Quote:
Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud
6 years between “good” 1st round picks is “hyperbole”?
What?
How can you defend this assclown?
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I defend him from your take because your take is incomplete and wrong.
And, for the record, it wasn't "six years between good first round picks."
2007 - Moustakas. Great pick. Also got Duffy in the 3rd for over-slot dollars, Greg Holland and David Lough in 10/11th.
2008 - Hosmer. Great pick. Also landed Montgomery in the comp round, which eventually turned into great trade leverage, as well as John Lamb in the 6th,
I'll stop and mention for a second that Moore was exactly right about these two picks and built his entire career in Kansas City around it.
2009 - Aaron Crow. Average pick, as he did make the major leagues, provide some value, and get spun out for a useful piece with lots of control. It's a pick that you would say is a bad one if you don't understand the failure rate on MLB first rounders and expect it to hit like football, where GMs get the luxury of watching guys develop in a free minor league until they are 21/22.
Also worth noting that KC saved a little cash on Crow, and then spent on Wil Myers like he was a first-round pick, huge success, and also got the useful Louis Coleman in the 4th round.
2010 - Moore's worst draft by far. Chris Colon was a colossal bust pick, especially since they were lined up to take Sale until about 15 minutes before the pick. Scott Alexander in the 6th and Whit Merrifield in the 10th are now nice picks. This draft would have been saved had they been able to leverage the Colon savings into actually signing a power arm out of Texas in Jon Gray. They got close but couldn't quite close it. Had they, would look very different.
2011 - Bubba Starling is a painful pick. This is what sucks about the baseball draft. He had all the tools to be successful. As a HS prospect, he was really quite similar in tools, HS competition, and etc. to Mike Trout. The line between those two players is a narrow but important one. The pick hasn't worked. A lot of great players went after Starling. KC picked him in part because of fear of him turning into the next Matt Kemp if they didn't. KC did nab Jakob Junis at the end of the draft, which looks useful now, and Terrance Gore. But this draft hurts.
2012 - Kyle Zimmer was not a bad pick. It hasn't worked. But it was absolutely not a scouting or development issue. There were no logical warning signs to suggest he would have the injury problems he has had. A year or two into this pick, it looked like KC had landed a legitimate ace with this pick.
2013 - Hunter Dozier and Sean Manaea. Great picks. Dozier was a signability choice to clear up dollars for Manaea in the comp balance round, and it was a home run. Even if Dozier never produces at the major league level (and he still has a decent possibility of doing so, IMO), Manaea was a trade chip that brought a WS title to KC. Great pick. (And for the record, that's only four drafts between great first round selections, and in one of those, money saved on Crow helped sign Myers at a first-round price).
Also worth noting KC landed Cody Reed in the second round of this draft, which ended up being a great and very valuable pick.
2014 - Brandon Finnegan. Great pick. Not only did he help KC make the WS in 2014 (I don't think they win that WC without him, and he was a great, fresh relief arm down the stretch in September when desperately needed), he was a key piece of the deal in which KC raped Cincinnati for Johnny Cueto.
This draft also featured a lot of guys that may still be valuable for KC. Foster Griffin was a sandwich first-round pick and looks to be on track to be a solid back-end starter and potential mid-rotation type, based on his breakthrough 2017. Scott Blewett showed some promising signs in 2017 and bears watching, still. Erik Skoglund, Chase Vallot, Ryan O'Hearn, and Corey Toups aren't on star tracks, but each could be a solid big-league piece.
2015 - Ashe Russell, Nolan Watson. This draft is actually the worst, I think, the Royals have had under Moore. Russell and Watson have both been disasters, though Russell was not a reach at all (and some thought was a plus value) who fell apart mentally. There are a few guys - Emmanuel Rivera, Gabe Cancel, and Anderson Miller - who might be able to change that perception.
2016 - No first rounder. Got a decent return on AJ Puckett, their top pick. Khalil Lee and Nicky Lopez have proven to be really nice values in rounds 3 and 5. Got Lovelady in round 10.
2017 - Nick Pratto is too early to say anything about, really. He's a HS bat with a long ways to go in development. Same is true of just about everyone, though guys like Dan Tillo, Michael Gigliotti, Tyler Zuber, Brewer Hicklen, and Marlin Willis had encouraging turns.
I thnk this ^ has the potential to play out as their top draft since 2009.