That was all on signability, and apparently those concerns were pretty legitimate since he ended up not signing with Pittsburgh just a few picks later. Then it becomes a matter of would you rather have Almora at 6 last year and Appel at 2 this year or would you rather have missed Almora last year, got Appel this year, and then somebody else with the #7 pick (as compensation).
I don't see why you are looking back at the past to make a big deal about taking Appel now, it's all relative.
They Cubs had like an extra $1.5M on draft budget than the Pirates had. it is not unreasonable to think that might have made the difference in the 'sign-ability issue'
The point raised about taking Appel now was the amount of pitches he has been throwing at Stanford this year, something that is completely out of the team's control.
So instead of him being in the Cubs organization where his pitch count and innings could be closely monitored and he would have a season of professional baseball against hitters using wooden bats under his belt.
He is averaging almost 8IP a game. He has already thrown 70 IP's and the team still has 20 regular season games, plus the regionals and possible super regionals and College World Series.
So he probably still has another 6-9 starts to make. So that could be anywhere from 120-140 IP's before the draft in June. Which means he probably wouldn't throw more than 10-30 IP's as a pro if any at all. They might just shut him down the rest of the year.
Appel was the best player available when the team picked at #6 and they passed on him. I had an issue with it at the time and I still have an issue with it.
