Tonight we continue an exciting new venture for Kings of Kauffman and its podcast, the Royalman Report.

Jeff Logan of the Kansas City Baseball Historical Society joins forces with us to form the Kansas City Baseball Vault on Kansas City’s ESPN 1510 AM from 6-7 p.m. every Thursday night. Listeners can tune into traditional radio or streaming live on 1510.com.

Our guest will be Buddy Biancalana, part of the 1985 World Series team and a key part of their championship run.

We’ll also dig into the Royals draft from earlier in the week and dissect their “major announcement” from earlier in the day.

Just like last week, we plan to have a trivia question and a giveaway, so be sure to listen in. Last week, three listeners won free ticket packages to go see the Kansas City T-Bones. You like winning things, right? That trivia question can happen any time, so you have to listen to be ready.

Follow the Kansas City Baseball Vault on Twitter and Facebook for future programming updates. Also follow Kings of Kauffman for article updates, discussion and other information.

At the top of the list is Kyle Zimmer, their first round pick out of San Francisco. The 20-year-old is said to be fairly close to coming to a deal with the Royals on a signing bonus and could be assigned to a minor league affiliate soon, according to Bob Dutton.

The Royals have already signed a few picks from day two: Colin Rodgers, Fred Ford, Alfredo Escalana-Maldonado, Parker Morin and Dylan Sons. Three of those came out of the Royals top ten picks so their bonus amounts will count towards the draft pool allotment established by Major League Baseball.

Here’s the breakdown of the Royals 40 selections:

• Left-handed pitchers: 10
• Right-handed pitchers: 14
• Catchers: 3
• First basemen: 2
• Second basemen: 1
• Shortstops: 1 (though Kenny Diekroeger is likely to move to second base rather than stay at shortstop)
• Third basemen: 0
• Outfielders: 9
• High school players: 17
• College/Junior College: 23
• College seniors: 2

I specify the college seniors because a trend started to develop yesterday where many teams were taking college seniors (who don’t have as much leverage in bonus negotiations) earlier than some prospects who were projected to go higher as a way to manipulate some of the bonuses handed out. The Royals didn’t get on that train, it seems, though they did lean college-heavy overall.

One particular selection is interesting in what it symbolizes. Austin Fairchild was the 16th round pick by the Royals. He’s a left-hander out of St. Thomas High School in Texas and stands six feet tall and weighs about 170 pounds. What’s so special about that? Fairchild is a long-toss pitcher, meaning a large part of his training in the offseason and between starts involves playing catch at distances up to 300 feet. Many training programs established by teams limit that distance to 120 feet or so. In the past, the Royals have been resistant to these types of programs despite drafting adherents like Mike Montgomery and John Lamb.

With the hiring of Rick Knapp as their minor league pitching coordinator and the drafting of Fairchild, it seems that the Royals are opening up to the idea of utilizing long-toss as part of their development or at the very least, embracing the idea that one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to pitching development. (You can hear more about such long-toss programs in our interview with Alan Jaeger of Jaeger Sports on the Royalman Report.)

Now that the draft is over, it’s time to sign the picks. The Royals have five out of the way now, and with an earlier deadline than in years past, they’re working quickly on locking up Zimmer and the rest. The sooner they get a signature, the sooner these players can be assigned to minor league teams or start work in Surprise at the Royals training facility.

All picks from the 2012 draft are tracked on MLB.com and can be filtered by team.

The Royals also picked Hayden Edwards, a 6’7″ right-handed pitcher out of Blue Valley High School in Stillwell, Kansas (31st round) and Ashton Goudeau a 6’6″ righty from Maple Woods Community College (27th round).

Of their 14 picks on Tuesday, eight come out of high school and half of their picks were pitchers.

Their full draft through 15 rounds:

1. Kyle Zimmer – RHP – San Francisco
2. Sam Selman – LHP – Vanderbilt
3. Colin Rodgers – LHP – High school (Louisiana)
4. Kenny Diekroeger – SS – Stanford
5. Chad Johnson – C – High school (Illinois)
6. Zachary Lovvorn – RHP – High school (Alabama)
7. Fred Ford – OF – Jefferson College (Missouri)
8. Alfredo Escalera-Maldonado – OF – High school (Florida)
9. Daniel Stumpf – LHP – San Jacinto College (Texas)
10. Alexis Rivera – OF – High school (Florida)
11. Zebulon Sneed – RHP – Northwest Nazarene College (Idaho)
12. Jackson Willeford – 2B – High school (California)
13. Hunter Haynes – LHP – High school (Missouri)
14. “Parker” Mike Morin – C – Utah
15. Dylan Sons – LHP – High school (Virginia)

Of the seven pitchers selected on Tuesday, five are left-handed, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s followed the Royals. They love left-handed pitching in the draft.

Selman didn’t pitch much in many innings at Vanderbilt until this year when he settled into the role. MLB.com wonders if he’ll sign or return to Vanderbilt for his last year while they also note that his secondary pitches could use refinement. He struck out 80 batters in 76 innings during his junior season.

Kenny Diekroeger is interesting. He turned down big money before going to Stanford in the past, but looked like a top 10 pick at one point. If he finally signs this time, he could be a few refinements from pushing Christian Colon and Johnny Giavotella at second (where most think he’ll end up rather than shortstop).

Alfredo Escalera-Maldonado has an awesome name and just turned 17 in February. He could be interesting but that’s way down the line.

Daniel Stumpf struck out 108 batters in 111 innings in junior college. Dylan Sons was described as a “projectible lefty” by Royals scout Lonnie Goldberg.

The Royals haven’t selected a college senior yet, which has seemed to be a trend through the first 15 rounds. The Royals have around $6.2 million to allot to their first ten selections. Some of the risk noted by draft commentators is that underclassmen have some leverage to ask for a higher bonus, so the Royals may not sign all of their top 10 (which isn’t that unusual most years for any team).

They’ll look to continue to add depth and find those hidden gems in the last 25 rounds of the draft starting Wednesday at 11 a.m. CST on  MLB.com. The crew at Seedlings to Stars is going through draft selections as well while they follow the action.

Right away, they threw a wrench into that, taking Carlos Correa instead. Then the Twins took Byron Buxton. Then the Mariners took Mike Zunino.

We talked this weekend about who the Royals might take and it seemed destined that they’d take a pitcher, the question was whether it would be a high school or college arm. When Baltimore took Kevin Gausman, it left a decision up to the Royals. Now the question was Appel or someone else?

They took Kyle Zimmer out of San Francisco instead of Appel. The reaction hasn’t been as outraged as one may have expected. Appel ended up with Pittsburgh at the eighth pick.

So what do the Royals have in their prospective new top pitching prospect?

Zimmer is a converted infielder who didn’t pitch full time until college. At 20 years old, he doesn’t have a lot of wear on his arm but scouts really like his stuff. He works a fastball in the mid-90s with movement and sink along with good breaking stuff and a developing changeup. Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com likes his four pitch mix and others note his upside.

The University of San Francisco lists him at 6’4″ and 220 pounds and because he maintains his velocity late into starts, he looks the part of a front line starter. In 13 starts in 2012, he threw 88.1 innings, striking out 104 and walking 17.

That all being said, it’s not a perfect selection. Compared to Appel or Gausman, the two other big name college pitchers, Zimmer doesn’t have the same level of experience so while college pitchers can move through a farm system quickly, he may take longer to rise through. There were reports of lost velocity at the end of the year, and while most chalk that up to a hamstring injury (which shouldn’t be much of an issue), it’s still nothing you want to see from a first round pick.

Most of the reactions to the pick have been positive. Greg Schaum praised his attitude. Robert Ford noted that the Royals had Zimmer at the top of their draft board. Rany Jazayerli suggested that Zimmer wasn’t too far removed from being in Appel’s class. Kevin Goldstein called it a “good pick” after guessing the Royals would pass on Zimmer.

Now it’s up to the Royals to sign Zimmer. Schaum suggested that Zimmer could be less pricey than Gausman would have been and Appel slipped due to his contract demands. The new CBA moved the deadline up into mid-July every year rather than into August as in past years. That means that the Royals can see Zimmer in short season ball this year and gives them the opportunity to start evaluating him sooner.