The Elias Sports Bureau, the company that provides historical and current statistical information for sports in North America, received the following inquiry this offseason:
How many times has a Major League Baseball team had four pitchers from its same draft class start at least one game for that team in a season?
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They took their time. The statisticians dug. They returned from the piles of data with an answer:
Once in the last two decades and three times in the last 31 seasons. The St. Louis Cardinals in 2018, the Chicago White Sox in 1995 and the New York Mets in 1995.
There’s a reason the inquiry was asked, though, and it’s because of what’s happening in Kansas City. The Royals selected five college pitchers with their first five picks in 2018 and eight college pitchers with their first 13 picks. Three of them — Brady Singer, Kris Bubic and Daniel Lynch — have started games for the big-league club this year. As FiveThirtyEight pointed out, only 77 team seasons have featured three or more starting pitchers who pitched in the same season for the club that drafted them. The Royals could join that list because other 2018 picks, such as Jackson Kowar, Jonathan Bowlan and Jonathan Heasley, appear poised for opportunities soon.
Within the organization, staffers have long been overjoyed. Steve Luebber, a 71-year-old Royals minor-league pitching coach who has been in baseball longer than these prospects have been alive, said of the 2019 High-A Wilmington rotation: “It was probably the best accumulation of pitching talent on one staff that I’ve been around.”
From the outside, baseball folks have taken note.
“I thought (their 2018 MLB Draft) was well-executed,” former Atlanta Braves director of amateur scouting Brian Bridges said recently, “and to get the return they’ve had so far is outstanding.”
Already, there has been so much talk about that Royals draft. About what it might mean for the Royals’ future. About what these pitchers might be able to accomplish themselves. What has not been discussed enough, however, at least in the eyes of baseball folks like Bridges, who drafted Braves starters Mike Soroka, Ian Anderson, Kyle Wright and others, is how this all happened.
The answer lies in the people whose names you rarely hear. The people who knew these pitchers’ names long before anyone else.
To start, here’s a breakdown of the Royals’ amateur scouting staff that oversees each year’s draft:
At the top is amateur scouting director Lonnie Goldberg. His staff is composed of national cross-checkers, who fly around the country and provide insight on players who have already been scouted by regional cross-checkers, who navigate their region, assessing players who have been pinpointed as potential draftees by scouts at the ground floor.
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These are the folks who have gotten to know the families. The folks who have spent long nights driving in their cars, stopping for fast food, following the weekly progression of a player. Those folks are called area scouts.
How important are they? “I think the area scouting supervisor is without a doubt the most important person and role in the amateur scouting staff,” Royals general manager Dayton Moore said recently. “They identify the makeup of the player. The player’s desire to compete. They understand and can identify the personal habits (of a player), and qualities that make them up as individuals and someday professionals at the major-league level.”
OK, so how does any MLB staff operate ahead of the draft? It begins with some broad questions.
“What’s the pulse of the draft?” Bridges explained. “What kind of heartbeat is this taking on? Is it college-player driven? High school player driven? Is the starting pitching the strength? Or high school position players?”
Those questions inform how the club should spend its time, and time, as all scouts know, is everything. Specific to the Royals’ 2018 MLB Draft, Goldberg and the scouts would convene face to face and break down the position groups.
“All we’re going to talk about is the pitching,” Goldberg would say.
That’s what they would do for hours. Then they’d take a break.
“Now let’s talk about the college position players,” he’d say.
They would. And one thing became clear.
“It kept leaning back to college pitching because there was such good feedback from our scouts about their makeup,” Goldberg said in 2020.
This gets back to the importance of area scouts. To understand their role, you have to understand what they saw in the pitchers they selected in 2018.
Let’s start with a man named Jim Buckley.
In 2015, he was scouting the state of Florida for the Royals. All of the focus for most Royals fans was on the big-league club that would ultimately win the World Series. Buckley’s eyes, however, were locked on a pitcher who he believed could be a pivotal piece to the next Royals team that could win a World Series.
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Brady Singer was a senior at Eustis High School north of Orlando. Buckley would show up on the nights Singer pitched. And Buckley would observe everything.
The “stuff,” as baseball people call the pitchers’ arsenal, velocity, movement, etc., was obvious. Here’s how former Houston Astros scouting director Kevin Goldstein, who now writes for FanGraphs, described what a scout looks for in this context: “What’s this guy throw 2-1, and what’s this guy throw 1-2? What does he have to get back into the count? That has to be a weapon in the zone. If you don’t have some big weapon in the zone, you better be super precise. And then 1-2, how do you finish a guy off?”
Buckley could see Singer could throw both his two-seam fastball and slider behind in the count for strikes. He also knew both could be put-away pitches. Even more, the scout noticed a quality he believed would matter, especially as others knocked Singer’s two-pitch mix as a starter.
“He had the same level of compete that he has now,” Buckley said. “A will to win.”
How do you describe Brady Singer's competitiveness?
“He’s got that thing that very few athletes have," said UF coach Kevin O'Sullivan, "and that is simply: He’s a championship type of athlete.”
Story ahead of Singer's first big-league spring training:https://t.co/53dEDMLQpz pic.twitter.com/Pfb017nrTl
— Alec Lewis (@alec_lewis) February 7, 2020
Buckley sat in Singer’s house. Talked to him about pitching. About life. The kid’s presence impressed him. He didn’t forget it as he watched Singer pitch in college at Florida, but watching Singer at Florida allowed him to assess whether the makeup of the player had changed — because it can. With Singer, it did not. So when he started sliding on the draft board, Buckley remained convinced of Singer’s potential because of how much background he had. Goldberg trusted Buckley. The Royals selected him with the No. 18 pick.
For the Royals, the attention immediately shifted to the No. 33 pick (compensation for Milwaukee signing Lorenzo Cain) and the No. 34 pick (for San Diego signing Eric Hosmer).
And guess what? It was Buckley again.
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While evaluating Singer in college, the scout often was often on hand when Kowar pitched for the Gators. Buckley knew Kowar could throw a change-up in any count. He believed the fastball would play up from the change-up. Buckley knew the curveball needed to be developed, but he believed it would because he saw the way Kowar interacted with Singer. How the two roommates competed. When the No. 33 pick arrived, Kowar was a no-brainer.
As for pick No. 34, the Royals were pinpointing another pitcher they’d been following for years. While Buckley was crisscrossing Florida in 2015, the Royals’ area scout in Virginia was following a pitcher named Daniel Lynch. The scout, Jim Farr, a former college coach at William & Mary, was intrigued by the lengthy lefty. He scouted him multiple times and provided words of encouragement to Lynch’s dad, Dan, after one of Daniel’s high school outings. Farr even met with Lynch about drafting the kid out of high school.
Instead, Lynch chose to pitch at Virginia, which was a blessing.
“We were fortunate he was still in Jim’s area,” said Keith Connolly, the Royals’ northeast regional supervising scout. “Jim got to watch him for three more years. It doesn’t happen that often, but when it does, it’s a lot easier decision in the draft room.”
Farr watched Lynch progress in his junior year. Yet he still believed there was a higher ceiling. So he pushed for the Royals to pick him at No. 34. They did. The dominoes continued to fall.
Josh Hallgren, now a Royals area scout in Texas, had been on the West Coast. He scouted Stanford lefty Kris Bubic alongside West Coast regional supervisor Gary Wilson. They both loved Bubic’s change-up. They thought the curveball could be more. Most of all, they were sold by Bubic’s cerebral nature. The Royals selected him at No. 40.
At No. 58, Royals area scout Travis Ezi, who at the time was based in Mississippi, pounded the table for Jonathan Bowlan, a big righty from Memphis. In the fifth round, Buckley’s insights were again called upon with Mercer lefty Austin Cox. Then there was Midwest-area scout Mike Farrell, on the phone in the sixth round regarding Kentucky righty Zach Haake.
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Even in the 13th round, the Royals were still finding potential starters. This time, they relied on former Texas area scout Chad Lee, who had insight on Oklahoma State right-hander Jonathan Heasley. In 80 innings his sophomore year, Heasley posted a 5.96 ERA. But Lee was sold because the pitcher had a low- to mid-90s heater and a few secondary pitches. So Lee pushed for him on draft day.
Sure, there were other elements behind the Royals’ decision-making process. The research and development department, headed by Daniel Mack, played a role. So did fellow evaluators, such as current director of pitching performance Paul Gibson, assistant general manager Rene Francisco and others. But at the heart of the thing, the Royals trusted their area scout’s evaluation.
Three years later, they’re starting to reap the rewards.
Here’s how each of these pitchers has fared this season:
Player | Level | Innings | ERA | K/BB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
MLB | 38 2/3 | 3.96 | 40/15 | |
Triple-A Omaha | 15 2/3 | 1.15 | 22/6 | |
MLB/Triple-A Omaha | 14 | 16.88/6.00 | 14/8 | |
MLB | 18 2/3 | 0.96 | 14/9 | |
Double-A Northwest Arkansas | 16 1/3 | 1.65 | 23/3 | |
N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | |
High-A Quad Cities | 10 2/3 | 1.69 | 17/9 | |
Double-A Northwest Arkansas | 14 | 1.93 | 16/6 |
As things stand, Singer and Bubic seem to have holds on rotation spots. Lynch, who was hit hard in his first three big-league starts, was sent back to Triple A to make adjustments with his delivery to improve deception. He’s in line to return this season. Kowar, Bowlan and Heasley appear to be coming quickly, too.
Which is wild because Brian Bridges, the former Braves scouting director, has long kept in mind advice once given to him: “It takes 20 pitchers to get one big leaguer.”
So how did the Royals do it? A large portion of credit must go to the players themselves. For putting in the work to progress. For staying healthy. Another portion has to go to the player development staff for guiding the pitchers.
None of it, though, would be possible without the Royals selecting them in the first place.
Kevin Goldstein, the former Astros scouting director who now writes for FanGraphs, compared the Royals’ 2018 MLB Draft approach to an old business saying, “Nobody gets fired for buying IBM.”
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“It’s kind of like that,” Goldstein said. “The first four picks were college pitchers. From big schools. With histories of success. That was the formula.”
The formula, he believes, says something, especially at a time when so many clubs focus on pitch data. And “big stuff,” meaning big breaking balls with spin rates and velocity.
“We maybe underrate, as an industry, command and pitchability and competitiveness and makeup,” Goldstein said. “Those are the kind of places where a dude like Singer really shined.”
That the Royals didn’t overlook these qualities, and that they weren’t afraid to put value in them, is a testament to the scouts who have known them the longest.
“It starts with the person in the car, driving thousands of miles,” Bridges said. “And the Royals hit (on what that staff saw) in 2018.”
(Photo of Brady Singer: Duane Burleson / Getty Images)
