A few unexpected picks in the first round left the Pirates with some more options than expected at the ninth overall pick, and they've taken Georgia high school outifelder Austin Meadows. Meadows is Baseball America's #5 prospect in the draft, so the Pirates are lucky that he fell to him.
He's a lefty, a pretty tall guy (listed at 6'3" or 6'4") and pretty much every scouting report on him says that he's got some real power potential. Of course, as a high schooler everyone also says that he's still quite raw and there's some question for now whether or not he can stick in center field down the road, probably depending on how he fills out.
It's worth noting that the Pirates took Meadows over both Braden Shipley, who pretty much everyone had listed as the third or fourth best arm in the draft (behind Appel and Gray for sure and behind Ball on some lists) and Reese McGuire, who they were, by all indications, very interested in. I think that's a good indication that the Pirates agree with BA's high ranking of Meadows. He's the first high school position player that the club has drafted in the first round since Andrew McCutchen, so the pick is a little bit of a departure from the Pirates' recent first-round focus. It's early, of course, but it seems to me that there's a lot to like about Meadows.
