Dayton Moore & drafting pitchers

The 2012 Major League Baseball draft is what you want to make of it if you’re a Kansas City Royals fan. Either your team is currently in the middle of finding all sorts of left-handed pitching depth because it can afford the luxury of focusing the majority of an entire draft on arms, or the Royals are currently in the middle of finding all sorts of pitching depth because it has to.

Me thinks I know where most of you sit regarding this argument, and that’s without checking the Twitter feed for any Luke “Little Hiram” Hochevar, Will “No, not that one” Smith or Jonathan “We took THIS for Melky?” Sanchez references.

Nope, I think we all realize this, but if you need some numbers, try these from the Royals starting rotation:

- 5.07 ERA, 13th in the AL (only Minnesota is worse)
- AL-worst 277 IP in 54 games, which equates to just over 5 innings per game.
- 1.52 WHIP, 13th in the AL (only Minnesota is worse)
- .278 batting average against (again, only Minnesota is worse)

Now, I KNOW we all get the point: Kansas City needs starting help, so much that even the 2007 ghost of Scott Elarton is laughing.

Jake Odorizzi is the hot name now from the minor leagues, and for good reason with his hot start to this season. But, what else is there at the moment? Mike Montgomery concerns me. Hearing consistent reports that he can’t quite put it all together, even though he has great “stuff” (stuff has become a dirty word to me), has me worried he is showing signs of becoming the next Hochevar. At last report, John Lamb’s dad says he is healthy and anxious to get back, but it’ll be some time still before the organization knows whether his Tommy John surgery was a success. Danny Duffy, of course, is on Tommy’s extended vacation schedule as well.

All of this got me to thinking: What, exactly, has Royals general manager Dayton Moore’s approach been to building his system’s pitching? The full table of all drafts since 2006 is at the bottom of this post, and here are some odds and ends I take from it:

- Of the 153 pitchers drafted, Luke Hochevar and Danny Duffy are the only two full-fledged starters to make it to the Majors. That doesn’t count a guy like Everett Teaford, who has starts to his credit. That 153 number also includes Brett Eibner, who Baseball-Reference classified as a pitcher. He wanted to hit, and the Royals are letting him fail at it for the time being. If the .200 average keeps up in A ball, however, he may want to return to the mound sometime soon if he wants his career to continue.

- Between 2006-’11, the Royals drafted 118 RHP and 35 LHP. Of those, 72 were from 4-year programs (that doesn’t mean they graduated); 51 were drafted out of high school; 29 were junior college prospects and Hochevar was a professional when he was drafted.

-  A total of seven pitchers since 2006 have made the Kansas City club. The “best” crop in that stretch in terms of straight numbers came in 2006, as Hochevar, Blake Wood and Teaford all made it.

- The 2008 class, which featured Montgomery, Tyler Sample, Tim Melville, and Lamb in the first five rounds, still has yet to produce a Major League pitcher. Granted, all of those arms were high school selections so the time table is extended a little, however…  we’ve discussed Montgomery and Lamb. Sample is 1-6 with a 5.29 ERA at High-A Wilmington this year. Melville is 2-1 for Northwest Arkansas in 2012, but he’s sporting a 7.71 ERA to go with 27 hits, 20 earned runs, 15 walks and 19 strikeouts in 23.1 innings. His WHIP is 1.800.

- Of their top 30 picks in that stretch – rounds 1-5 each season – the Royals used 18 (60 percent) on pitching: 1st Rd – 3; 2nd Rd – 2; 3rd Rd – 4; 4th Rd – 5; 5th Rd – 4.

- As far as plan goes, perhaps it is easier to think of how the Royals focused their top-pick efforts in this manner: In 2006, the top pitchers selected were all either in college or had been, in Hochevar’s case. In ’07 and ’08, all of the top pitchers taken were high school arms – presumably to build depth and build toward a 2012-’13 window. In ’09 and ’10, the shift went back to college arms, 2010 5th-rounder Jason Adam aside. Last year, it was back to high school.

- As that last set of data relates to the 2012 draft, the Royals this year took RHP Kyle Zimmer and LHP Sam Selman, both collegiate arms, followed by high school LHP prospect Colin Rodgers. Presumably, and knowing what we do of the Royals’ want in earnest to compete next season and beyond, getting more college arms in the system means Dayton Moore and company realize the organization’s need for some more immediate help… they hope.

- Overall, as of this posting, Kansas City had selected 14 pitchers in its first 22 picks — the highest total through that point in any of Dayton Moore’s drafts.