Any Major League Baseball draft is packed with pressure, but doubly so when there are only a handful of picks. In the Pirates' case last week, they had six total picks -- three among the top 44 overall -- with a mandated maximum of $11,712,225 allotted to invest in signing them.
So, it stands to reason, they’d better complete that process.
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Late Monday afternoon, they pulled off the step that might've been the toughest, signing second-rounder and No. 44 overall pick Jared Jones, a pitcher out of La Mirada High School in California, and thus avoiding losing him to the University of Texas, the school to which he'd committed. Draft observers long had considered Jones a risk in that regard, with Jones' family making known he'd need an above-slot bonus to go pro.
The bonus wasn’t immediately made known, but the assigned slot value at No. 44 overall is $1,689,500 million, so it almost certainly topped that.
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