Hey brother...can you spare $11 million?

On Monday and Tuesday, the Pirates put together the most amazing series of picks (in terms of daring and design) in the history of the franchise. The Pirates drafted Taillon (1st round) and Allie (2nd round), easily the two highest upside pitchers in recent Pirate memory. Assuming NH/FC et al were telling the truth, there is the mythical $30M for 2008, 2009, and 2010's drafts.

2008 and 2009's drafts consumed roughly $18.7M, so let's for argument sake say they have $11M to spend on this draft.

I thought it may be a good idea to guesstimate what each draftee could be commanding and it may shake out what goes where.

Round 1 - Taillon - obviously the whole key to this all. I would say $6.5 to $7M (think of Beckett). I hope no ML contract is needed

Round 2 - Allie - I'm sure he considered himself a Top 10 pick. Slot for this position is around $900K. Slot for 1-10 is $1.8M. Let's budget him for $1.5M

Round 3 - Rojas - slot guy...$425K

Round 4 - Kingham - he may require a touch more than slot ($250K). I'm thinking $500K

Round 5 - Waldron - slot guy ....$175K

Round 6 thru 8 (Hursh, Kubitza, Kime) - I think they only get 2 of these guys out of 3...say $400K each for a total of $800K

Round 9 - Cumpton - slot...$125K

Round 10 - Wiess - unsure...$250K?

After that who knows...we know they need some bats and Grovatt said he wants 4th round money so that's $250K.

For Round 1-10 (signing 9 of them) that's $10.775M. If you add Grovatt that puts you right at $11M.

Most org guys sign for $5000 or nothing at all, but you can see how it's pretty easy to get up to $11M with the talent that they drafted yesterday.

Not only would $11M be the most the Pirates have ever spent on the draft in one year, but it would also be one of the 5 highest amounts ever spent by any team. The crazy part is that the Pirates could easily spend $12-$13M on this draft without blinking an eye. There is always talk by NH that there is a "discretionary pool" for special expenses. Well, thanks to your drafting and Greg Smith's drafting, this is now a special time, Neil.