A New Era: Pittsburgh Pirates Spend Big on Draft for Second Straight Year

As the Pirates have dealt several of their longer-tenured veterans for prospects over the past months, many Bleacher Creatures have shown outrage at the Bucs' moves, calling them "salary dumps."

I have persistently defended Neal Huntington's strategy, contending that the Pirates simply do not have the talent at any level to succeed now and that trading slightly above average Major Leaguers to increase talent and depth at the minor league level is a worthwhile tradeoff.

I have also tried to explain the difference between the trades Huntington is making, which have netted prospects who at least command a fair amount of respect throughout the league, with the trades made by predecessor Dave Littlefield, which often netted no prospects of note.

Even if Huntington chose the wrong players, I argued, he was at least taking his best shot and implementing a real strategy with an eye towards long-term success.

But the easiest way to distinguish Huntington from his predecessors is by looking at their respective performances in the MLB Entry Draft.

Last year, I wrote an article detailing the pain Pirate fans have felt during the draft under Littlefield.

I won't re-state that article too much, but Littlefield's draft strategy made it clear that building a winning team was not his priority; Instead, Littlefield was trying to save money while avoiding any large enough missteps that would cause him to lose his job.

But when Littlefield drafted Danny Moskos over Matt Wieters in 2007, he made his fatal error. It was a move Pirate fans will never forget, and, coupled with the awful Matt Morris trade a month later, it cost Littlefield his job.

Enter Huntington. Nothing the new GM has done has had a greater effect on Pirate fans then drafting and signing Pedro Alvarez for over $6 million in 2008. Six million dollars?! That's a number Bucs fans could never have imagined spending on a draft pick.

Throw in last year's well over slot signings of Robbie Grossman and Quinton Miller, and fans finally had a reason to believe management was willing to spend.

Which is what made the Pirates' selection of Tony Sanchez with the No. 4 overall pick in this year's draft so unnerving. It felt like "Moskos over Wieters" all over again; eschewing the expensive, risky player for the safe one.

But Huntington assured us that this wasn't just another money-saving move. That money would be spent, he promised, just on different players who would help to maximize its value. We listened and believed him, probably because we want to, or because we felt had no other choice.

We watched when the Pirates drafted highly-rated prep pitchers such as Zack Von Rosenberg, Colton Cain, Trent Stevenson, and Zack Dodson, thinking to ourselves, "Man, if we could sign just two or three of these guys, wouldn't that be something?"

It's now August 9, a full week before the signing deadline, and the Bucs have already inked all four of these pitchers. Von Rosenberg and Cain each received over a million dollars to sign, by far the biggest bonuses to be announced for late-round picks thus far.

Given that these large deals were announced more than a week before the signing deadline despite MLB's usual unwillingness to announce such large deals until the last minute, it seems like Huntington always expected to sign all four pitchers, which is pretty exciting for Bucs fans who get to witness yet another massive influx of talent into the organization.

Especially when you consider that the Pirates may very well not be done yet.

The Pirates drafted an incredibly large number of players who fell due to bonus demands, to the point where after having signed their top four targets they still have several remaining.

These include Baseball America Top 200 prospect Michael Heller and highly-rated Florida outfielder Matthew den Dekker, as well as Stanford pitcher Jeffrey Inman and a couple other prep players.

If the Pirates sign none of these players, they will still have had a very impressive draft, with Von Rosenberg and Cain joining Bryan Morris and Jeff Locke in the Bucs' second tier of pitching prospects.

All four of these pitchers are unpolished but possess tremendous potential, and if two of them can join Brad Lincoln and Tim Alderson on the Pirates' staff in 2012 or 2013, they may evolve into a true force to contend with.

But there's no reason to believe Huntington won't sign a couple more players and turn this into a truly outstanding draft.

He has been honest with fans from the outset about his draft strategy and has delivered as advertised so far, and he has another full week to negotiate with players and $2 million dollars to spend on players who will likely not command more than $500-700,000.

For once, Pirate fans can just sit back and enjoy the ride. It should be a fun week in the Steel City.