I still cant get over this.

How do we let John Buck go and sign this dude for more money? I realize neither of them are great, but its a bit depressing that we cant evaluate the two and immediately come to the conclusion that Buck is better.

I hope something else was going on, Buck wanted out, we mistakenly thought he would cost a lot more money than $2.9MM, anything other than "we think Kendall is better".

Ok, someone set me straight. Coach Owen is not the same 3rd base coach as we had last year, is he?

Yeah, I'm not going to complain about what we've done with the draft lately.

Passing on Weiters may turn out to have been a scouting mistake, but the Royals are spending some pretty crazy money on the draft, taking prospects who slip out of the first round because of "signability concerns", and then not even hesitating to give them first-round money even if they were drafted in the 3rd round or later.

On top of that, for some strange reason the Royals have become a bit of a serious (for them) player on international talent. If at least some of these kids we've been picking the last couple years or so are not as great as everyone thinks they might be, there will be hell to pay because we've been spending money as if they were great picks.

But, at least we aren't passing up talent in the draft because of cost anymore. Now we'll have to wait and see if our college and high school scouts know what the hell they are doing.

Kendall would make sense if they were paying him "wise older catcher signed to shepherd young, developing catcher" money. He'd be a good mentor for Pena with his experience and tough attitude.

At that money, though? They're paying him to be a starter, at least for a year...

Here are some pics from the Cubs game...

With our offense, nobody's ever going to reach 3rd base anyway.

I agree with everything in this post, save the bold, in a way.

Passing on the likes of Porcello and Wieters had everything to do with reported contract demands. The difference is that we made justifiable selections in their place and spread money--serious money--throughout the draft.

While it's ludicrous to call the DM Royals frugal in the draft, it's still VERY, VERY odd to see us cringe at giving an elite prospect, like a Wieters, the additional couple of million it would have taken, yet turn around and light that money on fire by giving it to a Kendall or Farnsworthlessness.

I hadnt definitively heard the reason, I think I read somewhere that people close to Weiters said the Royals didnt pass because of money, but not sure how reliable that is.

But elsewhere in the draft, I might be wrong, but I think I read that we actually broke the all-time record for most money given to a 4th-round player, and we also handed out the 2nd-highest signing bonus ever given to a 3rd round player.

We spent more money than any team in the history of the draft two years ago. I don't know how last year measured up but it wasn't bad.

No, overall, we've been doing exactly what every smaller market team should be doing in the draft, since this is where we can be competitive with anyone.

I've heard that there were reports that Boras wouldn't have allowed Wieters to sign with KC, but I find those rumors hard to believe. He was asking for $10M, supposedly, and he ended up with 7-something, IIRC. Edit: He received a $6M bonus, which is what we gave Hosmer. Posey was more: $6.2M.

So that would have been a record (at the time).

After the Porcello draft, Moore did an interview with Petro, who was pissed we went with Moosetacos, and DM said that we had a certain budget for the draft, and it made the most sense to maximize our return by spreading that money throughout the draft, thus getting top talent that slips.

It's an understandable approach. I get it. But...****. Get the ****ing owner to pony up a little more cash that he's stuffing in his couch from revenue sharing, and get "the" guys at the top. Go the whole hog.

Again, I love what we're doing, but "signability" is still a current term, even with the suddenly draft-rich Royals.

Even more.

But this is not the point I'm trying to make or refute.

Basically instead of paying Porcello the Royals go with the approach of paying 5 guys instead.

Its not just as simple as that. The Royals are grabbing guys who should have been drafted in the first round, but teams were scared off because they were asking more than what MLB recommends for the slot. One pick the Royals literally paid more than 10 times the recommended bonus.

They are definitely "overpaying" to get talent in the draft, but "overpaying" here means only another $10MM or so for a bunch of top kids, vs a crapton per player in free agency. That may not last beyond the 2011 draft, the owners seem to be very serious in asking for an NBA-style hard slotting system in the 2012 CBA. Ironically, a change which would cap spending would hurt the Royals in this case.

There's been some dumb ****ing allocation of money.

Yes, we're spending a lot on the draft. I love it. But don't tell me shit about having an $11M budget for the draft, which causes us to pass on an elite catching prospect, and then go pay $3M for Kendall when Pena at $500K(?) would be a better option.

Hey, Dayton/Glass, I just found the extra $2.5M needed to take the next Wieters/Porcello/____.

As Rany has repeatedly mentioned in his blog, there needs to be a Prime Minister of Common Sense at the K.

Here's the one difference I want to see, consistently, with our approach to the draft: take the BPA in round 1. That's all. Everything else is perfect. Well, almost, high school/college, high school/college, which will it be, oh genious GM?

More good news:

Danny Duffy taking a leave of absence from baseball, according to 810.