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Royal MOD #1



Aloha, Mav22 here. First time doing this although I talked on some of the MOD threads last year. I, along with KCTiger will be co-MODing the Royals draft. Hope to have fun as we talk about the upcoming draft and Kansas City Royals. Feel free to say anything you want on the Royals Mod site as there are no rules other then the standard Minorleague.com rules. Of course that could change as circumstances warrant. It would be cool to hear from not only Royals fans but all baseball fans.

KCTiger will be posting his stuff on this site while I will be posting mine. Probably when its time for MOD Royals 2.0 to occur, KCTiger will post that original base site.

My plan is to discuss the Royals team, Royals minor league prospects and Royals past drafts to get an idea if the Royals have any team needs or patterns in drafting. Also will be looking at Royals rumors to see who they might be looking at. I also plan on talking in depth about the entire draft, my draft rankings, draft theories and of course, who I think the Royals should draft. KCTiger will bring his thing too.

Please feel free to tell us what you think the Royals will or should do with their picks. We probably will be doing a WAR room right before the draft, but don't let that keep you from giving your opinion now. I might be influenced by your opinion, who knows. At least you can tell me where I am wrong.

The great thing about the Royals draft is they have a bunch of picks......


1st-17 $2,200,600---KC
Comp-28 $1,815,500---Mav
Comp-40 $1,420,800---Mav
2nd-56 $1,003,200---KC
3rd-92 $576,100-----KC
4th-123 $420,000-----Mav

Total money to play with 7,436,200.

I will make picks 2-3-6 and KCTiger will make picks 1-4-5.

To get things started, I wanted to talk about my theories on the MLB draft so you could get an idea of where I am coming from and who I might draft. What would I focus on? High school or college? Pitchers or hitters? Bat or defense? So, here are my beliefs and apologies in advance for the length as I am overly opinionated......

First, there is no set rule and always exceptions to any rule on drafting. But here are some general principles.

Upside and ceiling over safety and floor. However, since in the first round most have upside, lean towards college and the safety of a high floor. Look at the high school pitchers later then the high first especially.

I like drafting up the middle players. You can usually move players down the position scale, but not up it. I lean against 1st baseman.

Don't draft relievers too high. They have limited value. Nobody projected to relieve should be drafted in the top 30 IMO.

I prefer stats to scouting in college, but you need both.

I look for the 5 standard tools, but also want a player with the eye and heart tools. Also known as plate discipline and makeup. So 7 tools in this order of importance......

Bat
.

.

.
Glove-range
Plate discipline
.
Power
.
Speed
Make-up
Arm

I like complete players, but the bat is always the key tool. See Bubba Starling as an example. If you can't hit the Mendoza line, you can't play in the big leagues no matter what else you can do. And if you can hit 300, you will find a place even if you can't do anything else.

Bat speed is a touch over rated. See Jose Abreu and Clint Frasier as examples. For me at least, its about the ability to barrel the ball.

Multiple sport athletes are a plus as are two way players. It often shows a player who has hand eye cordination and might not have completely developed yet. Not always though.

When drafting pitchers, movement and command trumps velocity......100 miles per yadayadayada. But you do need a minimum velocity projection into the 92-93 mph range at least. I care more about at least 1 good breaking pitch that moves a lot and has command then whether a pitcher has multiple breaking pitches.

This is because these pitchers are not finished products. They are being taught by high school coaches or maybe a crappy college coach. They know almost nothing about pitching and breaking balls. However, by the time the pitcher finishes one major league spring training, he may have been taught by as many as 20 different current and former big leaguers something new. A different pitch to throw. A different grip. A different arm angle, release point, pressure point, mechanical adjustment etc. So I don't really care if he has the makings of a change up yet or not. Just that he has the ability to make at least one off speed pitch break and has movement on his fastball and command, command, command. There are some pretty succesful pitchers who live off mostly just 2 pitches. Of course, if he has mastered 4 pitches already, thats even better.

I also look for a smooth effortless delivery. Herky jerky, high elbow, or 100% effort are bad signs.

Size? I want tall, long armed and long fingered pitchers. I wish they gave those kind of measurements to us like the NBA and NFL does. Under 6-2 is not ideal. I like good broad frames but not heavy weight. You want to imagine the pitcher filling in the weight and hopefully adding velocity. Of course, some pencil builds never fill in.

I am less concerned with hitters height, but 5-8 or less would be a concern for me. But I think I am more open to short hitters then most. And again, the skinnier the better. I like wirey strong in hitters.

I look very closely at the ages of the players. Not just the high school players either. A full year younger then others makes a huge differnce to me. You don't just have the extra year of improvement and growth physically, but you also have the disadvantage of competing against older players, usually your entire life. Even in college, its somewhat like competing against players in the A+ level when you are only an A level player age wise. And in high school, age is even more important.

I really like the Florida-Georgia-California kids. They seem to turn out better. And don't get me started on how bad Mississippi players turn out. However, is Ti’Quan the exception?

Almost never draft for need. But even here, I see exceptions.

Finally, draft the best player available. But again, there are exceptions. It isn't where you pick a player, but how much it will take to sign him. If I had the first pick over all, I would strongly negotiate with the first few players and even consider taking the second or third best player on my list if their talent were close to the number 1 guy but the bonus demands were not close. Saving a couple of million would be like trading down in the draft and getting an extra pick. Sometimes, that is the thing to do.

Thats my thoughts on how to draft. Figured it was a good starting point so you would know how I might use my 3 picks for the Royals.

So, whats your theories? Do you disagree with some of mine?

Feel free to bring up any other topic on this site that has anything to do with the draft or the Royals.

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