MLB Draft: The KC Royals have mixed 9th pick luck

Sometime early Sunday evening, probably not long after the day’s West Coast games wrap, the KC Royals will go on the clock for the ninth overall selection of the 2022 MLB Draft. It’s not a bad position—only eight of 30 big league clubs pick before them, so the Royals will have plenty of talent to choose from.

This version of baseball’s premier prospect hunt starts Sunday at 6 p.m. CDT and continues through Tuesday. It will be, like all drafts, a crapshoot with no guarantees that any picks will live up to expectations. Proof of this immutable fact lies, for example, in Kansas City’s much-ballyhooed first-round pick of Bubba Starling in 2011; despite overflowing potential, he never made it big.

Although the selection of Kevin Appier in 1987 turned out well, the four ninth-overall picks the Royals have made through the years also demonstrate how uncertain the draft can be.

Who was the KC Royals’ first ninth overall pick, and how did he perform?

Kansas City chose ninth for the first time in 1973, the season the club also inaugurated Royals (now Kauffman) Stadium.

The pick didn’t work out.

After others selected better-known players like prep phenom David Clyde and future Hall of Famers Robin Yount and Dave Winfield, the Royals selected Lew Olsen, a righthanded California high schooler who signed that summer, reported to Rookie ball, and gave up only a run in 10 innings.

Olsen stuck with the organization for five more seasons and, in 106 games—92 of them starts—went 33-35 with a respectable 3.26 ERA while advancing twice to Triple-A Omaha. But a shoulder injury cut short his career and he last pitched during the 1978 season.

This hard throwing KC Royals first-rounder never made it to the majors.

As a ballplayer, he was the stuff of legend, a fireballing righthander who threw 100 mph-plus pitches before he graduated from high school and became a first-round big league draft pick when Kansas City grabbed him with the ninth overall selection in 1973.

He had promise and potential. But two things prevented Colt Griffin from reaching the majors.

The first was his control, a serious problem that surfaced as soon as he signed and reported to Kansas City Class A affiliate Spokane, where he walked seven (and gave up an equal number of runs) in only 2.1 innings.

He pitched much far more in 2002 but couldn’t shake that pesky control problem—he walked 87 batters in 95.1 innings. And although he went 10-11 across A and High-A the next year, he still fought the strike zone. His BB9 for the year was 5.6, a too-high number that increased to 6.2 in 2004 and 6.9 in 2005.

Injuries posed the other problem for Griffin, who reportedly had rotator cuff surgery after the 2005 campaign and retired without throwing a regular season pitch in 2006. He finished his five-year minor league career with a 19-25 record and 4.79 ERA.

A KC Royals’ 1975 pick went on to skipper two National League teams.

Clint Hurdle was one of those players tagged as a future superstar when Kansas City grabbed him with the ninth selection in the 1975 draft. Undaunted by the seemingly difficult task of breaking into a 1977 KC lineup featuring the likes of George Brett, John Mayberry, Hal McRae, Amos Otis, Frank White and Darrell Porter, Hurdle became a Royal and major leaguer for the first time that year.

Hurdle had his decent years in Kansas City—he hit .264 in 1978, the first season he spent significant time there, and batted .294 with 31 doubles, 10 home runs, and 60 RBIs in 130 games for the Royals’ 1980 World Series club.

But injuries nagged Hurdle; Kansas City traded him to Cincinnati in 1982 and he played for the Reds, Mets and Cardinals before playing his last big league game in 1987. He finished with a career .259/.341/.403 line.

Being done playing, though didn’t mean he was done with baseball. Hurdle turned to coaching and managing and landed his first big league skipper’s post when he replaced Buddy Bell in Colorado early in the 2002 season. He managed the Rockies to the World Series in 2007 and had a 534-625 record when they let him go during the 2019 campaign.

He then managed the Pirates beginning in 2011 and, until the Bucs suddenly fired him with one game left in the 2019 season, led them to a 735-720 record and three playoff spots.