2014 MLB Draft: Picks 6-10 – Phillies think short-term with Aaron Nola

2 Comments

No. 6 pick: Mariners select high school outfielder Alex Jackson
It’s the first time the Mariners have selected a high school player with their first pick since Nick Franklin in 2009. Jackson was primarily a catcher in high school, but the Mariners announced him as an outfielder, which doesn’t come as much of a surprise. His bat should develop more quickly freed from the responsibility of catching, and he has big-time potential as a power hitter.

No. 7 pick: Phillies select LSU right-hander Aaron Nola
This was a predictable pick; the Phillies don’t want to rebuild, and Nola is a guy who will move quickly. He went 11-1 with a 1.47 ERA and a 134/27 K/BB ratio in 116 1/3 innings for LSU this season. Nola throws in the low-90s with a plus changeup and a slider. He could become a No. 3 starter in short order.

No. 8 pick: Rockies select Evansville left-hander Kyle Freeland
Evansville is returning home to Colorado after going to college in Indiana. After two years of very modest numbers, the left-hander was 10-2 with a 1.90 ERA and a 128/13 K/BB in 99 2/3 innings this year. He throws in the low-90s and has an excellent slider, and the Rockies will hope those two offerings are good enough to keep him out of the pen for the long haul.

No. 9 pick: Blue Jays select East Carolina right-hander Jeff Hoffman
Hoffman was in the running to become the top overall pick before requiring Tommy John surgery. He’ll miss most or all of next season, but that’s not as much as a hit to a prospect’s stock as it used to be, if only because the assumption now is that most of the alternatives are going to need surgery somewhere down the line anyway. Hoffman threw in the mid-90s with an excellent curveball before getting hurt.

No. 10 pick: Mets selected Oregon State outfielder Michael Conforto
Conforto has ample power potential from the left side of the plate, though his swing produced just seven homers in 203 at-bats this season. He did hit .345/.504/.547 overall, so it’s certainly not like he had a bad year. He won’t be a plus in the outfield — he’s likely to be limited to left — so he’ll have to hit his way to the majors. He was one of the most advanced bats available, though.

Royals’ John Sherman optimistic about new ballpark, current team

Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
0 Comments

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The first thing that Kansas City Royals owner John Sherman thinks about when he wakes up each morning is how the club, stuck in what seems like an interminable rebuild, will play on that particular day.

Not where they will play four or five years down the road.

Yet given the modest expectations for a team that lost nearly 100 games a year ago, it makes sense many Royals fans are just as interested – quite possibly more so – in the plans for a downtown ballpark than whether infielder Bobby Witt Jr. can double down on his brilliant rookie season or pitcher Brady Singer can truly become a staff ace.

That’s why Sherman’s second thought probably moves to the downtown ballpark, too.

“This is a huge decision, and I look at it as maybe the most important decision we’ll make as long as we have the privilege of stewarding this team,” Sherman said before the Royals held a final workout Wednesday ahead of opening day. “I’m probably as anxious as you to get moving on that, but it’s a complicated process.”

The Royals have called Kauffman Stadium home since the sister to Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, opened 50 years ago next month.

And while most stadiums are replaced because they have become outdated, the unique, space-aged look of Kauffman Stadium – built during an era in which teams trended toward impersonal, multisport concrete donuts for their homes – remains beloved by Royals fans and visitors alike.

The problem is that despite numerous renovations over the years, the very concrete holding the ballpark together has begun to crumble in places. The cost simply to repair and maintain the ballpark has become prohibitive.

So with the decision essentially made for them to build an entirely new stadium, the Royals revealed plans to build an entire development in the same mold of The Battery Atlanta, where the Braves built Truist Park, and the Ballpark Village in St. Louis, where the new Busch Stadium is merely the centerpiece of a whole entertainment district.

No site has been secured, but several of the most promising are in downtown Kansas City, where the Power & Light District along with T-Mobile Center have spearheaded a successful era of urban renewal.

Sherman has said that private funds would cover the majority of the stadium cost and the entire village, each carrying a price tag of about $1 billion.

But if any public funding will be used, as it was to build and maintain Kauffman Stadium, then it would need to be voted upon, and the earliest that it could show up on a ballot would be August.

“You look at Atlanta, they took some raw ground – they started with 85 acres – and that has been a complete home run,” said Sherman, who purchased the Royals in August 2019, shortly before the pandemic wreaked havoc on team finances.

“This is one of the reasons we want to do this: That’s helped the Braves become more competitive,” Sherman said of the vast potential for increased revenue for one of the smallest-market teams in baseball. “They have locked up and extended the core of their future, and the Braves are in a great position from a baseball standpoint.”

So perhaps the first two thoughts Sherman has each day – about performance and the future – are one and the same.

When it comes to the team itself, the Royals were largely quiet throughout the winter, though that was by design.

Rather than spending heavily on free agents that might help them win a few more games, they decided to stay the course with a promising young roster in the hopes that the development of those players would yield better results.

In fact, Sherman said, the club has been discussing extensions for some of the Royals’ foundational pieces – presumably Witt, who was fourth in voting for AL rookie of the year, and Singer, who was 10-5 with a 3.23 ERA last season.

“We’re having conversations about that as we speak,” Sherman said. “We have a number of young players that we’re trying to evaluate and we’re talking to their representatives about what might work.”

Just because the Royals’ roster largely looks the same, that doesn’t mean nothing has changed. The Royals fired longtime general manager Dayton Moore in September and moved J.J. Picollo to the role, then fired manager Mike Matheny in October and replaced him with longtime Indians and Rays coach Matt Quatraro.

Sherman said the new voices created a palpable energy in spring training that he hopes carries into the regular season.

“When we acquired the team, we had three primary objectives,” Sherman said. “One was to win more games; we’re working on that. The second was to secure the future; that’s what (the stadium) is. And the third was to do good in the community.

“But the first priority,” he said, “is really the on-field product. That’s what really lifts everything else up.”