Weekend Rumblings - News for September 1, 2018
Whit Merrifield is the only current contributor who was drafted since Hosmer was selected in 2008. Other players are still contributing somewhere (Wil Myers in San Diego, Sean Manaea in Oakland), but the post-Hosmer draftscape has been startling dry. The Royals this season are historically bad instead of regular bad because they’ve received almost zero help from their drafts.
If you’re feeling overly generous, you can explain the lack of recent draft success away as bad luck. If you’re feeling rightfully cynical, you can look back at how the Royals built their championship team and realize something disturbing: All of those good players were picked near the top of the first round, and it’s possible that they were so talented, they were Royals-proof.