DownSwinging.com

Interesting that just days after I wrote the Huntington article that has some people fired up, I get to write about the Pirates again. This time though, in a less favorable light. Yesterday was the first day of the MLB first-year player draft, with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd rounds being drafted including the compensation rounds for free agents. After the initial Strasburg excitement subsided, the Pittsburgh Pirates, with the fourth pick, selected…….Tony Sanchez? Catcher from Boston College?

Really, it wasn’t unexpected. I mean, I had read yesterday morning that they were probably going with Sanchez, so it wasn’t a shock or anything. But I immediately thought, “Really Huntington? Wrong time man.”

Maybe the pick had something to do with the fact that two years ago the Pirates skipped over top catching prospect Matt Wieters who has just entered the majors with much fanfare, and Pittsburgh wished they had their own catcher that was causing such jubilation. It wasn’t like that though. Actually, the Pirates made the exact same mistake they made two years ago, when decided to pass on Wieters to save on bonus money. When the Pirates selected Sanchez, they were getting a good catcher, particularly defensively, and they knew that. But they also knew that if they didn’t take him, he probably wouldn’t go until the end of the first round or maybe even the compensation round. I mean the guy was losing weight on the Subway diet. Why did they take him then? It wasn’t because they thought he was extremely under-valued, its because he was chea