Photo from LSU Baseball
PITTSBURGH — While Pirates’ players and coaches were winning both games of a doubleheader against the Brewers at PNC Park on Saturday, the organization’s front office executives were huddled in a war room for day one of the MLB Draft.
Pittsburgh kicked off its draft by taking LSU outfielder Derek Curiel with the fifth pick. Although it was considered somewhat of a surprise pick given he went as high as he did, the Pirates jumped at the opportunity to take the 21-year-old.
“Incredibly excited to add Derek to the organization,” assistant general manager Kevan Graves said of the team’s first-round pick. “He’s a player that we have tracked all spring with the idea that he could be certainly in the mix for our pick to go high in the draft.”
Curiel, a native of West Covina, Calif., who attended the same high school (Orange Lutheran) as Pirates’ 2011 first-overall pick Gerrit Cole, was equally as excited to be joining the organization.
“It’s everything I ever dreamed of,” he said via Zoom shortly after being selected. “Everything my family and I ever worked for, and to go to an organization like the Pittsburgh Pirates means the world.”
Curiel was an All-SEC second-team selection after batting .353 with 18 doubles, two triples, six home runs, 46 RBI, 34 walks, 13 stolen bases, a .957 OPS and 64 runs scored in 58 games during his sophomore season with the Tigers this past season.
During his first season with LSU, Curiel was named the D1Baseball National Freshman of the Year and helped lead the Tigers to a College World Series championship.
“Kind of Pete Rose-style baseball,” Curiel said when describing how he plays. “I like to get dirty. I like to dive head first. I like to make diving plays, take the extra base when I can. Drag bunt, push bunt. Score runs on offense and save runs on defense is the best way I try to describe it. I’m just trying to do whatever it takes to help the team win, whether that’s draw a walk, make a diving catch. Whatever the game calls for, I try to do that.”
The fifth pick of the 2026 draft comes with a slot value of $8,336,500, and while Curiel’s bonus will likely come in under-slot, the Pirates feel strongly about the player they are adding to the organization.
“He’s shown really exceptional command of the strike zone, bat to ball skills, upside to to the damage profile, and it’s a player who plays a pretty special center field. He checks a lot of boxes,” said Graves. “I’d say beyond that, you’re talking about someone that you invest in at that level. It’s someone that we have exceptionally strong confidence in the person, the human being, the teammate, the competitor, and sort of the growth-mindedness that we’ve seen in himself. Really excited to add a player of his caliber to the organization.”
The Pirates entered this year’s draft having struck gold with each of their last three first-round picks. Pittsburgh took Paul Skenes with the first pick in 2023, Konnor Griffin ninth overall in 2024, and Seth Hernandez with the sixth pick in 2025.
Like Curiel, Skenes led LSU to a College World Series title. Griffin would’ve been on the 2025 championship team had he not signed with the Pirates out of high school. In fact, he was in the same recruiting class as Curiel, and the two exchanged texts on the morning of the draft.
“We stay in touch, we’ve been texting. He’s been asking questions about how pro life is and being able to talk to him this morning and say ‘Hey, I’m praying for you, hope everything goes well,’” Griffin said. “Pretty cool how that works out.”
Skenes was labeled the top pitching prospect in baseball before winning Rookie of the Year and Cy Young. Konnor Griffin was the consensus top prospect in baseball at the time he signed a franchise-record extension. One year after being drafted, Hernandez is already one of the top pitching prospects in baseball.
It’s a high bar, but Curiel is eager to emerge as the next budding star.
“Competed with and against all those guys, so I know what they bring and they know what I bring,” he explained. “I think all of us on the same team is going to be pretty special. Those guys have been killing it, and I think that speaks to the Pirates’ development system in the minor leagues. I can’t wait to get in there.”
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