the pick of Henry Davis who had pitched for the University of Louisville. Davis is a catcher who has spent most of his time in the minors since 2021 but did play in a few games this season with just 10 at-bats and one hit.

Overall, in the first round, the Pirates have made 92 draft picks including the aforementioned first overall. Some of the biggest names taken in the first round are:

• Richie Hebner. Hebner who became the Pirates starting third baseman entered the draft as a shortstop. He didn’t attend college and was drafted directly out of Norwood High School in Massachusetts. Some interesting trivia about Hebner is that he was an outstanding hockey player who considered going to the NHL but in baseball’s off-season was also a grave digger. In 1966 he was the 15th pick overall.
• Craig Reynolds. A solid shortstop out of Regan High School in Houston, Reynolds was picked 22nd in 1971.
• Steve Nicosia. North Miami Beach High School in Florida gave the Bucs catcher Steve Nicosia who became a solid journeyman catch for Pittsburgh and was drafted 24th in 1973.
• Rod Scurry. A left-handed pitching prospect, Scurry had a relatively long baseball career after graduating from Proctor Hug High School in Sparks Nevada coming to Pittsburgh via the draft in 1974, 11th draft pick overall.
• Dale Berra. Yogi Berra’s son had a colorful and sometimes disruptive baseball career as the Pirates drafted him in 1975 with the 20th overall pick after he played high school ball at Montclair High in New Jersey.
• Barry Bonds. Perhaps one the most hated players ever to don a Pirates jersey, Bonds who is baseball’s all-time home run king skirted out of Pittsburgh and headed west to San Franciso ditching the team he helped build into a contender. For what it’s worth he was drafted sixth in 1985 after playing ball at Arizona State.
• Moises Alou. Alou might be best remembered not for being drafted by the Pirates but instead of being involved in one of the worst memories in Chicago Cubs history. It was Alou who was trying to catch the foul ball in the playoff game against the Florida Marlins in the National League championship series that a fan named Seve Bartman interfered with that resulted in Luis Castillo getting another at bat. Castillo began a streak of hits and runs that sent the Cubs to a loss when they were winning the game 3-0 and thus another year in the longest streak in history of a team not getting to the World Series.
  
  Alou was drafted by the Pirates in 1986 in the second round but would only play in two games with the Bucs before ending up with the Montreal Expos. Interestingly, Alou is the son of former major leaguer Felipe who is the brother of Matty and Jesus, also two former pros of which Matty had a five-year career with the Pirates. The three brothers took the field at the same time in 1965 ironically enough while they were all playing with the San Francisco Giants and were playing the Pirates. All three were in the outfield at the same time.

• Jason Kendall. Kendall is one of the best catchers to ever play in Pittsburgh. For nine seasons in the ‘Burgh he played in 1,252 games hitting for an average of .306. In 1992 he was the 23rd pick in the draft and four years later he was a full-time starter with the Bucs after coming up from the minors and graduating from Torrance High School in California.
• Neil Walker. The drafting of Walker is an interesting one for several reasons. First, he was drafted as a catcher but would end up being an accomplished infielder playing every position except shortstop. Hailing from Gibsonia where he played his high school ball at Pine Richland, Walker’s father Tom was also a major leaguer and in 1972 as a friend of the great Robeto Clemente, Tom Walker wanted to make the trip to Nicaragua with Clemente to provide aid to victims of an earthquake there. Clemente told Neil’s father “no, you stay home and spend the holiday with your family.” We all know what happened next and had Clemente allowed Walker to board that plane, there would never have been a Neil Walker.
  
  For seven seasons, Walker was an integral part of the Pirates and a part of the three-year playoff run the Bucs made from 2013-2015. He would leave the team in 2016 and play five more seasons with the Mets, Phillies, Yankees, Marlins, and Brewers but retired after the 2020 season having played in just 18 games with Philadelphia.

• Andrew McCutchen. There is a saying “what goes around comes around.” That is the case for Andrew ‘Cutch McCutchen. Drafted with the 11th pick of the 2005 draft, McCutchen made his MLB debut in 2009 where he played in 108 games, hit 12 home runs, and batted .286 as a rookie. On January 15, 2018, the Pirates front office pissed off Bucs fans everywhere when they traded ‘Cutch to the San Francisco Giants for cash, Kyle Crick, and Bryan Reynolds. That year was a roller coaster ride for McCutchen because later in the season the Giants traded him again, this time to the New York Yankees. It was a one-year contract and as a free agent McCutchen was on the move again, this time signing with the Philadelphia Phillies.
  
  Again, another one-year contract left ‘Cutch as a free agent in 2022 where he inked a deal with the Milwaukee Brewers. Also, a one-year contract, the Pirates brought McCutchen back home last year and he has sworn to retire as a Pirates much to the delight of Pirates fans around the world. McCutchen played his high school baseball at Fort Meade High School in Florida.

• Pedro Alvarez. Alvarez played college baseball at Vanderbilt University and hails from the Bronx in New York. A power hitter, Alvarez hit a career high 36 home runs as a Pirate in 2013 the year Pittsburgh played Cincinnati in the infamous “Cueto” game. The season before he smacked 30. In nine seasons with the Bucs Alvarez smashed 162 home runs. He would switch teams in 2016 going to the Baltimore Orioles where he finished out his career with three more seasons before retiring in 2018. His first season with the O’s saw him hit 20 home runs and then his playing time diminished until he quit the game two years later. 
• Tony Sanchez. Finally, we have Tony Sanchez, another catcher who played at Boston College. Drafted with the fourth pick in 2009, Sanchez had a short career just four seasons, three with the Pirates. Debuting in 2013 he never played in more than 26 games in the four years playing Major League Baseball and after leaving the Pirates he had one final season with the Atlanta Braves in 2017 having sat out the entire 2016 season. That one season in Atlanta saw him get to the plate just once.

In breaking down the history of the Pittsburgh Pirates draft, there have been 2,654 picks made since 1965. Of those 126 came out of Pennsylvania. Of those 126 five were first basemen; three played second base; five played first base; and even dozen played shortstop and the same amount were catchers; two more played the infield at various spots; 69 were pitchers; and 18 played the outfield.

The very first draft in 1965 netted the Pirates 41 players in total. Those 41 players were:

Wayne Dickerson, Roger Hayward, Richard Hendrix, Edward Berube, Robert Settle, Ronald Young, Steve Schneider, Terry Thompson, Larry Killingsworth, Kerry Dean, Zelman Jack, Douglas Watkins, Jack Clark, Terry Sparks, Irvin Melton, Paul Giglio, Sam Angott, Bob Moose, Bob Shannon, Gene Garber, Jophery Brown, Freddie Patek, Ralph Custer, Virgil Bentley, Roger Banze, Tom Dettore, Alan Putz, David Tolley, Gregory Chlan, Lou Marone, Jim Nelson, Benny Grove, Robert Roadarmel, Mike Nickels, David Warmbrod, Greg Marotz, Glen Borkhuis, Rich Jakson, Berke Reichenbach, Dennis Pierce, and Mike Garrett.

Reading through those inaugural picks are some interesting selections, men with stories. Bob Moose would tragically lose his life in 1972, the same year Clemente died as Moose lost his life in a car accident. Gene Garber became an excellent relief pitcher who lasted nearly 20 years in the majors but only three in Pittsburgh. One of my favorite players as a kid in this group is Freddie Patek mostly because I was always short on height and so was the 5’5” Patek. Patek also was an outstanding infielder with a great glove. 

The very first pick for Pittsburgh in 1965 was Wayne Dickerson. Drafted out of Ensley High School in Birmingham, Alabama, Dickerson was the 10th pick overall but never made it to the majors having played minor league baseball for five seasons before calling it a career. Dickerson spent time in playing in the minors for Salem, Gastonia, Clinton, and finished with Salem again. He played outfield and first base and played full seasons while in the minors but obviously was not deemed good enough by his parent club to get the call to the majors. In five minor league seasons he hit for an average of .262 with 208 RBIs. Today he is 76 years old. 

Some other players worth mentioning drafted by the Pirates are:

• Dave Cash. Drafted in 1966 out of Proctor High School in Utica, New York. Cash was an excellent second baseman who could get his bat on the ball. He was a member of the 1971 Pirates World Series championship team hitting .289 that year. He was also a three-time All-Star. He was on the Bucs roster for five seasons and another seven with Montreal and Philadelphia. I grew up watching Cash and it’s hard to wrap my head around that today he is 75 years old with a birthday coming up on June 11.
• Gene Clines. Coming all the way from the west coast was Clines, a product of Ells High School in Richmond, California. A fan favorite in Pittsburgh, he was also a member of that 1971 squad which is my favorite Pirates team of all-time. I recall watching Clines as he played in 97 games in 1971 and hit .308 during that stretch. Clines was picked sixth in that same 1966 class as Cash.
• Ed Ott. Ott was a high school and college wrestler and with his thick build was solid behind the plate. It’s hard to fathom that he was drafted as a pitcher, but home plate became his career position in the majors. Sadly, he passed away just this year at the age of 72 on March 3 while living in Danville, Pennsylvania. Like the aforementioned 1966 draft picks, Ott who was chosen with the 23rd pick overall was a member of the Willie Stargell led 1979 championship team. Ott was not a great hitter but a solid battery mate of many Pirates pitchers. He will best be remembered for his fight with the New York Mets Felix Milan.
  
  It happened on August 12, 1977, and Milan was playing second base and part of a double play attempt which Ott tried to break up with a hard slide. Milan took offense to the slide and with the ball in his hand punched Ott in the face. Using his wrestling skills Ott picked up Milan and body slammed him. Milan suffered a separated shoulder, and his career was never the same. In fact, he was put on IR for the rest of the season and was out of Major League Baseball the following year finishing out his career overseas in Japan.