Early on Saturday morning, two days before this year’s MLB draft, Royals general manager Dayton Moore stood at Kauffman Stadium’s home plate, feeding baseballs into a pitching machine. The machine was shooting grounders at a young infielder while Royals front-office personnel sat in the first-base dugout and watched.
This was a pre-draft workout, and they happen all the time.
Before deciding which players to pick in the upcoming draft, teams hold pre-draft workouts. The prospect the Royals watched that morning wasn’t able to make a larger workout held earlier, so this was a chance to see the kid in person.