LMAO................wait, that was sarcasm, right?:evil:

Whether or not you agree with the strategy, you have to understand it. This isn't the NFL.

Dozier is one of the few 2nd-round talents willing to sign for way under slot in the 1st round. There are a lot of high schoolers and juniors out there who currently project out as a 3rd rounder, but will not sign for the 3rd or 4th round slot bonus, and will go to school to try to raise their draft stock. If you hypothetically believe that there's no incredible "wow" talent available at #8, and you'd rather draft depth over slightly higher quality, then this is the way to go.

There are a lot of players who most teams will not be able to draft today, but that we can. We are almost guaranteed to sign some guy in the 3rd and/or 4th round way over-slot who was originally planning on going to school next year.

I really don't have a problem with their strategy. I'm just really skeptical that Manaea won't be fighting career long injury problems. Those mechanics scream issues.

I definitely grant you the likelihood that DM will screw this up, its just some people don't really understand the strategy itself. Which is understandable, since last year was the first draft where you might want to do this. Before last year, you just took BPA, unless you were poor and your owner-set draft budget ran out.

The NFL avoids this nonsense with hard-slotting and mostly drafting seniors. Hopefully MLB tosses out the draft pool concept and just goes with hard slotting in a few years, then it'll be easy, you just pick your guy without regard for money with each pick.

You mean Dozier? I wouldn't be so sure.

He possibly is not available even at the Royals comp pick. The A's and Rays were linked to him some, apparently, at Nos. 24 and 29 (at least that's what I was able to find when digging a bit last night... also saw it referenced on another Royals board).

I think if Ball or Frazier were available, that's the pick at No. 8 for KC. There are SOME questions about Meadows' power potential... maybe that scared KC off.

As it is, I think the way to look at Dozier not as the Royals' key pick in terms of his individual talent, but as a draftee that unlocks some flexibility at the comp pick, 2nd round pick, and even the 3rd round pick.

If Manaea had NOT fallen to KC at No. 34, this would have been an epic fail. But since the plan worked, I'll give a smidge of credit to Moore for correctly reading the tea leaves on this one.

As it is, the Royals got a LHP with star upside who was considered the potential No. 1 pick at the start of the college season (and who dominated the Cape League last summer as much as anyone in the past half-dozen years or so), an athletic RH power bat (hardest thing to find is RH power) who likely plays 2B or 3B but can also project to RF, and a second budding, upside-heavy LHP in Cody Reed who also was projected as a late first-round guy (they got him at least 15-20 picks after a lot of projections).

If they had drafted Manaea at No. 8 and Dozier at No. 34, I don't think anyone would be complaining.

Will be interesting to see what they do with their 3rd rounder in about an hour or so.

If Dozier is signing for $2 million, as many have speculated, that gives them about $1-1.2 million extra to sign other guys.

Would be pretty cool if they have half of that slotted for Manaea and are planning to use the other half on a guy who has fallen into Round 3. It's also possible some of that money is earmarked for Reed.

Dead on.

John Denney and Kyle Serrano are guys to watch, I think (though Serrano's dad is the coach at Tennessee, where he's committed, so that's PROBABLY almost impossible).

I need to find some info on slot values and see what they're looking at.

There might have been another guy who the Yankees took ahead of us that also wanted money, but yeah if Manaea would have been taken before us too, then we would have had way too much money available, and would not have been able to efficiently use it. As it is, we probably have at least a half mill which should be enough over-slot to get at least one guy to decide not to go to school.

[QUOTE=duncan_idaho;9735577] an athletic RH power bat (hardest thing to find is RH power) who likely plays <B>2B</b> or 3B but can also project to RF, [\QUOTE]

No, no, no, no no no no no no no no no no no. He will not play 2B, way too big.

[QUOTE=cookster50;9735678]Not a lock to play 2B - 3B is probably more likely - but he's athletic enough to at least create a lot of speculation about trying him at 2B.

Generally, that size would preclude him from playing 2B, but it will be interesting to explore. I've seen at least a few scouts on Dozier who think it is worth trying out.

Is taking a guy a round too early, a high upside pitcher who won't see the field until February, and a Juco pitcher seem like the moves of a GM who's fearing for his job?

I heard Petro bring this up earlier.

I don't know if they were in a position to draft ANYONE who might help save Dayton's job in the next 3-12 months. Those guys usually are few and far between.

The major league roster, not the current farm system, is going to determine Dayton's fate, probably by draft day 2014, it not sooner. And outside of Ventura and Duffy, there's really no prospect in the minors right now who can help them win games at the ML level by then (and what they really need is bats anyway).

Dayton might as well have drafted like he always planned to. His immediate and short-term concern should be the ML club.

Pretty much this. If his fate depends on 2013 and/or 2014, maybe he could find help if we had a higher draft pick, but at #8, there's no one available who would likely help the club next season. So, he may as well presume he'll keep his job and do whatever he thinks is best.

I don't think so. You would have seen fast-track picks if Moore was worried about his job.

None of these really fit (not sure how severe Manaea's injury is... worst case scenario would seem to be surgery to repair the tear, which sidelines him the rest of this season).

Reed is definitely a developmental guy.

Dozier... probably starts at A or A+. Unless he moves much faster than anyone thinks, he's probably a 2015-type arrival.

This draft reminds me a lot so far of the 2009 draft. Coming on the heels of a few HS-heavy drafts, the Royals took a lot of college guys to create a compete "wave" of talent.

It fits with Dayton Moore's process/plan, in that the next wave of talent should start arriving 3-5 years after the first wave (right at the point where you're letting some guys walk in FA).

Yeah, I agree. I imagine a lot of their scouting was done prior to the curtain on this current shit show being raised.

Petro said he's spoken to people within the Royals that said Manaea would need surgery as early as August, latest in September and that they didn't plan to put him on a field until Spring Training.

Interesting. Not listening to Soren this morning, but that makes sense.

He seems to have a labrum issue that can be treated - short-term, at least - with anti-inflammatories and some pain meds. If it doesn't improve on its own, minor arthroscopic surgery is the fix.

He said the Royals compared to Gordon's condition a few years ago and confirmed it was genetic and not a precursor to something bigger like bone spurs in an elbow.

That tracks with what Boras has been saying.

It's a risky pick - the mechanics might lead to other problems down the road, even if the hip thing is not related - but it has huge upside.

Best case: Manaea gets healthy, and his size, velocity, command and solid secondary offerings come together to make him a frontline starter.

Worse case: Mechanics remain an issue, injuries become an issue, money is wasted as he busts.

I will say... that's the type of risk a team like KC SHOULD take in the draft. Many teams saw the hip injury and the declined velocity/stuff and said "See, I knew his funky delivery would cause injuries, and look how his stuff drops when hurt." and dropped him substantially.

If the Royals are right - and the injury thing is not a long-term issue, and he regains the form that dominated the Cape League at a nearly unheard-of level - this is a risk that pays off, big-time.

Royals took a high school RHP in the 3rd round.

Carter Hope - Position INF, RHP Ht/Wt 6'3"/195

https://twitter.com/CarterHope22

http://www.maxpreps.com/athletes/Nuw...arter-hope.htm

Same high school as Brickhouse from last year's draft, right?

I think the Red Sox might have snatched their pick (Denney, the C from Oklahoma). There's some buzz the Royals had a deal in place with him.

Dammit!

yep, there was a rumor that the Royals reached an agreement with that catcher for an amount over his slot.

That one might be a tough one to look back on down the line. Denney is pretty legit, IMO, and he's a KC-area(ish) guy.

If Reed doesn't develop and Denney does, you can question not flipping those picks.

4th round is underway. This is the last round where I'll care about who we draft since we might still overdraft a 3rd rounder who fell or something. The 5th round and later is such a random crapshoot, that you really shouldn't even bother knowing their names until they do something.

Denney is 25th on BA top 500. Him + Manaea would have been the shit.

BPA on MLB's top 100:

Bobby Wahl (#30, Junior, RHP)
Ryan Boldt (#39, HS, OF)
Andrew Mitchell (#40, Junior, RHP)

Bobby Wahl
Ryan Boldt
Kyle Serrano

all still out there...

keithlaw ‏@keithlaw 31m
Most of my "best remaining" guys are probably unsignable - Serrano, C Jones, Boldt, Brentz, G Williams, Wahl, A McGuire

Dammit!

Zane Evans - Georgia Tech (GA) - C - R/R
6'02" 209lbs DOB: 11/29/91

Scouting Video

We took a college catcher. OK, I'm out. I don't even care who we draft from here on out unless they do something in our system.

He isn't just a catcher. He is also a closer.

You don't play both ways in the pros unless you fail one way and start all over the other way. He's being drafted as a catcher. One of the pitchers we took earlier pitched and played INF, but the Royals specifically stated on the phone that they were drafting him as a pitcher.

Wow. You guys took a catcher and it wasn't Jon Denney?

I know Denney's going to be a tough sign, but he's a potential power bat that has a lot of tools that would allow him to stick at C.

Seems like an odd pick, especially with the money saved from the Dozier selection. Do they really expect it all to go to Maenea?

The Royals could **** up microwave popcorn

Denney went right before the Royals picked.

Ah, okay, that makes more sense. I thought the Bosox had snagged him in the 4th and the Royals had passed on him in the 3rd (where he made a ton of sense).

Evidently Boston agreed with me.

I guess I can't hammer on Moore for that one; Denney's a fairly substantial risk there if he's really looking for top 10-15 money.

Wow, that sucks. Many said he was the best available after day 1.

I mentioned this down the thread...

The criticism there MIGHT be down the road... if Denney turns into a monster (good chance, IMO) and Cody Reed turns into a pumpkin, you'll wonder why they didn't flip those picks (even though Reed was a fringy 1st round type).

Dozier/Mannaea/Reed/Denney would have been pretty tough to complain about, IMO. Denney has more than a touch of Wil Myers to him.

Yeah, I realized after I read through the thread that you went over all this already; poor form on my part.

Honestly, I'd have preferred Denney to Manaea, if for no other reason than the fact that a pitcher with any injury scares me. All he has to do is come back favoring that hip just a little bit, even imperceptibly, and he ends up thrashing his shoulder on account of it. Additionally, I think he'd have fallen a little further due to the injury concerns combined with signability concerns.

That said, I can't really fault the approach, though I do question if Dozier was really the best they could do there, even if they're basing the pick on signability. He's damn sure not a SS, so I'm guessing they profile him as a 3b.

I've see a few things reported today that make the Mannaea pick more easily understood:

1) The Royals are confident the hip issue is genetic, not baseball-related (similar to Alex Gordon). Someone called that out in this thread or the Repository today. I think it was Passan that reported this.

2) The shoulder is clean, and apparently they're willing to shut him down and get the labrum/hip issue surgically repaired before letting him throw again.

Dozier, they seem to just love him. I think he gets a shot at 2B even though he's very non-typical for that position. His size makes it a longer shot, but Zobrist is a great example of a bigger guy succeeding defensively there (Zobrist is 6-3, Dozier listed at 6-4). His positional potential probably breaks down about like Michael Cuddyer (I haven't seen that comp, but I think Dozier fits pretty well - RH power bat, thick/strong guy who can play 3B, RF, potentially 2B)

If they can get Dozier to stick at 2B, his bat plays up as plus to plus-plus for that position. His bat probably is adequate at 3B or RF because he offers RH power at those spots.

I would have rather seen Denney than Reed with that second round pick, but Reed is at least a hard-throwing LHP with good size and some helium (and untapped potential due to low development/coaching so far).

There is a lot of risk in what the Royals did (though clearly they think Manaea is less of a risk than other teams did), but it has a lot of potential payoff.