Kansas City Royals: Players Missed in the MLB Draft
Royals had the fifth overall pick; Markakis selected seventh overall (Now plays for the Braves, but was drafted by the Orioles). Outfielder. Baltimore Orioles. Nick Markakis. 5. player. 11
Other players the Royals missed out on in 2003: John Danks and Aaron Hill
In the 2003 MLB Draft, the Kansas City Royals selected Chris Lubanski with the fifth overall pick and could have had former Orioles/now Braves outfielder Nick Markakis instead.
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Lubanski, for you newer Royals fans, didn’t pan out for the organization. He never got the call to the big leagues and was out of baseball all together by the 2011 season.
Markakis, on the other hand, is still in the league, 12 years after his initial call up in 2006. He has a career slash line of .289/.358/.424 and has hit 158 home runs in those 12 years.
Markakis would have added a nice pop to this Royals’ lineup throughout the years, but instead the team wound up with a guy who never made it to the big leagues. Lubanski was a young outfielder out of Kennedy-Kenrick Catholic High School who had potential, but never panned out.
It’s a shame that the Royals passed on Markakis, as we’ve seen just how great the former seventh overall pick has been in his career. He signed with the Atlanta Braves a few seasons ago and will likely close out his Major League Baseball career there.
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