Pirates will look for next Skenes, Griffin with 5th pick in 2026 Draft

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The Pirates may not have won big in the Draft Lottery on Tuesday, but they are walking away with another lottery pick, their third in the four years since the new system was implemented.

The Pirates will be picking fifth overall in next July’s Draft, which will take place July 12-13 in Philadelphia as part of All-Star Week. They entered the event with the third-best odds to get the first overall pick (16.8%).

The Lottery, which took place at the MLB Winter Meetings, was adopted with the 2022 Collective Bargaining Agreement instead of the traditional system of just going by a team’s win-loss record from the year prior. The Bucs finished 2025 with a 71-91 record, which would have given them the fifth overall pick in the old system anyway.

This is the second straight year the Pirates have had a top-six pick, so they are ineligible to get a pick higher than 10th overall in 2027. The team selected right-hander Seth Hernandez with the sixth overall pick in the 2025 Draft, and he currently ranks as the club’s No. 3 prospect and the No. 27 prospect overall, according to MLB Pipeline.

The Pirates have had the fifth overall pick once before (1990), and they selected right-handed pitcher Kurt Miller. Miller played parts of five seasons in the Majors from 1994-99 with the Marlins and Cubs. Notable players in MLB history who were selected fifth overall include Dwight Gooden, Buster Posey, Ryan Braun and Dale Murphy.

Getting a higher pick in the first round will increase the amount of money needed to sign a team’s selection. Bonus pools and pick values are not yet out for the 2026 Draft, but the fifth overall pick in '25 carried a slot value of $8,134,800. Paul Skenes holds the franchise record for the largest signing bonus, signing for $9.2 million when he was selected first overall in 2023.

This will be the seventh Draft the Pirates have had under general manager Ben Cherington, and assistant general manager Kevan Graves will oversee the Draft process after previous director of amateur scouting Justin Horowitz left this offseason to become a Nationals assistant general manager.

Three of the Pirates’ six first-round picks under Cherington have already reached the Majors: Skenes (selected first overall in 2023), Henry Davis (first overall in 2021) and Nick Gonzales (seventh overall in 2020). Termarr Johnson, the club’s No. 7 prospect, was taken fourth overall in 2022, and Konnor Griffin, the top overall prospect in baseball, was taken ninth overall in 2024. Skenes was the prize of the inaugural Draft Lottery in 2022, where the Pirates scored the first pick even though three teams had a worse record.

The Pirates will have the fifth overall pick in Wednesday’s Rule 5 Draft.