Kansas City Royals: Players Missed in the MLB Draft

Other players the Royals missed out on in 2010: Delino DeShields and Matt Harvey

As much as Kansas City Royals fans hate Chris Sale, I don’t think they’d have felt that way about him had the team opted to select him with the fourth overall pick in the 2010 MLB Draft. Instead, the Royals went with Christian Colon, who played in 125 games and was never anything more than a utility guy.

Sale is one of the best pitchers in the major leagues. He was traded to the Red Sox this past offseason and has a 2.97 ERA in mid June. Sale is the master on the mound, and the Royals had to face him several times a year before he was traded to Boston.

Maybe it was fate that led the KC Royals to draft Colon six years ago, but it’s still difficult to imagine how good this team’s rotation could have been with Chris Sale in the mix.

Now we look at Colon. The pick didn’t make much sense at the time and Colon never really had a permanent place on the Royals’ roster. He was designated for assignment during the 2017 season and was claimed off waivers by the Marlins.

When you look at the good things about the Colon pick, it’s easy. He’s had two of the biggest moments for the Kansas City Royals in their entire history.

The first came in the 2014 AL Wild Card game where he scored the winning run off of Salvador Perez‘s walk-off single. The second was that huge hit he had in Game 5 of the World Series that gave the Royals the lead in the 12th inning.

Maybe it was fate that led the KC Royals to draft Colon six years ago, but it’s still difficult to imagine how good this team’s rotation could have been with Chris Sale in the mix.

Oh, what could have been, Chris Sale. What could have been.

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