Kansas City Royals need to hit in first round of 2017 MLB Draft

The Kansas City Royals have some decisions to make as far as who they want to take in the first round of the MLB Draft, which begins on June 12th. They haven’t succeeded with their first round picks in recent years and that’s troubling.

Not a lot of baseball fans really care all that much about the MLB Draft and why would they? It’s not like the NFL or the NBA where the player comes in almost right away and contributes on a big level.

The MLB Draft is much different. For one, it has 40 rounds as opposed to the NFL’s seven and the NBA’s two. Also, random players who haven’t even played much baseball hear their name called at some point (Johnny Manziel, Michael Vick, the list goes on).

The Kansas City Royals haven’t hit much when it comes to the first round of the MLB Draft, at least not in the last five years. Sometimes it’s tough to really gauge how well a player has done in the majors, as some enter the draft when they’re 18 and others when they’re 22 or out of college.

For awhile, the Royals were doing well with their picks. From 2004-2008, the Royals had some historic players join their ranks. Some of those guys were Billy Butler (2004), Alex Gordon (2005), Mike Moustakas (2007), and Eric Hosmer (2008). Since that 2008 draft, however, the Royals haven’t had as memorable of picks.

In 2009, they grabbed Aaron Crow and he’s not even in the league anymore. The following season was when they took Christian Colon and he’s now a member of the Marlins.

After Colon, it gets even worse. The 2011 and 2012 drafts brought Bubba Starling and Kyle Zimmer to the Royals organization and neither of those have panned out at all. Starling has been in the Royals minor league system for six years now and has yet to sniff a Major League at bat.

Zimmer, on the other hand, has been injured frequently throughout his five years in the organization. Meanwhile his brother recently got called up to the Indians and that’s even more depressing because he’s his YOUNGER brother.

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Brandon Finnegan looked to be a solid first round pick, but the Royals shipped him to Cincinnati in exchange for Johnny Cueto in 2015. Finnegan is currently on the disabled list for the Reds, but has shown good potential during his time there. He would have been a nice player to have on this roster, but a World Series trophy was worth that price for sure.

Hunter Dozier was one of the team’s first round selections in 2013 and we haven’t seen much from him, but hopefully should later this season. Sean Manaea was the other one chosen in round one that year and he was traded for Ben Zobrist two years ago.

The team had no first rounder last year, but this year will be selecting 14th overall. They’ve had a tendency to go with pitching in round one and this season we’re finally starting to see some younger guys get their shot in the rotation (Eric Skoglund and Jake Junis).

Whoever it is, the Royals need to hope this pick pulls through. Their recent slew of picks include Foster Griffin, Chase Vallot, Ashe Russell, and Nolan Watson, all of whom hoping to turn the trend around as far as Royals recent first rounders go. These guys are still very young and new to the Royals system, but it’d be nice to see them become the next Butler-Gordon-Moose-Hosmer for the organization.

In order to make up for the poor selections of Starling and Zimmer, neither of whom have done anything for the team, the KC Royals have to make sure that this first round pick becomes someone the franchise can rely on in the future. Perhaps “The Process” can begin again with this group.

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