How changes to 2020 MLB Draft affects Kansas City Royals
By Cody Rickman
MLB and the MLBPA are expected to announce a decision on the upcoming MLB draft very soon. The draft is likely to change to just 5 rounds and the draft should take place on June 10th. How would this affect the Kansas City Royals?
The coronavirus has changed normal every day life and the sports landscape dramatically. The MLB has already cancelled Spring Training, delayed the start of their season, and a plan for a shortened season is in the works. Now the latest change coming to baseball is a truncated MLB draft.
The MLB has made overtures for the past few months about shortening the draft to 5 rounds. These overtures are about to become reality and I can’t remember a time where this much pressure has been placed on scouting departments in the MLB.
The Kansas City Royals and every team in the MLB will have to shift their draft strategies to adjust for a lack of extensive scouting and the ability to secure contracts. Undrafted players signed beyond the 5 rounds will be subjected to a $20k contract limit. This will likely open the door to some inappropriate behaviors by major league clubs and it will be something of interest to see how the MLB polices this activity.
Last year 29 of 30 teams spent more than $1 million on players they drafted in the 11th round or later and 11 teams spent more than $2 million. This year, the draft will be cut from 10 to 5 rounds to save $1 million per team.https://t.co/GyE4siY3YN
— JJ Cooper (@jjcoop36) May 8, 2020
Teams will need to sell their development programs to get players to sign with their clubs as undrafted free agents. The Kansas City Royals should be in a good position to sell their prospect development program as their system has had recent success with several minor league championships (DSL (Rookie), Pioneer League (Rookie), South Atlantic League (A), and Carolina League (A+)).
The Royals made major changes to their player development at the end of last season and should be able sell their player development program quite convincingly. Teams have to sell their development system each year to entice players to sign after they are drafted, this year however, players not taken in the 5 round draft will have more of a choice in where they want to develop.
There has been no news to whether or not the supplemental rounds will be removed from the 2020 draft, so as it stands the Kansas City Royals have the following selections in the upcoming draft:
Picks/Values
- 1st Round (#4 overall) – $6,664,000
- 1st Round Supplemental (#32 overall) – $2,257,300
- 2nd Round (#41 overall) – $1,813,500
- 3rd Round (#76 overall) – $818,200
- 4th Round (#105 overall) – $554,300
- 5th Round (#135 overall) – $414,000
My previous mock drafts (Mock Draft 1.0 and Way too Early Draft Predictions) for the Kansas City Royals had them taking a projectable high school pitcher with their number 32 draft pick. Since sports shutdown at all levels all over the country, selecting a high school prospect with your limited draft choice is incredibly risky.
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Scouting departments across the MLB landscape have been limited in cross checking their potential draft choices. I suspect we will see a significantly limited selection of high school players in this year’s draft as teams make safer choices with college prospects who have been scouted more deeply.
The first round should still have some high potential high school prospects taken, but following the first-round high school players will have exceptional leverage in negotiations. The potential of being unable to sign your first-round selection based on incomplete scouting reports could turn off a majority of the big-league clubs.
If this format of 5 rounds took place in previous years, the Royals would have missed out on the following players:
- Tyler Zuber RP (6th round 2017 draft)
- Richard Lovelady RP (10th round 2016 draft)
- Ryan O’Hearn 1B (8th round 2014 draft)
- Whit Merrifield 2B/OF (9th round 2010 draft)
This is a bias view of the changes to the MLB draft, as only a few players selected after the first five rounds make it to the MLB level. For a small market team like the Kansas City Royals, these diamonds in the rough are very important to MLB success.
The Royals have to find players outside of the first round and development them into major league talent. All teams hope for this outcome, but only a few teams share the financial restraints the Royals have.
Outlook
The Kansas City Royals have shown some success in recent drafts selecting college players and should have enough scouting at this point to make excellent choices in the 2020 draft. The Royals could go college pitching heavy again in the 2020 Draft. The college prospect depth in this draft is quite deep and the Royals scouting department has a chance to continue their recent success.
Next. Royals Mock Draft 1.0. dark
The 2021 draft is expected to change to 20 rounds to add to the pressure of making sure your draft choices correct in 2020 will be doubly important. I’m nervous and hopeful the Royals will come out of all of this mayhem with a better farm system so they can continue their rebuilding towards championship baseball.