Kansas City Royals select Trent Grisham in redraft of 2015 MLB Draft

By Leigh Oleszczak | Jun 20, 2020

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - SEPTEMBER 03: Trent Grisham #2 of the Milwaukee Brewers leaps to make a catch in the second inning against the Houston Astros at Miller Park on September 03, 2019 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images) /

The Kansas City Royals probably wouldn’t do things the same in the 2015 MLB Draft if they could have a redo.

In the actual 2015 MLB Draft, the Kansas City Royals spent their first round pick on high school pitcher Ashe Russell, who hasn’t done much for them in their farm system. With that in mind, yes, it’s very likely that Kansas City would go in a different direction if they were given a redo for the 2015 draft.

The Royals were coming off a World Series loss when they entered the 2015 draft and were in need of some talent to hopefully keep them afloat after a lot of their key free agents departed in a few years. Instead, they went with the high school pitcher who hasn’t made it to the majors yet.

Joel Reuter of Bleacher Report wrote up a redo of the 2015 draft and had the Kansas City Royals going with outfielder Trent Grisham instead of Russell.

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"The 23-year-old posted a 90 OPS+, with six doubles, two triples and six home runs in 183 plate appearances down the stretch while playing strong outfield defense (4 DRS, 8.9 UZR/150) on his way to 0.6 WAR in 51 games.His breakout season raised his value enough to make him a quality trade chip, and Milwaukee flipped him to the San Diego Padres in a four-player deal during the offseason.He would give the rebuilding Kansas City Royals a potential foundational piece."

Grisham actually went 15th overall to the Brewers in this draft and as Reuter mentioned, he started off slow, but then exploded onto the scene. That prompted the Padres to be interested in acquiring him and he now is part of a young Padres team and should be able to carve out a role in San Diego in the foreseeable future.

Grisham hit just .231 in his first season with the Brewers and struck out 48 times. As Reuter said though, he’d be a nice foundational piece for this team and let’s be honest – Anyone would have been better than Russell, who stepped away from baseball in 2017 (two years after he was drafted by KC) and then was injured in 2019.

The Royals have had a hole in right field for several years now and Grisham could have filled that hole. He likely could have gotten called up sooner too, as the Royals would have had a need for him sooner than Milwaukee did and would have wanted to see if he could pan out for them.

There’s not much hope for Ashe Russell to ever make it to the big leagues for the Royals, so yes, they’d definitely want to go back in time and pick a different player. Hopefully it’d turn out better for them in that scenario than how it actually turned out.

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