Post a Comment On: Rany on the Royals

Let’s finish off this prospect review before any more of them retire… As an update to the last post: I had mentioned that prior to Tim Melville, the Royals only had two non-first-round picks signed to million-dollar bonuses going back to Bo Jackson, namely Derrick Robinson and Roscoe Crosby. I have been reminded that the Royals gave Luis Cota, their 10th round pick in 2003, $1 million to sign. Cota’s case was a little different, in that he was a draft-and-follow who didn’t sign that summer, but went to community college in Arizona and showed first-round talent on the mound. The Royals controlled his rights until one week before the 2004 draft, and ponied up the cash to sign him. In Cota’s case, the Royals didn’t draft him with the intent of giving him big money to sign, so it’s not an exact parallel to the draft phenomenon I discussed last time. But he warrants mention. (Cota briefly impressed scouts with his fastball in the Midwest League before his shoulder exploded; he’s still trying to work his way back and I think he’s still part of the organization, but his future looks bleak.) To continue…while Melville is emblematic of the Royals’ new aggressive approach to the draft, he’s emblematic of another trend as well. The Royals were able to gauge his signability in part because he was a local. I’m using the term “local” generously here; Wentzville, Missouri is maybe half an hour west of St. Louis. But even by an expanded definition of “local”, the Royals have a disturbing history of passing on local talent, even as many local products have gone on to have fine major league careers. Let’s define “local” as broadly as possible – as any player selected in a six-state area: Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. In 1988, the Royals used their 1st-round pick on Hugh Walker, an ath-a-lete from an Arkansas high school who, alas, didn’t actually know how to hit. The Royals did a lot of that back in the late 1980s; presumably their success with Bo Jackson emboldened the franchise into thinking they could turn track stars into superstars, and never mind that Bo was actually a very productive collegiate hitter at Auburn. The failure of Walker, in turn, might have cooled the Royals’ feelings towards local players. Probably not, but for whatever reason the Royals hardly ever drafted a local player with a high pick in the years to come. In 2005, the Royals selected Alex Gordon out of the University of Nebraska – a pick that was a no-doubt dead-cinch-lock pick that almost every team in baseball would have made with the #2 selection. In the 17 drafts in between, from 1989 through 2004, the Royals selected only three players out of that six-state area in the first seven rounds of the draft. Interestingly, all three players made the majors, and at least one would have become a star in a kinder, gentler universe. That would have been Jamie Bluma, who was the closer for Wichita State back when the Shockers were perennially contenders for the national championship. Bluma was taken in the 3rd round in 1994 as an almost-major-league-ready college senior; he was in Triple-A within a year, and in the majors the year after that, never posting an ERA higher than 3.12 along the way. He debuted in the majors on August 9th, 1996, and when Jeff Montgomery’s season ended with arm soreness on September 1st, Bluma took over as the team’s closer, saving all five of his opportunities. In 20 innings, he allowed just 18 hits and 4 walks, striking out 14. He was in place to be Montgomery’s set-up man the following year, and Monty’s presumed successor in the closer’s role. And then he was hit by the curse – “curse” sounds nicer than “Gene Stephenson destroyed his arm” – that afflicted almost every high-profile WSU pitcher of that era. (Tyler Green. Darren Dreifort. Mike Drumright.) Bluma was found to have a torn rotator cuff the following spring. He missed all of 1997, pitched three lousy seasons in the minors from 1998 to 2000, and then retired without ever pitching in the majors again. If you were to put together a list of the 10 most significant injuries in Royals history, I think Bluma has to be on the list. Montgomery started to lose his effectiveness in 1997, was a liability in 1998, and a disaster in 1999 – the year the Royals had what I have previously argued was the worst bullpen of all time. Bluma didn’t really project as a Grade A closer, but at the very least he would have given the Royals some stability in that role in the late 1990s. With Bluma, the Royals wouldn’t have felt pressured to trade for a closer, and might have traded Johnny Damon for someone who was actually valuable instead of Roberto Hernandez. They might not have spent millions on Ricky Bottalico. The turn-of-the-century Royals might have been prevented from doing a lot of dumb things had Bluma not been hurt. Then in 1999, the Royals selected two local players with early picks. Their second-round selection was Wes Obermueller, a pitcher out of the University of Iowa. Obermueller was a converted outfielder with a live arm, and judging from his performance record might have been better served staying in the outfield. He reached the majors for a brief stint with the Royals in 2002, then was traded the following summer as partial payment for Curtis Leskanic when Allard Baird went all-in during the Summer of Fool’s Gold. (We really need a good nickname for the 2003 season.) Leskanic pitched very well for the Royals down the stretch, but his pitching earned his release the following summer; picked up by the Red Sox, he pitched well for them in a limited role, and then became the answer to a trivia question that October: “who was the winning pitcher the night Dave Roberts stole second base?” Obermueller pitched three seasons in Milwaukee and another in Florida, and the lowest ERA of his career was 5.07. At the plate, he was a career .237 hitter, and was 15-for-39 in 2004. In the fifth round, out of the University of Nebraska, the Royals selected Ken Harvey. We poke fun of Harvey a lot here in the blogosphere – and I’m still waiting for someone to put together a YouTube “greatest hits” compilation of Harvey’s most memorable plays – but he did play essentially two full seasons in the majors as a starting first baseman. In draft terms, you’re doing well if your fifth-round pick makes it to the majors. If you drafted a Ken Harvey in the fifth-round every year, that would win you some games. The last quality player the Royals drafted from those six states was a true local; David Cone was drafted out of Rockhurst High in 1981. (Notice I didn’t use the term “All-Star” – Harvey was, incredibly, the Royals’ representative in 2004.) But it’s not because the Royals couldn’t find any star talent in their neighborhood; it’s because they didn’t even bother to try. This wouldn’t be a big deal if there simply weren’t any major league players coming out of the Great Plains. But, of course, there were. Here’s just a sampling of local players – all drafted in the 4th round or later – from 1989 to 2004: 1989: Mike Oquist, U. of Arkansas, 13th Round* 1990: Mike Myers, Iowa State, 4th Round 1990: Mike Lansing, WSU, 6th Round 1990: Pat Meares, WSU, 12th Round 1992: Doug Mirabelli, WSU, 5th Round 1993: Bill Mueller, Missouri State, 15th Round 1995: A.J. Burnett, Central Arkansas Christian HS, 8th Round 1995: Ramon Vazquez, Indian Hills CC (IA), 27th Round 1996: Joe Crede, Fatima HS (MO), 5th Round 1996: Casey Blake, WSU, 7th Round 1996: Travis Hafner, Cowley County CC (KS), 31st Round 1996: Junior Spivey, Cowley County CC (KS), 36th Round 1998: Eric Hinske, U. of Arkansas, 17th Round 1998: Mark Buehrle, Francis Howell North HS (MO), 38th Round 1999: Nate Robertson, WSU, 5th Round 2000: Cliff Lee, U. of Arkansas, 4th Round 2000: Adam LaRoche, Seminole State College (OK), 29th Round 2001: Ryan Howard, Missouri State University, 5th Round 2001: Dan Johnson, U. of Nebraska, 7th Round 2002: Kyle McClellan, Hazelwood West HS (MO), 25th Round 2003: Ian Kinsler, U. of Missouri, 17th Round 2003: Brad Ziegler, Missouri State University, 20th Round *: Oquist wasn’t all that good, but I list him here because he happened to sit down next to me on a plane as I returned from the 2003 SABR Conference in Denver back to Chicago – Oquist was returning to the Atlantic League after going home for the All-Star Break. He was incredibly gracious, and we had a very lovely conversation. Notably left off this list is Albert Pujols, for the simple reason that including Pujols on a list of mere mortals would be an insult to his majesty. But let’s just remember that Pujols, who as a 13th-round pick in 1999 is inarguably the GREATEST LATE-ROUND STEAL IN DRAFT HISTORY, went to high school IN KANSAS CITY, and was drafted out of Maple Woods Community College IN KANSAS CITY, and while attending Maple Woods one of his roommates WORKED AT KAUFFMAN STADIUM. That’s an impressive list of talent, particularly when you consider that we’re looking only at guys drafted in the 4th round or later. In particular, that’s a shocking amount of talent drafted in the late rounds (10th or later). Just using players from the 10th round and later, you could put together an infield of Pujols, Kinsler, Meares, and Mueller, put Hafner at DH, move Hinske and LaRoche in the outfield (or move Pujols out there), use Vazquez and Spivey as utility infielders, start Buehrle on the mound, and put McClellan and Ziegler in the bullpen. The Royals drafted none of them. I have no way of knowing without breaking down each region of the country the same way, but this strikes me as an incredible amount of major league talent that late in the draft, particularly for an area that’s not exactly known for being a baseball hotbed. This shouldn’t be surprising. Precisely because the area around Kansas City isn’t well-populated, and the quality of amateur baseball competition isn’t that high, it’s a lot harder to evaluate the major league potential of the non-elite prospects. Consequently, a lot of guys with big futures get buried in the late rounds. Which makes the fact that the Royals didn’t focus their draft efforts in their own backyard for so long a criminal offense. The closest the Royals got to a late-round find in that span were two guys who just missed: Kit Pellow, a 22nd rounder in 1996 who briefly made the majors with the Royals and Rockies, and has since taken his all-or-nothing swing to leagues all over the world; and Ruben Gotay, a 31st round draft-and-follow out of Indian Hills CC in Iowa, who was the Royals’ starting baseman at the age of 21, and if his glove were a little better might still be a starting second baseman for someone today. And that’s it. After Pujols, Ian Kinsler is one of the biggest out-of-nowhere college picks in the game today; he went from the 17th round to quality major leaguer inside of 3 years. You’d think the Royals would have had more looks at him coming out of Mizzou than other teams. Almost half the guys listed above were drafted from three places: Wichita State, the University of Arkansas, and Missouri State (formerly Southwest Missouri State). There was a golden opportunity there for the Royals to out-scout their opponents for someone like Ryan Howard. Howard’s power wasn’t exactly a secret, but no one knew if he’d make contact consistently enough to be a major league threat. The Royals had the opportunity to make that assessment better. Another Missouri State grad, Shaun Marcum (who’s not listed above because he was a 3rd-round pick in 2003) also made the majors in short order. Meanwhile, the Royals haven’t drafted a player out of Missouri State in any round since 1993. (That year they took Bart Evans – who made the majors and briefly looked like a potential closer before suffering a serious ankle injury – in the 9th round.) With Melville, the Royals finally took a flyer on a player from their own area. Just to prove that wasn’t a fluke, the Royals took Aaron Crow with their first-round pick last season. Crow was technically picked out of an independent league, but he went to Mizzou for three years and was drafted out of college by the Nationals the year before. He also grew up in Topeka and attended Washburn Rural there. I advocated that the Royals draft Grant Green with their pick last season, but I admire the fact that in Crow, the Royals took a player that they must have seen dozens of times in college. Their scouting dossier on him figures to be thicker – and presumably better – than most teams. It’s not a coincidence that this new focus on home-grown talent started after Dayton Moore was named GM, because Moore is a product of the Braves’ front office, and the Braves are the most famous – and most successful – example of a team mining its own backyard for major-league talent. The Braves didn’t starting drafting out of Georgia in earnest until the year 2000. Prior to that, their most successful local pick was John Rocker, an 18th-rounder in 1993. (They also found Kevin Millwood out of neighboring North Carolina in the 11th round in 1994.) But here’s a list of all the Georgia picks from the first 6 rounds from 2000 through 2005: 2000: Adam Wainwright, high school, 1st Round 2000: Bryan Digby, high school, 2nd Round (did not reach majors) 2000: Blaine Boyer, high school, 3rd Round 2001: Macay Mcbride, high school 1st Round 2001: Josh Burrus, high school 1st Round (did not reach majors) 2001: Richard Lewis, Georgia Tech, supplemental 1st Round (did not reach majors) 2001: Kyle Davies, high school, 4th Round 2002: Jeff Francoeur, high school, 1st Round 2002: Brian McCann, high school, 2nd Round 2003: Paul Bacot, high school, 2nd Round (did not reach majors) 2004: Clint Sammons, U. of Georgia, 6th Round 2005: Will Startup, U. of Georgia, 5th Round (did not reach majors) In 2006, which was the draft when Dayton Moore had one foot in Atlanta and one in Kansas City, the Braves took a pair of college pitchers from Georgia in the 2nd and 4th rounds. And in 2007 the masterpiece of this draft strategy was picked: Jason Heyward, one of the best hitting prospects of this decade, was selected by the Braves with the 14th overall pick. Heyward was considered an elite talent – at the time Jim Callis of Baseball America declared him the steal of the first round – but he fell to the middle of the first round in large part because, playing against weak high school competition, he was pitched around so much that opposing scouts rarely got a chance to see him swing the bat. The Braves’ scouts, on the other hand, had been following him for years, and had seen enough repetitions to know what was hidden behind all those semi-intentional walks. Last season, the Braves didn’t get around to drafting a home-state player until the 7th round, the latest they’ve waited to take a local product this decade. On the other hand, their first-round pick – Mike Minor, who most thought was a reach with the #7 overall pick – went to Vanderbilt; they drafted a kid from Florida in the 4th round; a kid from South Carolina in the 5th round; and a kid from Alabama in the 6th round. This is a strategy that is here to stay. And it’s a strategy that has largely worked. Certainly, the Braves have made their share of mistakes, but they found a pair of stars in Wainwright and McCann, a pair of maddening but still talented players in Francoeur and Davies, some useful relievers in McBride and Boyer, and a potential superstar in Heyward. Given that only a third of these players were taken with first-round picks, and that the Braves were drafting at the end of each round most years, that’s a heck of a good job of drafting. There isn’t as much talent in the Royals’ neighborhood as there is in the Braves’ neighborhood, and what talent there is has been much more likely to come out of college than out of high school. That’s not surprising; the Braves have taken advantage of the East Cobb Baseball organization, one of the best youth baseball organizations in the country, that has developed players into premium prospects by the time they’re 18, while players in Kansas and Missouri aren’t getting the playing time against other top talent they need to develop until they’re in college. But the talent is there, and it’s high time the Royals take advantage of it. They’re going to miss on a few no matter what; already under Dayton Moore the Royals missed Derek Norris, who was drafted by the Nationals in the 4th round out of Goddard High School in Kansas in 2007. (Even growing up in Wichita, we thought of Goddard as the sticks.) Norris is now one of the best catching prospects in the game. But you can’t win if you don’t play. The Royals are finally starting to play. In 2007, Moore’s first draft, the Royals took a signability player named Zach Kenyon out of an Iowa high school in the 9th round; Kenyon could not be persuaded to sign. In 2008, they took Melville. Then last year, they took Crow in the first round; a pitcher named Nicholas Wooley in the 12th round out of a small Missouri college named William Woods University; a toolsy high school outfielder out of an Oklahoma high school named Lane Adams in the 13th round; and in the 15th and 17th rounds the Royals took the starting keystone combination at the University of Arkansas, Scott Lyons and Benjamin Tschepikow. Oh, and in the 7th round they drafted a Missouri State player for the first time in 16 years – a short lefty named George Baumann. They’re going to miss on a few of these guys. (I just heard that Lyons and Tschepikow both retired in the last few days.) But when it comes to the draft, failure is the rule, and success the exception. Common sense dictates that success is more likely when you know more about the players you draft, and you ought to know more about the players in your own backyard. The Royals continue to common defy common sense in many other ways, but when it comes to looking for talent in the draft, credit Dayton Moore & Co. for putting common sense to good use. Back with some short(er) comments on a few other players, and a final farm system wrap-up, soon.