Originally posted by timg
I think this was by design. Now, Ron will write and completely discredit me but here's how it panned out.
This was Ron's last slot. By the time he took Marte and later Gordon, the pickings at 3B and 1B were pretty darn slim. So here are his alternatives:
1. Draft zombies like Chris Gomez or JT Snow, whose only "upsides", if you could call it that, would be the chance for more ABs with which to wreck your BA.
2. Draft someone like Gordon, who offers multiple upsides (as I loop into yet another colon):
a. He's probably KC's top offensive prospect
b. He plays in the KC system and only has Teahen to beat out ahead of him
c. He's making some noise in ST (.351/.455/.405 and 7/8 BB/K ratio)
d. He has little chance to sit all year not getting ABs for you
e. He has little chance of getting a lot of ABs sucking at the major league level since the Royals would simply demote him if he showed that he was overmatched
So if at any point he gets sent down, either at the start of the season or after a bad start, Ron gets to replace him with someone like Quinlan or Gload or even Gomez, and he's no worse off than if he'd drafted one of these guys, and he still has the potential that Gordon will rip it up in AAA and get promoted again.
All in all, I thought it was a reasonable risk and a good strategy. Whether the entire thing -- drafting Young, Marte and Gordon -- was by design or came about as a result of in-draft dynamics, only Ron knows, but I think he made a good choice in a tough spot.
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