The Pittsburgh Pirates were projected by draft analysts to pull a surprise with their first-round pick of the MLB Draft, and they didn\u2019t disappoint.<\/p>\n
The Pirates selected LSU outfielder Derek Curiel at No. 5 overall in the first round Saturday. Curiel was ranked the No. 10 prospect by Baseball America and No. 12 by MLB Pipeline.<\/p>\n
But Baseball America draft analyst Carlos Collazo applauded the Pirates\u2019 pick, citing his confidence in his contact hitting, speed and ability to play center field in predicting that Curiel has \u201cthe most upside in this class.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAm I surprised by this? Not even close,\u201d Collazo said on the NBC broadcast. \u201cThis maybe might even be my favorite pick so far.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-2, 190-pound left-handed hitter is a contact hitter with good speed who can play center field. He had a .349\/.452\/.522 slash line with 38 doubles, four triples, 13 home runs and 101 RBIs in 126 games over two seasons for the Tigers. Curiel batted .353\/.431\/.526 with 18 doubles, two triples, six homers, 46 RBIs and 64 runs scored in 2026. But he lacks power, as his .849 OPS in conference play ranked 57th in the SEC.<\/p>\n
\u201cCuriel is a lean left-handed hitter with plus bat-to-ball skills and a very advanced approach at the plate,\u201d draft analyst Jonathan Mayo wrote on MLB.com. \u201cHow much power he grows into remains to be seen, but he can flat out play center field. Look for the Pirates to save some money with this pick and be aggressive later on, even without the bonus pool money they traded away when they sent the No. 34 overall pick to the White Sox late on Friday night.\u201d<\/p>\n
By trading their Competitive Balance A round pick (No. 34) and left-handed pitching prospect Jaden Woods to the Chicago White Sox for infielder Jacob Gonzalez and left-handed reliever Brandon Eisert on Friday night, the Pirates reduced their bonus pool by $2,897,400 to $16,233,300 to sign the remainder of their draft class.<\/p>\n
The slot value for the No. 5 pick is $8,336,500.<\/p>\n
Curiel is the first college hitter the Pirates have chosen in the first round since taking Louisville catcher Henry Davis with the No. 1 overall pick in 2021. The Pirates signed Davis for a $6.5 million bonus \u2014 $1.9 million below slot value \u2013 and enticed right-handed pitcher Bubba Chandler an above-slot $3 million bonus in the third round to give up his football scholarship to Clemson.<\/p>\n
It marked the seventh consecutive top-10 pick for the Pirates, whose past three drafts produced 2024 National League rookie of the year and 2025 Cy Young winner in right-hander Paul Skenes, 2025 minor league player of the year and baseball\u2019s consensus No. 1 prospect in shortstop Konnor Griffin and its top right-handed pitching prospect in Seth Hernandez.<\/p>\n
With the first overall pick, the White Sox selected UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky. At No. 2, the Tampa Bay Rays chose Fort Worth Christian School shortstop Grady Emerson. The Minnesota Twins used the third spot to pick Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey and the San Francisco Giants selected UC Santa Barbara right-hander Jackson Flora at No. 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Pirates were projected by draft analysts to pull a surprise with their first-round pick of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-241149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}