The Pirates have agreed to sign third round draft choice Bubba Chandler to a $3MM contract, reports Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Twitter link). The deal is pending a physical. That shatters the $870.7K slot value associated with the #72 selection.
Of course, the main reason Chandler fell to 72nd overall was the high bonus required to dissuade him from a two-sport commitment (baseball and football) to Clemson University. Each of Baseball America, Keith Law of the Athletic, and Kiley McDaniel of ESPN slotted Chandler among the top 25 prospects in their pre-draft rankings. That suggests he was generally seen as a mid-late first round talent, and his bonus is commensurate with that status.
A two-way player during his Georgia high school career, Chandler is expected to focus on pitching full-time in pro ball. The righty draws praise for his athleticism, mid-90’s fastball and promising curveball, with McDaniel suggesting he has mid-rotation upside.
The Pirates’ ability to get overslot deals done with Chandler and Anthony Solometo (along with potential significant agreements for still-unsigned Lonnie White Jr. and Owen Kellington) reflects Pittsburgh’s overarching draft strategy. The Pirates cut an underslot agreement with first overall pick Henry Davis, allowing them to leverage their league-high bonus pool into likely agreements with a handful of well-regarded prep prospects on the draft’s second day.
Not MY BUBBBBBBA!
Bucs are someday going to be interesting despite a terrible owner
That’ll happen when you draft in the top 3 year after year.
It will also happen when you bring in a ton of prospects in trades and become a top farm system!
What are you even talking about? Before this year, the Pirates hadn’t drafted in the Top 5 since Gerrit Cole in 2011. They usually haven’t drafted Top 10 over the last decade. You’re overstating how bad the team has been. In the last 10 seasons, they’ve had a winning record nearly half the time and have more wins over the last 10 seasons than more than half of MLB teams including the Mets and Astros.
Dude you are cherrypicking a 10 year run in what was been otherwise a terrible team since the Willie Stargell days.
Go look at the farm system rankings
How is he cherry picking when he replied to a comment saying the Pirates always have top 3 picks year after year, when they don’t.
Actually terrible team from 1992 to 2012. Got ugly again in the last 3-4 years
1. The guy I responded to was specifically saying that the reason we have an interesting team starting to form is because we draft Top 3 every year. That’s false. Period. Our last Top 3 pick hasn’t been in our system in years. 2. I never said the Pirates were good. I’m saying that to say their current system is built on being absolutely awful is blatantly false. They have at worst been mediocre over the last decade (a nice round number that effects the current system)
Wrong! They’ve been a very mediocre team and they’ve been a terrible team, and over the last 30 years they’ve had decent contending teams about a third of the time.
You seem to overlook the fact that they are a small market team. Pittsburgh made the playoffs 6x in the past 30 years. Compare that to SD, Miami, TB, BA, etc.
Why are you talking about 30 years ago when we’re talking about the current makeup of the team? Again, over the last 10 seasons, the majority of MLB teams have a worse record.
Yes ,they are in a small market , but the owner is one of the top ten richest owners . He needs to spend
Cherry picking by looking at the last ten years… lol
I guess you forgot about the Bonds Pirates.
basing this off of not spending 150$ on the mlb roster? out side of that what else do we got to push to the ‘terrible owner’ area?
I was hoping Bubba Chandler looked like a fat Matthew Perry. Turns out, he looks like frat Joe Dirt.
Yeah, for some reason, kids think that mullets are cool……they would be wrong.
Cut the Mullet by Wesley Willis. Required listening for those under 25.
Honestly the Pirates had some really great picks this draft as much of a mess their front office may be.
Shows how going under slot in the first round can pay off.
Yea it was a really smart move and it really replenished there system quickly. I mean what did they get 5 50 FV prospects this draft.jays tried it a few years ago with Kloffenstien and Grohsans who I believe we’re supposed to be best friends aswell. ooked smart at the time but Kloff hasn’t been/done much and Gros lookes like a stud. It was prob Cherringtons idea then to
It’s a new front office that is highly regarded.
Oh, Well that makes sense.
I don’t know if you can still consider their front office as a mess. If nothing else Cherington seems to have a plan.
The front office was a mess from about 1995 to 2019. Cherrington is running the show now, early results are very encouraging, but a long way to go.
The good: cherrington will really build this team up, and the prospects will be abundant
The bad: this team could be competitive in a couple years for a couple seasons
The ugly: the owner still sucks. The players will be traded right before or during their prime for more prospects. Don’t see these kids lasting longer than 5-7 years within the organization from today.
Give us more owners like George Steinbrenner in baseball than bob nutting
The Pirates owner must just be putting the extra money in his pocket. A payroll floor might stop that.
There should be a min payroll based on a percentage of league avg
donotinteruptMYkungfu
There should be a min payroll based on a percentage of league avg
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The payroll floor should be based on a percentage of revenue, less fixed cost. That way, the Pirate fans that have never been to a game, won’t be able to complain about the owner not spending the revenue that the fans aren’t providing.
per the leaked numbers a while back.. that doesn’t seem to be the case.. the team was a money pit before around 2010.. with the Nuttings loaning the team money ( to save baseball in Pittsburgh ) and eventually use the loan repayment to get to the top of the owners group.. the team got out of the red and started paying the owners groups back taxes for being owners of the franchise (then you had to pay taxes even if losing money not sure now). I’m sure the owners are making some money now. They probably didn’t start to see any real money until 2012 or so but that is just my guess. You don’t invest in something to lose money all the time. I’m okay with the owners getting a fair chunk of change.. As long as it hasn’t taken away from the team when they are shooting for a good run and really that hasn’t happened in a significant way.
He wasn’t saving baseball in Pittsburgh he is a business man and seen an opportunity to line his pockets!
I guarantee if the Lemeuix group or Cuban group had convinced him to sell Pittsburgh would be close to sold out every night. I watch on tv only. Also don’t go to 7 Springs.
The pirates where so far in the red MLB was about to take action real action. MLB asked the Nuttings gave the franchise a loan to get them passed that that eventually lead the Nuttings to the top of the ownership. and in 10 years time started to make money to pay back loans, taxes, etc.
So it might be a bit of exaggeration to say the Nuttings (not Bob specifically) saved base ball in Pittsburgh but thanks to them and some sharing changes later in the decade with the MLB they started running in the green a good amount to start catching up financially
Any other owner coming in probably would have stripped it down for a few years too just to help pay back the debt to acceptable levels. 70M may not seem like a lot these days but it was then.
“I watch on tv only.”
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Of course. You won’t spend a dime on the Pirates, but expect Nutting to use his wealth to provide you with a good team.
I’m not that sympathetic to the small-market debate. Some teams simply have fans that always come out. The money doesn’t simply appear out of nothing.
One thing nobody seems to consider is the value of the team TV deal.
It would be interesting to see a complete listing of every team and its TV money coming in. I seem to recall the Dodgers getting a billion dollar multi-year package. What did the “superstations” pay the Cubs and Braves? How about NY?
They had a pay roll of 90 million over the 3 year stretch where they had the 2nd best record in the national league. He extended Liarino Walker Andrew only one was actually worth the money. Marte got busted for PED and Gregory has never earned his extension. Cole and Tyler never used the sticky stuff while they were here
and Bob wanted to extend Cutch and had to be talked into the trade.
Do you have a source for that? Never heard that before. Pretty interesting. As much as I love Cutch, glad he was talked into the trade.
I believe it came from Frank in the PG a while after people calmed down in reaction to the trade but i’m not 100% sure on that sourcing
justacubsfan
Give us more owners like George Steinbrenner in baseball than bob nutting
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The Yankees, as a percentage of revenue, are one of the cheapest teams in baseball. The article I looked is from 2018, but the NYY spent 26.8% of their revenue on their opening day salaries. Pittsburgh spent 33.4%.
Too many fans overlook the fact that teams cannot spend money they do not have.
Then open the books and show that! I think people would be shocked how well Nutting is doing
the books where open in 2010 i think that was around the time they started turning a profit and paying back to expenses to ownership. Things are different now of course but what we do know is that shortly after things ‘got better’ payrolls increased then Neal tried to do a soft rebuild and it failed and now Ben is picking up the pieces with a full rebuild and along with that lower salaries.
The numbers above are well-tracked. The revenue was cited from Forbes, and the opening payroll was Cots. If the fans don’t support the team, then the team can’t pay for more players. It’s like going into a pub or diner once a year, and complaining to the owner that he doesn’t spend enough money in fixing the place up. You know, so that you can enjoy you annual visit.
The TV deals last year payed a total of 2.2 billion. Each team puts 48% into a pot and splits it evenly. The Pirates personal deal was 44MM. So the Pirates made 57MM on local TV deals. Add in the National TV deal (which is estimated around 90MM per team) and you get 134MM from all TV deals. The payroll was 25MM. So where did the other 109MM go?
Cots has estimated 40m at ~70m the question is where did the other 65M go? assuming any of the numbers are reasonably close.
George is dead. His point is still valid.
These are not George’s Yankees. Not by a long shot.
this owner doesn’t stick his nose in to the baseball side much just the general direction like rebuild or push and major changes like trading franchise players.
I agree. It appears that BC is following the TB and Oakland plan of draft well, develop well, strongly contend for two to three years then start over. I prefer that over the previous system of of don’t spend, deceive the fans about trying to contend, and never admit that they need to rebuild.
Give him a 200 million local TV contract. Not a Nutting apologist and there needs to be minimum payroll, but it’s kind of silly to say we need more Steinbrenners
Gotta admit this one surprised me. Saying no to Clemson can’t be easy. On the other hand, 3M makes the decision easier.
This could be a franchise changing draft, even if the pundits are only partially right. Nice job Ben; Theo taught you well. Now let’s see if Ben can navigate Nutting.
He was going to be a potential 3 year back back up unless he transferred at Clemson or go get paid
Eh, Cherington was a scout and in talent development a few years before Theo took the reins, and when Theo left the team was just not in a good spot and ended up rebuilding the team into a championship team.
I’m sure Theo had some guidance but Ben deserves a lot of the credit just to himself I think.
Ben’s WS win was won with payroll and players shuffled around due to confilcts if i’m not mistaken? ended up being one of the worst teams in baseball there for a while? along with some albatros contracts? IIRC some of the players Ben is credited with bringing in to the Sox organization he really didn’t have much to do with other than being a scout… depending on your point of view would depend on how you weigh that.
I’m not a RS fan so much so i don’t follow much but I know when they won that WS they had one of the highest payrolls. I havn’t looked since the day he signed on…
not to discredit Ben as much as i hate to see player’s go he seems to be doing a good job at eyeballing talent… at least compared to NH.
I agree the draft and trades could be building to an astros type turn around… hopefully with less cheating….
How much extra is left over for White? Anyone know?
About $2.4 mil, if they spend the 5% overage, which they will if necessary.
I decided to try to calculate it myself using Spotrac (including Chandler signing)
I got down to 1,521,500 remaining with only White and Kellington left
Bonus pool only applies to top 10 rounds, correct?
https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/draft/
And I’m an idiot. There’s a chart on right side that shows “Pool Remaining” Chandler hasn’t been deducted yet from the time I’m posting this. 4.5m left
Anything over the hundred grand and change counts towards bonus pool.
If he has a successful baseball career he can sell shrimp.
$3M to not compete for Clemson starting QB spot? According to Saban, Bama starting QB Bryce Young making “ungodly amounts of money” in endorsements (around $1M) already, now that it’s legal.
He would likely lose out. Clemson will likely bring in a better option next year.
just .. Wow. 3M seems high. If this was Neal i’d be bitching a lot about giving that much to a HS player from the 3rd round… but.. given how good Bubba looks on paper and Ben’s better insight to prospect ability… .. . probably a great deal.
Drafting and signing guys over and under-slot looks like as much art as it is science. But, as a RS fan, I like your draft quite a bit. I am very pleased that Mayer dropped to us, but I am not sure that he is that much better than Davis, that the Pirates might have more than made up for it on their other over-slot draftees.
Well done.
Davis safer. Mayer could end up better. If mayer would have taken 6.5 million he may have went 1. With no elite no question number 1 I would much rather have a top 5 and 3 mid to late first round talents than Mayer Lawlar Leiter. Red sox got value though, dbacks as well, but marlins tremendous.
The day before the draft I thought Mayer was a strong possibility (but though a pitcher was more likely)
In the pre-draft interview with Mayer, he was sitting at bar at 18. Now there probably isn’t anything beyond hanging out with family and such watching the draft.. but just enough for me to think that he was going to drop down
I did want davis though.. and i’m glad they picked him.. but his Bonus seemed low to me…. but thats probably why they got Bubba so…
great news for pirates fans .hopefully signing these over slot deals and whatever the bucs get in the trade deadline moves will bolster what already is a pretty good farm system.
My only question is…. How long is Cherrington’s deal for? He took the #5 guy and fairly signed him for #5 money, and is quickly signing the rest of the draft picks with the remaining slot money. Well done
It’s so nice to see a front office for the Bucs that actually has a cohesive and definable plan in place.
I think BC has done a very good job since joining the Pirates .Very strong draft classes and I like some of the young guys he has brought in via trades. Problem is in a couple years when we have a contending team built with these young guys . Will ownership sign them to long term deals if warranted ? Or will they be sold off and the process starts over . B C has put the pressure on Nutting to get his fat wallet out .
No owner in any major sport spends from his or her own pocket. Every penny comes from revenue earned by that franchise. Baseball is the only major sport where small market (revenue) teams suffer because it is the only sport without a salary cap. With a cap comes revenue sharing and a salary floor, usually about $20 million below the cap. Unless baseball adopts a salary cap this divide will always be there and at this point the players would be stupid to accept a cap. With a cap you can kiss goodbye to these mega deals you are witnessing now in baseball.
1-Yup, way too many fans think that so-and-so is a billionaire, so why doesn’t donate $200M to the team to buy better players. And a lot of these fans never go to games.
2-The players should have gone to revenue-sharing many years ago, when they had the hammer. Now that revenues have soared, and the profits have all gone to the owners, it is more difficult for the players to strike a grand deal. But not impossible. They should just ask for 50% and see where that takes them.