Finding great for cheap ain't easy, but then that's the point...

There is no way to know in baseball. That's the beauty, and that's the agony.

Sometimes the Royals use their first pick on Juan LeBron and he never makes the big leagues. But the guy they draft after him becomes Carlos Beltran.

Sometimes the Dodgers take the fifth pick on Bill Bene and he never makes the big leagues. But then they use the 1,390th pick and the guy becomes Mike Piazza.

This year's AL MVP might be Carlos Quentin, traded in the offseason for Chris Carter, who is now in high-A ball (though he has hit 36 homers there). The Cy Young winner might be Cliff Lee, who pitched 48 innings in the minor leagues last year and had a 6.29 ERA in the majors.

Brandon Webb might win the NL Cy Young, and he's an eighth round pick. The NL MVP might be Albert Pujols, and you don't need to hear his story again.

Dan Uggla, Johan Santana, Josh Hamilton, and Joakim Soria are all Rule 5 picks.

Mike Aviles didn't move the needle enough to even be chosen in the Rule 5 draft.

Clint Hurdle made the cover of Sports Illustrated just for being a prospect. George Brett was hitting .346 midway through a season he'd finish second in the MVP voting before he made it.

All of this may or may not be relevant to today's blog topic, Nelson Cruz, who played his first big league game of the season last night against the Royals.

Cruz's name came up in Omaha a few weeks ago, while reporting out a story on Kila Ka'aihue (named yesterday Texas League player of the year), mostly because of Cruz's insane Pacific League numbers this season.

If we could pause for a moment, and this is obviously "just" the minor leagues, so whatever. But if you project those numbers over 150 games you come up with this, and, kids, you might want to close your eyes:

.342 average, 49 HR, 131 RBIs, 123 runs, 74 walks, and 32 stolen bases.

Damn.

(UPDATE: Here is another 28-year-old minor leaguer putting up sick numbers.)

Anyway, Cruz got called up Monday as Jason Ellison was designated for assignment, and promptly smacked the first pitch he saw from Gil Meche off the wall in left-center for a double. His second at bat, he hit a three-run homer in the right field seats. Third at bat, sharp single to right.

It's interesting because Cruz was essentially released by the Rangers in spring training. All 29 other teams passed on him, so he signed a minor league deal with Texas, and bullied his way onto the big league roster after five months of crushing minor league pitching gave the Rangers no better alternative.

Basically, he's the Rangers' version of Ka'aihue, the out-of-nowhere minor league star dead set on making a big league impact.

Speaking of which, the Royals could use some "slug" in their lineup, no?

Now, it'd be completely unfair to say the Royals blew it by not taking a chance on Cruz. The best reason is probably that he's a .231 hitter and 73 OPS+er (can I get away with that? OPS+er?) in 477 previous big league plate appearances.

To say this was anything more than a good season debut is both premature and ignoring a track record that includes nearly a full season's worth of big league at bats, and not to mention that the Rangers made him available before his Roy Hobbs minor league season.

There are other reasons, too. The Royals looked overstocked in the outfield in spring training, Cruz was a former undrafted free agent with a 4-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio, and had been unable to translate his minor league power to the big leagues.

He's had big league shots before, and at 28, his career potential is already somewhat limited. Greg Shaum, who I think does a really good job on the postgame radio, especially when it comes to all things minor leagues, called Cruz a "has been."

And it's worth being reminded that every team in baseball passed on Cruz.

But his big night against the Royals, combined with the huge minor league numbers, and availability in the spring, just bring to home again the kind of opportunities that are out there all the time in baseball.

There will be more Ugglas, more Santanas, more Quentins, and if there's an affordable shortcut -- cheaper than free agency, faster than building a farm system -- that dollar conscious teams like the Royals need to take advantage of, it's finding the out-of-nowheres and giving them opportunity.

The Royals have received a lot of credit for Soria, and rightfully so. Same with Aviles, though there was also a significant bit of luck in that since the Royals (along with the rest of baseball) didn't know what they had.

But given the Royals' finances, and especially since the farm system is a few years away, the Royals are among the handful of teams for which finding the Carlos Quentins and Joakim Sorias and (maybe) Nelson Cruzes are imperative to building a contender.

Finding these guys isn't easy, of course. If it was, they wouldn't be available because teams would never let them go.

But Dayton Moore and his staff always talk about mining every available market for talent, and this is one market that a beefed-up scouting department might be able to exploit a little better.

Every team has a chance at these guys.

Maybe it stings a little more when the Royals miss out on one.