Pirates signed C Rod Barajas to a one-year contract with a club option for 2013.

No word on the specifics, but Barajas earned $3.25 million in 2011. The 36-year-old backstop batted .230/.287/.430 with 16 homers, 47 RBI and a .717 OPS over 336 plate appearances with the Dodgers this season while throwing out 25 percent (20-for-80) of would-be basestealers. With Ryan Doumit and Chris Snyder free agents, he'll be the primary catcher in Pittsburgh next season.

Source: RotoWorld.

I thought I'd chime in regarding the Pirates' selection of Perez and the #4 slot.

I've read as many posts as I can (there are a lot of them), and I didn't really see this covered much, if at all.  So I'll toss my hat into the ring.  If I'm duplicating a discussion I missed I apologize.

As we all know, you cannot trade draft picks in the MLB amateur draft.  So what that means is you're stuck with what you got.  If you're like the Pirates and own the #4 overall pick, you're forced to use it even if you don't feel there's anyone on the board worthy of 4th round slot money (or above).  In the other sports, you can trade down to acquire extra picks/players and still get the guy you want.

So this puts the Pirates in a very bad position.

If Sanchez is a guy they truly coveted, the odds were that if they did not select him at #4 that he'd be gone by the time it got to their compensatory pick for Scheppers.  It's not like Perez was rated as the 80th best prospect on all the major draft boards -- he was usually in the #20-30 range in the projections.  He was a first round talent, and if you wanted him you were going to have to use your first round pick to get him, regardless of where that might be in the draft.

One thing to keep in mind is that there's a big difference between the Majors and rotisserie baseball.  Defense does matter.  And by all accounts, Perez is one of the better defensive catching prospects to come along in some time.  An obvious comparison would be Yadier Molina, who made an immediate impact with is glove and arm long before his bat caught up.  This type of player has definite value -- the catching position has always been about defense first. And for a team that often struggles scoring runs, keeping them off the board is quite important.

Of course I would have preferred the Bucs to take the "best available" talent, and I have been merciless on them in years past when they've taken Bullington over Upton, Moskos over Wieters... we all know the string of failure.  But in this instance, in a draft with two clear cut blue chippers (Strasburg and Ackley) and a bunch of equally graded talents, I have no problems with what they did.  Stepping back and looking at it emotionally detached, it just made good sense.  If Sanchez was a guy they internally valued more than the high risk/high upside arms, they had no choice but to take him where they did.  Of course it was imperative that they then follow that up with high-upside picks later, which they also did.

I am not trying to be a NH/FC apologist (they defend themselves already far more eloquently that I could), but the simple fact is you can't trade down in the draft.  I'm pretty certain if that option was available, that NH would have been all over it, dropping down to the 15-20 range and still getting his man while adding other assets.

So he did the best he could under the circumstances.

After Strasburg and Ackley, I didn't see any pitcher or hitter I coveted that was worthy of the bonus demands they would have expected at the #4 slot.  Apparently the Pirates didn't either.  So they drafted the guy they wanted, given no other choice.  Was it too high?  If you could trade down, then absolutely.  But since that wasn't an option, I have no problems with them taking Sanchez where they did.  At worst, Sanchez becomes a quality defensive backup catcher, which isn't exactly what you'd hope to get out of a #1 pick, but one could argue that it's better than taking a high risk SP that is more likely to wash out than contribute at all.   At best, Sanchez becomes a Pudge Rodriguez type defender with some pop.  And that's a pretty valuable thing.