Chad Lee had to send the text.



It was the day before the 2018 MLB Draft, and Lee, a Kansas City Royals area scout, was supposed to be relaxing at home in Texas. He couldn’t. Not when he saw who was pitching in an NCAA Regional elimination game between Oklahoma State and South Florida.



“Hey,” Lee typed to one of his higher-ups. “Jon Heasley’s pitching on television.”



“OK,” Royals regional scout Greg Miller responded. “We’ll get it put on.”



By “we,” Miller was referring to Royals scouting staffers, who were sitting in the glass-cubed, sixth-floor draft room at Kauffman Stadium. The staff was meeting that afternoon, finalizing preparations for the following day’s draft — one that was enormously important for the Royals’ future.



Not only did the organization have five of the first 58 picks, in part because it lost Lorenzo Cain and Eric Hosmer during...