This time of year always get me excited, it is like a reward for the poor play of my favorite team from the previous season. Personally, I start out with guys who I would prefer to see the Royals take and eventually I've read all the hyperbole on the top prospects and I can't decide who I would want most.
To complicate matters more is that in no way do I believe that I can fairly critique a Royals selection. This is basically an admission that whoever the Royals select in 21 hours, I will be happy with and I will immediately get excited about the selection. Of course within a year there's a good chance that I'll be looking at the early success of other prospects and wish that they would have fallen to Kansas City (cough Dylan Bundy cough) or Kansas City would have taken them instead.
I fully expect the Royals to take one of the top three college arms. It just makes too much sense given the Royals pitching prospect woes and the fact that it is a strength of the top of the draft. If the three are all selected within the first four picks then I'm not sure which direction the Royals will go.
At the same time, it wouldn't shock me a bit if the Royals stayed true to recent form and went the high school route or drafted simply for highest upside. I've always heard to draft best available and if they believe Carlos Correa is better long term than Kevin Gausman or Kyle Zimmer, than I won't complain. With that being said should the Royals reach into the mid-teen projections for their pick they definitely open themselves to a lot more scrutiny even if the player tops their board.
Most likely Mark Appel and Byron Buxton will be gone, that leaves Mike Zunino, Correa, Gausman, Zimmer, Lucas Giolito, and Max Fried as the guys most project as clear top 10 talents. There's a lot of smoke around Lance McCullers Jr. as well. By bedtime tomorrow night I think we can all agree that the Royals will have added another potential cornerstone to their organization.
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