The MLB Draft is deep in college pitching and prep shortstops, positions where the Pittsburgh Pirates hit home runs with their past two first-round picks in Paul Skenes and Konnor Griffin.

It’s no wonder Pirates general manager Ben Cherington has vowed to take the best player available with the No. 6 selection, even if there’s a distinct possibility that they opt instead for a college shortstop or a prep pitcher.

Where selecting Skenes was a no-brainer, and Griffin has proven prescient — the former was the 2024 National League Rookie of the Year, and the latter is ranked Baseball America’s No. 2 prospect — projecting this draft is considered a crapshoot by baseball analysts.

Left-handers Kade Anderson of LSU, Liam Doyle of Tennessee and Jamie Arnold of Florida State are considered the top college pitchers, and Oklahomans Ethan Holliday of Stillwater and Eli Willits of Fort Cobb-Broxton and Billy Carlson of Corona, Calif., are the top prep shortstops. But MLB Pipeline writer Jonathan Mayo believes the order of the top five draft picks “is very difficult to predict.”

“There is uncertainty everywhere. When you don’t have an idea what the team at No. 1 (Washington Nationals) is going to do, then it’s hard,” Mayo told TribLive hours after submitting his final mock draft. “I will say this isn’t a bad year to pick where the Pirates are picking because they can just wait and see who goes in the top five. If it goes sort of chalk and the perceived top five players go in the top five, then they’ll just take whoever they have at the top of their board. If someone in the top five cuts a deal with somebody and pluck someone who isn’t ‘top five,’ then the Pirates can sort of catch whoever drops to them.”

MLB Pipeline and ESPN project that to be Oregon State shortstop Aiva Arquette, although there’s hardly a consensus. Baseball America has the Pirates picking right-handed pitcher Seth Hernandez of Corona (Calif.) High, which also has a potential top-10 pick in shortstop Billy Carlson. The Athletic initially predicted the Pirates will take Ike Irish, a slugging catcher/outfielder from Auburn, before changing it to Doyle.

The Pirates are picking in the top 10 for the sixth consecutive year under Cherington and haven’t followed the same draft strategy year-to-year.

The Pirates took the top college hitter in Nick Gonzales at No. 7 in 2020 and again with the No. 1 overall selection in catcher Henry Davis the next year. They took Termarr Johnson, considered a generational talent as a prep hitter, fourth overall in 2022. The Pirates selected Skenes No. 1 overall in 2023 after his stock skyrocketed in the College World Series. Last year, they were the first team to pick a prep player: the 19-year-old Griffin, a 6-foot-4, 225-pounder who is shining at High-A Greensboro and was chosen to play in the All-Star Futures Game.

“I really just want to look for the best player,” Cherington said late last month. “We’re confident in our ability to draft and develop pitching, certainly. So if that’s the way it falls and it’s a pitcher, we’ll be excited about that. But we have to create more offense, too. We know that as an organization. It’s going to come down to the best player, and it will be up to us and I’m very confident that we’re going to create a very good onboarding and development plan for whoever it is and get them off to a good track in their pro career. It’s exciting. We need to get better, so the best talent available.”

Where the best talent is available to play is another matter. Gonzales, Johnson and Griffin were announced as shortstops, but Gonzales and Johnson since have moved to second base, and Griffin can play short and center field. While this draft class is loaded with shortstops, only Carlson is considered a can’t-miss defender at the position. Holliday and Arquette might be better suited for third base, and Willits could play the outfield like his father, former Angels outfielder Reggie Willits.

That’s why MLB Network analyst Dan O’Dowd, the Colorado Rockies general manager from 1999-2014, believes teams find it safer to bet on position players with offensive upside.

“I think the strength of the draft is in your prep shortstops. They just have to make a decision on which one actually stays at shortstop because I don’t know if all of them are going to stay at shortstop,” O’Dowd said. “When you don’t stay at that position then the pressure you have on your bat becomes significant. Then they’ve got to make sure they get the bat right.

“I do think you can outsmart the draft. That’s where the draft gets really humbling. You just line your board up and pick who you feel the player is that meets your data profile and your instinctive profile. You don’t overthink it too much, or you make mistakes.”

The Pirates can’t afford mistakes, and Cherington acknowledged that pressure is mounting to create offense. That could put the 6-foot-5, 220-pound Arquette in play, given he batted .354/.461/.654 with 19 home runs this past season at Oregon State after a standout sophomore season as a second baseman at Washington.

“When you’re picking in the first round, particularly in the top 10, you really shouldn’t pay too much attention to needs at the big-league level or what’s happening at the big-league level,” Mayo said. “I’m sure it gets discussed, but this has been a (Pirates baseball operations) group that has not been afraid of taking who they think is the best player, period. If that was something they were really worried about, they wouldn’t have taken Konnor Griffin last year. That’s now looking like one of the smartest decisions they’ve made on the amateur scouting end of things other than taking Paul Skenes, which kind of goes without saying.”

Cherington has been willing to spread the bonus pool around to sign later picks. Their 2020 draft also nabbed pitchers Carmen Mlodzinski and Jared Jones. Signing Davis to an under-slot bonus allowed them to go over-slot with four top-100 prep players. That included taking a third-round shot at right-hander Bubba Chandler, now a top-five prospect who is on the cusp of making his MLB debut.

The Pirates have a bonus pool of $14,088,400 in 2025, with the first-round value at $7,558,600. They have four of the first 82 picks, including a Competitive Balance Round B pick at No. 73. Where the Pirates have shown they are willing to be spenders by giving Skenes a then-record $9.2 million bonus, Cherington could get creative again. But draft analysts stressed it’s important not to get too cute.

“Every draft for the Pirates — whoever is in GM chair — is important. The only way they have a chance to be competitive is amateur player acquisition, more than anything else,” Mayo said. “They’re picking sixth. You have to get it right. You need to get an impact player. Does that always happen? No. But the Yankees and Dodgers — not that they’ve picked in the top 10 in forever — they can miss on their first-round pick and spend to offset that. The Pirates don’t have that luxury. So every draft is vitally important.”

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