PITTSBURGH -- Even if the details aren’t all in place yet, it’s clear that this year’s MLB Draft is going to be different. The Pirates have tried to prepare like they would any other year, but the coronavirus pandemic that delayed the start of their season has forced them to change their plans on that front as well.

Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said on Tuesday that owners and front offices have been talking more this week about what the 2020 MLB Draft might look like. For now, it’s unknown how many rounds the Draft will be or even when exactly it will take place.

But they do know they’ll have the seventh overall pick, their highest selection since taking Gerrit Cole first overall in 2011, in the first MLB Draft overseen by Cherington and assistant general manager Steve Sanders. Amateur scouting director Joe DelliCarri and his staff have been meeting -- by phone and video chat -- to break down their top 200 players.

• 2020 MLB Mock Draft

“It’s very familiar, very similar, just in a virtual setting instead of the same room,” Cherington said. "It’s obviously an important event for us. We need to prepare to make good selections. We’d always prefer the chance to make more selections than less. Our job is going to be to execute on those, perform better than our competitors, no matter how many rounds there are.”

One of many challenges is there’s no amateur baseball being played right now – and scouts can’t travel to see the players they’re evaluating. Cherington said scouts have been cleared to directly communicate with Draft-eligible players, however, which means they are able to interview prospective picks and request information or video from them.

It's not ideal, obviously, but nothing is in this situation. So the Pirates are trying to make the most of the information they have. Rather than having five or six scouts evaluate a player, for instance, the Pirates theoretically could have their entire amateur scouting staff break down video of that player and write up reports.

“It’s a different kind of scouting, but it is absolutely scouting and it’s evaluation and it’s additional inputs. And all those inputs will go into our process of ultimately ranking the players,” Cherington said. “We’re going to do that the best we possibly can to get to as precise a list as we possibly can. Then we keep learning. Between now and whenever that Draft starts, we’ll continue to brainstorm additional ways to do that, borrow ideas from outside baseball, other leagues, etc. I’ve been really encouraged as to how creative and in the deep end of the pool our guys have been in terms of using information we do have.”

Cherington said he’d like to reach out to executives from the Pittsburgh Steelers, who recently completed the NFL Draft in a virtual setting. One thing he wouldn’t mind borrowing from the NFL model, assuming the MLB Draft takes place with scouts scattered across the country instead of inside one war room: more time between picks.

“I can imagine, even with as good as technology is, maybe needing a little bit more time to arrange the smaller group conversations or reacting to the pick ahead of you and need a little bit of time to react to that,” Cherington said. “I think the pace of it maybe is something to think about, but otherwise, if it happens that way, if it happens virtually, the technology’s probably going to be pretty similar and I’d love to connect with the Steelers at some point just to see what they’re learning.”

Around the horn

• Cherington and manager Derek Shelton aren’t publicly diving too deep into conversations about the reported scenarios in which baseball could return this year, but Cherington said he remains optimistic that they will return to the field at some point.

“I wake up every day believing we are going to play games,” Cherington said. “I do believe we’re going to play games. That doesn’t mean I know we will. We’ve got to plan for every scenario, but we’re spending more of our energy -- maybe that’s because we’re optimistic -- trying to think about how to prepare for those games, not knowing when or where or how exactly they’ll be played.”

• Cherington said health issues -- for the teams and for the public at large -- would be his only concern regarding any of the scenarios for a season that have been discussed.

“And I think I’m speaking for our players, too, frankly, that we would pretty much go anywhere anytime that we’re asked to if the experts in those areas believe this is the safe option,” he said.

• Due to the ongoing economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the Pirates on Tuesday suspended their fellowship and intern programs as well as their contributions to employees’ 401(k) plans while executive-level staff took voluntary salary reductions. Last week, the Pirates committed to paying all their employees through at least May 31.

“A big focus of ours in recent weeks has been to try to figure out how to solve that problem in a way that minimizes impact on our people, peoples’ families and our core activities,” Cherington said. “We did identify the retirement contributions, at least temporarily, as an area where we might find some savings without too much impact on people and their everyday lives. The full expectation is that contribution will go back into effect as soon as possible.”