KC Royals: Dayton Moore’s biggest draft misses ever

Dayton Moore has overseen 19 drafts since becoming general manager of the KC Royals. He’s made good picks and bad picks. Which of his first-round selections is the worst?

Some time this year or next, depending on when the pandemic allows baseball to return, the KC Royals are sure to discover whether their top 2018 draft pick can cut major league mustard. All indications are that Brady Singer, an uber-talented pitcher with a “can’t miss” tag, will make his Kauffman Stadium debut before the next season is out.

Singer, the 18th overall pick in ’18, may be the best pitcher the Royals have taken under general manager Dayton Moore, who engineered his first KC draft in 2007. (Some believe Jackson Kowar, at 33rd the club’s other 2018 first-rounder, will challenge Singer for that honor, although he’ll likely get to KC after Singer). The first round hurlers Moore picked before 2018–Aaron Crow, Kyle Zimmer, Brandon Finnegan and Ashe Russell–haven’t panned out as expected, although Zimmer is still in the system and Russell is returning from a leave of absence and subsequent Tommy John surgery.

Moore was a prize hire when he arrived in KC from Atlanta in 2006 (he’d studied the general manager’s trade at the right hand of former Royals’ GM John Schuerholz as Schuerholz brilliantly built Atlanta’s winning machine) and put together the Royals’ 2014 and ’15 World Series teams. But he’s fielded winning clubs in only three of his 13 full seasons, a record due partially to the bad team he inherited, some ill-advised free agent deals, a poor trade or two and a spotty draft record.

Because it’s far too soon to pass judgment on Singer, Moore’s best first-round picks in the 19 drafts he’s overseen (he recused himself in 2006 because he’d worked on Atlanta’s draft strategy before the Royals hired him) are his first two–Mike Moustakas (2007) and Eric Hosmer (2008). Hunter Dozier (2013) is looking good, Christian Colon (more about him later) had his moments and Bubba Starling (more to come on him, also) may not make it in the big leagues. Ranking Nick Pratto (2017) and Bobby Witt Jr. (2019) would be premature.

So with two proven picks, one rounding into that status, and some so-so choices, what have been Moore’s biggest first-round misses? Who could the Royals have picked instead?

The KC Royals took an infielder in the first round of the 2010 draft who had clutch hits in two memorable postseason games. They could have had Chris Sale.

Somewhere, for some reason, the KC Royals lost confidence in Christian Colon, an All-American college shortstop they drafted with the fourth overall pick in 2010. He was coming off a junior season in which he hit 17 home runs–more than twice as many as in his freshman and sophomore seasons combined–and hit .358 to top the previous two campaigns’ .329 and .357.

Colon made it to Kansas City in 2014, hit .333 in 21 games and followed with .290 in ’15. He slumped to .231 in 54 games in ’16; the Royals traded him to Miami when he was struggling at .176 in 2017. Colon never met the expectations that convinced KC to prefer him over Chris Sale, Yasmani Grandal, and Matt Harvey–the top players available when the Royals called his name in 2010–but Colon remains beloved in Kansas City for three shining moments.

The first two came in the magical 2014 Wild Card game. Colon’s infield single scored Eric Hosmer to tie Oakland in the bottom of the 12th inning; he scored the winning run minutes later when Salvador Perez shot his memorable single past third base to trigger the Royals’ amazing playoff run to the World Series.

The final occurred in the next season’s Fall Classic when Colon hit a pinch-hit, 12th-inning single to score Jarrod Dyson with the eventual winning run in the Royals’ Series-clinching fifth game:

Colon, however, never convinced the club he was an everyday big-league player. When baseball returns, he’ll resume his quest to make the Reds’ roster; he was hitting .174 in 12 spring games.

His heroics aside, would the Royals have been better in the long run if they’d drafted Sale, Grandal, or Harvey instead? Grandal is a power-hitting two-time All-Star catcher who’s hit 101 home runs in the past four seasons, but only .241 in eight campaigns. But he doesn’t equal KC’s Salvador Perez, a six-time All-Star who broke in with the Royals in 2011 and has five Gold Gloves. And his power matches Grandal’s–both have 141 big league homers in eight seasons.

What about Harvey or Sale? It was Harvey who Mets’ manager Terry Collins infamously allowed to stay in the game and pitch the ninth inning against the Royals in the 2015 Series finale, a mistake that gave KC life and helped the Royals force extra innings. His 13-8 record that season is one of his two career winning marks; serious injuries have plagued him and he’s now an unsigned free agent.

Sale is quite a different matter. The White Sox picked him nine spots after the Royals chose Colon; while it took Colon almost three years to reach the majors, Sale made it to Chicago just two months after the draft. A starter since 2012, he’s 109-73 with a 3.03 ERA in 10 seasons, averages 11.1 strikeouts and only 2.1 walks per nine innings and has won 17 games three times.

Sale is also a seven-time All-Star and, although he’s never won a Cy Young Award, he’s been among the top six vote-getters seven times. In the eight seasons he’s been a starter, Sale has five times exceeded or tied the highest win total by any Royals starter. He recently had Tommy John surgery and will miss this season.

Whether the KC Royals would have been better off with Sale than Colon depends on perspective. The club would have played in the World Series in 2014 and ’15 without Sale; with him, he wouldn’t have had the game-tying hit in the ’14 Wild Card or the winning hit in the ’15 Series. But no one knows if someone other than Colon would have come through with those clutch safeties.

Had Sale been a Royal, he would have pitched in the same league, in the same ballparks and against the same hitters (except the Royals, and the Red Sox for whom he pitched the last three seasons). Presumably, his record would be close to what it is and KC would have dozens more victories. Would his 17 wins in 2016 been sufficient to push the Royals into the playoffs? On numbers alone, and no other variables, “Yes.” Those 17 additional wins would have given the Royals the AL Central; his 2-1 record against KC wouldn’t have made a difference.

The first-round selection of the KC Royals in 2011 made it to the majors last season. Three players available when KC picked him have collectively won eight All-Star berths, six Silver Sluggers and two Gold Gloves.

When the 2011 amateur draft began, the KC Royals were nine games below .500, on an inescapable route to their eighth straight losing campaign and 17th in their past 18. Because good pitching cures almost anything, it would have been easy to say the Royals should draft pitching, pitching and more pitching, but a team with such a lengthy record of uninterrupted misery is a team in need of everything.

Thanks to their perennial ineptitude, the Royals had the fifth overall pick in the ’11 draft. The best two pitchers in the field, Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer, were gone by then to Pittsburgh and Arizona; other good hurlers were available when KC went on the clock, but none with their talent and promise. So the Royals, even if they were in pursuit of pitching, turned instead to an all-sport prep star who’d already secured a scholarship to play quarterback at Nebraska and selected Bubba Starling. The pick had hometown appeal–Starling grew up near Kansas City.

The Washington Nationals, who hadn’t had a winning season since they were the Montreal Expos, chose Anthony Rendon with the next pick. The Indians grabbed Francisco Lindor two slots later and Houston took George Springer with the 11th pick.

Yes, that Francisco Lindor, that George Springer and that Anthony Rendon. All three soon became big-league stars; all three could have been Royals.

That they chose Rendon rather than Lindor probably doesn’t bother the Nats; he made it to the majors in 2014 (a year before Lindor), became Washington’s regular third baseman and gave them six excellent seasons before signing with the Angels in December. Rendon also has six more home runs (136 to 130), 162 more RBIs, a higher career average (.290 to .288) and a higher OPS+ (126 to 119) than Lindor, although he’s played one more season than Cleveland’s shortstop.

Like Lindor and Rendon, Springer lived up to his draft billing. He broke in with the Astros roughly three years after they drafted him, clubbed 20 homers in 78 games his first season and is averaging almost 27 per year to go with a .270 career average and 131 OPS+. He hit 39 home runs, drove in  96 and batted .292 last season.

Lindor is a four-time All-Star, Springer has earned three All-Star berths and Rendon one. They’ve each won two Silver Slugger Awards and Lindor has two Gold Gloves.

In contrast, Starling’s road to the majors, plagued more by inconsistency than his injuries, finally ended with his debut last summer. He competed with Brett Phillips for a starting outfield spot neither managed to win, and hit just .215 in in 56 games. Starling is out of options, so the good spring he was enjoying when baseball stopped–.367 with three home runs in 12 games–needs to carry over when the regular season starts.

Where would the KC Royals be with Rendon, Springer or Lindor? Passing on Rendon made sense–they weren’t going to displace Mike Moustakas, their 2007 first-round pick who debuted four days after the ’11 draft and gave the club several good seasons at third, Rendon’s primary position. Springer would have added power to an outfield in annual need of it and produced more runs, but likely wouldn’t have made much difference defensively.

Lindor, on the other hand, would have forced Ned Yost‘s hand at shortstop. Far better than Alcides Escobar–especially offensively, as his season averages of 26 homers and almost 77 RBIs and .288 career hitting prove–Yost couldn’t have justified keeping Esky on the field at Lindor’s expense. Later, Adalberto Mondesi would have needed to find another position.

Perhaps Starling will blossom when baseball starts up again and fulfill the promise that made the KC Royals pass on Lindor, Springer and Rendon. For now, the inescapable conclusion is the club whiffed its 2011 first-round pick.