It's is indeed a process..
[Reply]

Gore will not be playing baseball professionally, unless it is for the T-bones after this year.
[Reply]

No shit, at least we can hang our hat on the 2 game win streak!
[Reply]

:-)
[Reply]

Is Billy Hamilton done for the year?
[Reply]

We have had the lead or been tied going into the 7th inning in 9 of the 12 games we have played.

We are 2-10
[Reply]

Any generational talents at the top of the 2020 draft?
[Reply]

You aren’t helping.
[Reply]

Headed for back to back 100 loss seasons. Congrats Dayton Moore
[Reply]

A successful rebuild, worked for the Astros
[Reply]

If there is, we'll be sure to ruin him.
[Reply]

Yeah that's all fine and dandy until you remember the guy who's drafting and realize you're fucked. Go back and looks at the 1st round draft picks since 2009;

(Year)(Player)(Yrs in majors W/KC)(WAR)
2009 - Crow 4 2.6
2010 - Colon. 4 1.8
2011 - Starling 0
2012 - Zimmer 1 -0.1
2013 - Dozier. 3 -1.3
2013 - Manaea. 0
2014 - Finnegan 2 0.6
2014 - Foster 0
2014 - Vallot 0
2015 - Watson. 0
2015 - Russel 0
2017- Pratto 0

From Crow to Dozier all of those guys are top 12 picks and everyone besides Crow and Dozier are top 5 picks. Then when you take into account the number of prospects in our system right now that are ranked in the top 100;

Baseball Prospectus 3 in top 100: Matias (52), Lee(61),Melendez(67)

CBS Sports 1 in top 100: Singer(70)

MLB.com 1 in top 100: Singer(53)

Fangraphs and ESPN no idea, don't pay for either.

The farm system really seems shitty. I do think Singer has a chance to be pretty damn good, but with our track record of pitcher development I won't get my hopes up. My favorite prospect is Khalil Lee. Hopefully he can get to triple A this year and then the majors sometime next year, but the most likely scenario is that the Royals sign some shit vet to play in front of him while Lee kills it in the minors and we are all wondering why he hasn't been called up yet.
[Reply]

Im really surprised at how well Alex is playing and hopefully he can keep up this pace until the trade deadline. With his defense, if he can stay at above .750 ops, then we should be able to get something half way decent for him. I love Alex, but it's a business and if you can improve the future you do it.

When it comes to Whit it's a tough decision for me. He just turned 30, which is when a hitter starts to decline in ability. Fangraphs says a hitter on average will lose .5 WAR every year after age 30, but so far Whit looks as good as ever(small sample size I know). Id rather keep Whit, because he can definitely help compete if this next group of guys amounts to anything. Only way I'd trade him is for an absolute haul that forces us to trade him.

On another note Mike Trout has a 1.8 WAR already... Holy shit that is crazy. That guy may go down as the best player ever. The guy already has 5 seasons of 9 or better WAR and he's only 27. So far he has .995 career OPS, that's unbelievable. Just looked up Albert Pujols and God damn, he was just insane at the plate with the Cardinals. 1.037 OPS in 11 years. Talk about consistently being a badass.

Then I typed in Barry Bonds and looked at his stats. How in the fuck can anyone argue he wasn't on steroids the last several years of his career. Fucking 39 years old and has an ops of 1.422. At the age most guys aren't even able to competitively play, BB is putting up the highest OPS of his career lol. 122 intentional walks that year. It's so fucked up.
[Reply]

You appear to be placing NFL draft expectations on the MLB draft. That doesn’t work.

Moore’s draft success with 1st round picks, in totality, is pretty average for MLB GMs. As I’ve said before, a GM in KC needs to be better than average at drafting or the team will suffer.

Let’s start with the worst picks:
Colon, Starling, and Russell

Even in this triumvirate of suck, only one (Colon) was questionable at the time. Starling was expected to go 2nd overall until draft day and slipped to 5. He was a tremendous athlete who had success as part of the national team. And local. He has been a bust (this far, still sticking it out at Omaha and seeing some success). Russell was the top HS pitcher in his draft, who inexplicably lost it once a pro.

Zimmer: Just flat-out shitty luck he couldn’t stay healthy. The guy was exactly what they thought he could be (next Verlander) until his body fell apart. Still may get good value out of him out of the bullpen.

Finnegan, Manaea: Traded for key pieces in a WS winner. Who gives a fuck what they did afterwards? They were cashed in for huge value.

Dozier was a top 10 pick, but only because of them taking a safer sign to save money for Manaea. That wasn’t a case of taking best player available. His value will always be tied to Manaea, so this is a + for me.

Chase Vallot, Foster Griffin, Nolan Watson:
All were comp picks at the end of the first round. The Royals swing big on projectable Hs arms and got burned with Griffin and Watson (and Russell, too).

The failures in 15 with Watson and Russell seem to have changed the Royals draft strategy. They’ve moved away from those projectable HS guys since, which is a good thing for hit rates.

It’s way too early to say anything about Prato, other than he was good last year and still on track to be a good player. He’s in the next 100-250 of prospect lists and could pop into the top 100 with a good season. His defensive position will always hurt him there.

What’s the point? You gotta apply MLB expectations and context.

The Royals have done really well in the past two drafts. They need a few more really good ones to get things built up. They need to nail this year’s pick and add some premium talent to the system. I think they’ll do that.

The system isn’t shitty. It’s a top 20ish system a year after being bottom 3, with the arrow pointed up and likely to add a top 100 player in the draft.
[Reply]

Draft note:

The Royals are being connected more to Cal 1B (May be able to play LF or 3B) Andrew Vaughn, which is a great thing IMO.

Vaughn’s college career tracks nicely with Kris Bryant’s, though Vaughn has fewer swing and miss tendencies.

This is critical. Vaughn and Oregon St C Adley Rutschman are separating hemselves as a clear top 2 in this draft. Vaughn is not a traditional toolsy Royals choice, but he can rake. There’s uncertainty on whether the O’s will tAke Rutschman 1st overall due to his position, but if they do, Vaughn is a clear #2.

I expect Rutschman to be a top 30 prospect in baseball as soon as he’s drafted. Vaughn is probably more likely a 50-100 guy.
[Reply]