Royals Draft and "The Slump Buster"

The 2011 amateur draft is coming up (Mon 6/6-Wed 6/8) and while it is probably the least relevant of all the drafts of major sports because so few players drafted actually make it, it is still exciting. Especially since the Royals once again have a top 5 pick and top picks are always exciting. Dayton Moore, the Royals GM, is notoriously very secretive about moves he makes and his ideas going into the draft. This can be evidenced by the trade of Zack Greinke last December to the Brewers that was so secret that none of the major media outlets (ESPN, Fox, MLB Network, Yahoo, etc..) knew it was being discussed until it was done.Last year in the draft the Royals took SS Christian Colon at 4th overall from Cal State Fullerton, which of course, no one expected.

This year everyone is talking about how there is a lot of college pitching depth and that KC will take a college pitcher so that he (or she????) can arrive about the same time as their wave of prospects and bolster the rotation. After reading some names rumored to be there when the Royals pick, I would be disappointed if Moore took many of them, the only exceptions would be Gerrit Cole or Trevor Bauer both from UCLA. I still think they need to take the player with the highest upside no matter how far they are from joining the Boys in Blue. That being said, the two guys I would most like to see are Dylan Bundy a HS pitcher from Oklahoma who is a gym rat and seems to be breed to be superstar. There is a great interview with him at Pine Tar Press. By all accounts, Bundy will not fall to #5. The other player is the legend Bubba Starling who is committed to play football and baseball at Nebraska. He knows he has a tough decision no matter who picks him. His agent is Scott Boras so he will be demanding about $6 million signing bonus. Scott Boras is also the agent of Eric Hosmer. Bubba is from just outside KC, so they have the best chance of getting him to forgo his college football career.

To the Team in KC right now, Sean "Slump Buster" O'Sullivan is not good at pitching. He has given up 5 or more runs and lasted no longer that 5 innings all but one time. The one time he lasted longer, he lasted 5.2 and gave up 10 runs, and 5 HR to the Rangers. Last night he gave up 7 runs in 2.2 innings. This was against an oddly bad Minnesota Twins team. I wonder how much more we are going to trot him out there. I know Nate Adcock isn't A LOT better and neither is Vin Mazzaro, but they have more raw talent and may even strike a batter out once in a while, but we don't want that.