Royals vs. A's 8/9/09
 

Hochever pitching vs. Anderson.

We won yesterday, so maybe people will come out of the woodwork to make a few posts...

are you really saying the Royals actually won a Major League Baseball game. WOW, i guess once every 162 times, you can get lucky a few times.

Um, I wonder what the hell is wrong with our starting pitching? All of them have turned in remarkably mediocre starts this last week.

Well, the problem with Hochevar is that he kind of sucks.

Terrible, terrible, terrible selection for the #1 overall pick.

He has been inconsistent, but has shown some real flashes of brilliance. It is still too early to call this one a terrible pick. Obviously, we could have gotten some better players, but we could have also gotten a lot worse among even the highly regarded picks in that draft.

Royals fans say that about every player the shitty franchise has drafted.

Don't look now but the Nationals are right behind the Royals....a team once thought a lock for the worst record may give that to the Royals.

As long as it gives the Royals a chance to land that Harper kid, I'm all for it.

For all we know Strausberg could be back in the draft...the Nationals are big on not signing people.

That is entirely possible. Probably an unlikely scenerio, but what if:

Both Harper and Strausberg are both available when Kansas City pick. Who would you choose?

It's the Royals so either prospect will probably suck. Alex Gordon anyone?

LOL well I think everyone thinks Strausberg is the no brainer guy that would go #1 almost any year.

While true, you can go with a younger player in Harper.

I don't think being younger is that great of a benefit right now when the Royals already have drafted players they are going to be waiting years for.

At this point you have Grienke, you hope Hochevar can atleast be a 4 or 5 guy. If Crowe has the goods top be a front 3 starter and you put in a guy like Strausberg who has ace potential all of the sudden you have a good rotation.

And the hope with Strausberg and Crowe being a bit older would be hopefully they can get up fast and figure it out so they're just entering their big days when the drafted hitters are ready.

It would have been tough to do worse. Andrew Miller, the consensus #1, was traded for Cabrera. That would have sucked. Of course, the Royals wouldn't have been smart enough or willing enough to make this deal, but I'd still rather have a promising LHP, even though he's had his own struggles this season.

The other option for the Baird crew was Lincecum. Apparently he was the second rated prospect on their board, and that also would have sucked.

In short, Hochevar's BB to SO ratio has been consistently poor, and this doesn't bode well in projecting top-of-the-rotation guys. We'll see if he's able to turn this around, but he's past the point of when we should be hoping that he "develops." It's time for him to perform, and he is what we thought he would be, a back-of-the-rotation guy. Not the goal of the #1 overall pick.

In hindsight, my approach would generally be never to select a pitcher #1 overall. Always go with the top position player, unless the pitch is a once-in-a-generation type player.

In Hoch's year, this philosophy would have netted Longoria. Oops.

Under Moore, the only draft I've been happy with has been the Hosmer draft, and, as Rany and others argued at the time, it probably would have been far wiser to select Smoak with our first rounder.