Comparing the Royals and Pirates
I live in Kansas City Royal territory, so I am always flooded with Royals news. I also find it interesting to compare the Pirates and Royals because they are both in a similar small market boat.
This year's draft by the Royals should draw immediate comparisons between the KC front office and the Pirate front office.
Take a look at what the Royals did this year in the draft. This is a very different approach than the Pirates who took the number 5 and 10 prospects on MLB's top 100 with the 9 and 14th pick. This was in part thanks to the Royals taking Hunter Dozier 8th.
The thinking of the Kansas City front office was Dozier would be a cheap sign, which he was as he has already signed under slot by about a million bucks. This is to help them sign their 34th pick Sean Manaea. Manaea is a big talent who underperformed this year, so their is some risk in this pick. If they don't sign him, they don't get compensation. If they had drafted Manaea first, they would have been compensated if they failed to sign, and whether or not Dozier would have been there at 34 is a debatable point. Of course if his underperformance is the norm and his summer league the aberration, then this pick is a complete disaster no matter what.
But look at the rest of the Royal draft. Not a lot of high schoolers and not a lot of people that even had draft reports on MLB.com. I counted 10 with reports and two more that had videos. The Pirates this year had 13 with reports and 1 more with a video. Only one of the Pirates first 10 round picks did not have either a report or video. They also picked 5 High Schoolers in the first 10 rounds and no college seniors. The Royals took 4 college seniors in the first 10 rounds and only two high schoolers. The majority of the High Schoolers taken by the Royals are past round 25 where they are not going to sign. They seem to be betting on signing Manaea because they do not have high school talent out of the top 10 rounds. If Manaea does not take the deal where are they going to throw the extra money?
The more interesting comparison is with the Pirates last year. The Pirates last year used a pick to draft a tough to sign guy in Mark Appel. They also tried to save some money in the first 10 rounds with picks like Crumlich, Wood, and even Barrett Barnes who was still about the talent level of the pick.
But the Pirates seemed to have a back up plan. They drafted high upside high schoolers Walker Buehler, Maxwell Moroff, and Hayden Hurst in the 14th, 16th, and 17th rounds. And when Appel refused to sign they were able to pick up Moroff and Hurst. AND they got to have the 9th pick this year, which turned out to be Austin Meadows.
The problem with the Royals is not that they went and tried to sign the 13th overall prospect who is considered a hard sign. The problem is that they don't seem to have a back up plan for it. If they fail, they do not get a comp pick, and they do not seem to have high upside high schoolers to throw the extra money to in order to get them to sign. Instead they pick the 46th overall talent who will have to move to third, and may have to move to second eventually. They continually passed on talents that might have signed if you had an extra million or so laying around from the attempt to sign Manaea. For example Ryan Boldt is committed to Nebraska, and he went undrafted until round 22 despite being the 39th best prospect. Boldt could have been drafted in round 14-17 (as the Pirates did last year), and then on top of the max $100,000 they Royals could have added at least a 1 million, and judging from some of the names in their top 10 rounds, probably at least 1 million more. Boldt might have gone for that. Isn't it at least worth a try?
It seems to be a different thinking about drafting than the Pirates, and one that makes me glad we have the front office that we have.
I think we can all say, "I am glad we are not the Royals."
No comments:
Post a Comment