I think about a little bit that every time I see another Josh Bell HR highlight
Frank Coonelly looks back eight years to the 2011 MLB Draft and remembers “a lot of internal discussion and debate” about Josh Bell and his stated commitment to play collegiately at Texas.
Bell, a high school senior at Dallas Jesuit at the time, had written letters to every major league team, warning them not to draft him. He was going to college.
Coonelly, the Pittsburgh Pirates president, said team officials believed the letter was “legitimate” and not a ploy — such as other players had tried — to get him drafted by a club willing to pay the best signing bonus.
“We really believed he and his family had made a commitment to Texas and wanted to go to college,” Coonelly said.
But Coonelly, general manager Neal Huntington and others in the front office had spoken to their area scouts, who also knew this about Bell: “He wanted to be a major league player, ultimately, and he wanted to be a great major league player.....“We thought we could make a case that starting in the Pirates organization was his best opportunity to become a superstar.”
Coonelly and Huntington knew the risks, so they waited until the second round to draft Bell after they took Gerrit Cole as MLB’s first overall pick. They gave Bell a record $5 million signing bonus to close the deal, and the payoff has arrived this season as Bell is hitting .310 with 21 home runs while leading the majors with 68 RBIs less than halfway through the season...."
President Frank Coonelly reflects on how Josh Bell became a Pirate | TribLIVE.com