After last night's game, which can only be qualified as an abject failure to carry out Mission: Get Better Draft Pick, the Royals find themselves in a tough spot. A loss yesterday would have put them in a two-way tie for the eighth pick of the draft with the Toronto Blue Jays, who won yesterday. Instead the Royals failed to give away the victory when ceding the lead last night, and they ensured that both Cleveland and Minnesota would draft ahead of them in the 2013 Amateur Draft.
To see where the Royals stand, let us take a gander at the bottom of the Wild Card Standings.
The projected draft order looks like this:
- Houston Astros
- Chicago Cubs (7.0 GB)
- Colorado Rockies (10.0 GB)
- Minnesota Twins (14.0 GB)
- Cleveland Indians (14.0 GB)
- Miami Marlins (15.0 GB)
- Boston Red Sox (17.0 GB)
- Toronto Blue Jays (18.0 GB)
- Pittsburgh Pirates (Compensatory Pick for Mark Appel)
- Kansas City Royals (19.0 GB)
- Seattle Mariners (21.0 GB)
- New York Mets (21.0 GB)
- San Diego Padres (23.0 GB)
Obviously the Royals could still blow things and end up with a pick as bad as the thirteenth pick of the draft, though that was as unlikely as them ending up with the fifth pick of the draft if the Royals had lost out and the Indians and/or Twins had won out. The Royals could still conceivably catch the Marlins, Red Sox, and Blue Jays. Of course, they should be tied with the Blue Jays, but the Royals can't even lose right. If they don't catch and pass at least the Blue Jays, it's a two-pick swing for the worse. A pick as high as seventh is still realistically on the table.
Resistance is futile. Losing is imperative.