For a few days next week, the calendar will offer the Royals a reprieve from the incessant reminders of the worst baseball the organization has endured — and in its place provide a peek into a potentially different future.

The MLB Draft is responsible for the latter, and with the eighth overall pick, the Royals will attempt to add a foundational piece to accelerate a rebuild that still appears closer to the early stages than to completion.

That’s the idea anyway. It’s not been the execution. As the Royals find themselves locked in a two-horse race for the 29th best team in baseball, this column sought to answer a couple of questions:

• How significantly have the Royals’ draft hauls stalled their rebuild timeline?

• Is their standstill similar to their peers, or would they qualify more as an outlier?

The punchline comes before the full windup: It ain’t good. If the Royals are to climb out of this mess, first and foremost they must get vastly more out of their draft classes — particularly their first-round picks — than what they’ve received over the past decade.

This is a problem they can’t blame on a lack of spins at the wheel. In fact, in terms of draft resources, the Royals actually had more resources than the big-market bullies that push them around in free agency.

There is no Jimmy Johnson chart to measure that, so I replaced it with bonus pool allotment, which is structured by the quality and quantity of draft picks. The Royals have had both. They rank seventh in allotted spending money since the 2012 introduction of the bonus pool, which penalizes those who eclipse slot values to pay draft picks.

Beyond that, from a three-year span in 2018-20, the Royals totaled the most draft capital in baseball, as measured by the bonus pools. Their six immediate predecessors who could say the same — who had three-year reigns totaling the most draft resources in baseball — made the playoffs within the next three years.

All six. Actually, all teams that finished first or second on that list were playing postseason baseball within the next three years, and most of them within the ensuing two seasons.

A collection of draft resources. Then postseason baseball. Like clockwork.

Well, formerly. Because the Royals are three years removed that distinction themselves now, and rather than a playoff appearance to show for it, they light up the worst winning percentage in franchise history.

The combination of draft and development has just plain not been good enough, and it certainly makes it worse that it’s been good enough for their counterparts, markets big and small. If you’re wondering how it’s gotten this bad in Kansas City, in other words, this is precisely where that conversation should start.

The draft hauls. Or lack thereof. In a sport that rewards the big spenders, the draft has offered teams like the Royals an opportunity to punch back without the New Yorks and LAs removing their wallets from their back pockets and slapping a few hundreds on the table.

The Mets will outspend the Royals by $250 million this season alone, but that’s not achievable inside the constraints of a draft that instead rewards the worst performers (even if slightly less so after the institution of a lottery this year). Really, the draft setup is baseball’s mere wink at a level playing field, all the while ignoring what would most effectively level it — a salary cap.

But it’s the best the small markets get. And too many others are taking advantage of it for the Royals to be stuck in last place for this long.

While some will tell you the draft is a crapshoot, the statistical analysis suggests that’s only partially true; while, sure, there are yearly examples of busts, the correlation between draft placement and eventual career output is real. Firstround picks are historically better players than any other round; top-5 picks better than picks 5 through 10; picks 5-10 better than 10-15; and you get the idea.

From 2012-19, the Royals selected 14 players between the first, compensatory and competitive balance A rounds. To date, those 14 players have combined for a 18.2 wins above replacement (WAR), using Baseball Reference’s metric. Yes, there are teams that are worse, including in the Royals’ own division.

But with the Royals’ crop of picks, Sean Manaea is responsible for 11.0 of those 18.2 wins above replacement, and he never threw a pitch in a Kansas City inform. They certainly still deserve credit for plucking Manaea, particularly when they used him to land Ben Zobrist, a key piece of a World Series championship.

But the current result is that the Royals themselves have been the beneficiary of just 5.7 wins above replacement from those 14 firstround players. And by the way, starting pitcher Brady Singer is at 5.9, which means the remaining players on this first-round list since the bonus pool was introduced — Kyle Zimmer, Hunter Dozier, Manaea, Brandon Finnegan, Foster Griffin, Chase Vallot, Ashe Russell, Nolan Watson, Nick Pratto, Jackson Kowar, Daniel Lynch, Kris Bubic and Bobby Witt Jr. (and the more recent picks who’ve not yet arrived) — have actually contributed negative 0.2 wins to the Royals.

Woof. You’d like to think that will change with Singer and Witt, possibly Pratto too — that’s part of the evaluation in 2023 — but no one on that list drafted before 2017 is still in the organization. Only two are even still in the majors. That’s only six years ago.

Say it again: The Royals have to get more from their drafts.

They are not just a tool for rebuilds but rather the tool, particularly for the teams that can’t afford to buy their way out of cellars. The Cincinnati Reds, for example, have experienced the largest single-season turnaround in 2023 — their winning percentage is .169 points better than it was a year ago.

Wanna know something about the Reds? Eight of their top 10 players, as measured by WAR, are guys they drafted and developed. They didn’t purchase a contending team.

They built what they’re enjoying now.

They aren’t some isolated case, either. In fact, as much as we want to talk about cash as inhibitors to success, seven of the 11 lowest payrolls in baseball are either in playoff positioning currently or within just two games of it. (None of the top-7 payrolls are leading their respective divisions, either.)

The lack of a salary cap is a legitimate problem in baseball.

But for some more than others. Baseball does offer a path around high-dollar spending, even if that path unfairly requires some to slog through the mud for years before reaching the destination.

Draft. And then develop. The Royals’ next chance comes Sunday.