With a shortstop tug-of-war playing out at the big-league level between Jordy Mercer and Jung Ho Kang, the Pirates shored up the future of the position by drafting a shortstop with their first pick in the Major League Baseball draft for the second year in a row.
The Pirates selected University of Arizona shortstop Kevin Newman with the 19th overall pick Monday, bolstering their organizational depth alongside 2014 first-rounder Cole Tucker, now the everyday shortstop at Class A West Virginia.
“We like a lot of the things he does defensively,” general manager Neal Huntington said.
“We like the athlete. We like the bat.”
Newman, 21, hit .370 with 19 doubles and 22 steals in his junior season at Arizona.
He has quick hands but little power — his two homers this spring were the only ones of his 165-game collegiate career. Newman, ranked 29th overall by Baseball America, is the first Wildcats player drafted in the first round since 2008.
“When I found out it was the Pirates, I was ecstatic,” Newman said.
For the first time in the draft’s 50-year history, the first three players drafted were shortstops. Newman was the fifth of six shortstops taken in the first round.
“They say it’s the draft of the shortstop,” Newman said.
“We’ll see how it turns out.”
With the 32nd overall selection — a compensation pick for losing free-agent catcher Russell Martin the Pirates drafted 18-year-old third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, the son of 14-year major league veteran and former Pirates corner infielder Charlie Hayes.
Hayes, who committed to the University of Tennessee and was ranked 57th overall by Baseball America, hit .436 in his senior season at Concordia Lutheran High School in Tomball, Texas.
The Pirates added UCLA infielder Kevin Kramer in the second round, 62nd overall.
Kramer missed the 2014 season with a torn labrum but hit .323 with seven home runs this season.
In 2012, after Newman’s senior season at Poway (Calif.) High School, he worked out for a number of teams but, to his surprise, was not drafted.
“Fuel on the fire,” he said Monday.
“Thirty teams passed me up out of high school, and I wanted to make 29 of them regret it.”
“We like guys that are driven and motivated and want to be part of a winning program, winning team and winning environment,” Huntington said.
After earning freshman All-America honors in 2013, the 6-foot-1, 180-pound shortstop spent two summers in the Cape Cod Baseball League and became the first player in league history to win back-to-back batting titles.
Newman doesn’t recall playing a position other than shortstop since Little League.
He said he’d like to stay there, and he believes he can, “but, at the end of the day, whatever gets you to the big leagues and whatever the Pirates feel is best … is the direction I’m going to go.”
The 19th overall selection has a slot value of $2,273,800 this year.
The Pirates can give Newman a higher signing bonus, should he demand one, but anything extra will be subtracted from the Pirates’ bonus pool, valued at $7,392,200 — their signing-bonus budget for the first 10 rounds of the draft.
Hayes is the fourth high school position player drafted in the first round by the Pirates over the past four years, joining outfielder Austin Meadows, catcher Reese McGuire and Tucker.
The Pirates currently have four former first-round selections on their 25-man roster: Neil Walker (2004), Andrew McCutchen (2005), Pedro Alvarez (2008) and Cole (2011).
“When you hit on one, it’s sweet,” manager Clint Hurdle said. “When you don’t, it’s sour.
“They’re game-changers now, some of these young men who can be drafted. We’re seeing how many of them are getting to the major leagues so much quicker than in the past.”
Stephen J. Nesbitt: snesbitt@post-gazette.com and Twitter @stephenjnesbitt.
First Published: June 9, 2015, 1:24 a.m.
Updated: June 9, 2015, 5:03 a.m.
