Kansas City, Mo. ? While eager to select from an abundance of college pitching talent, the Kansas City Royals could not pass on Billy Butler’s bat.

Holding the 14th pick in the first round of Monday’s baseball draft, the Royals put their pitching hopes on hold and took Butler, a power-hitting high school third baseman from Jacksonville, Fla.

“The one thing we wanted to address is if there’s an impact bat available in the draft, we wanted to get that,” said Deric Ladnier, the team’s senior director of scouting. “He’s got tremendous power, which, if you want to get it, you’ve got to get it in the first round.”

With the 29th and 31st choices of the day, the Royals went back to their pitching gameplan.

Matthew Campbell, a left-hander from the University of South Carolina, was taken with Kansas City’s second

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first-round choice. Then, with an extra pick between the first and second rounds, the Royals selected J.P. Howell, a left-hander from the University of Texas who dominated the Big 12 Conference.

In the second round, the Royals selected a college pitcher who bears a familiar baseball name. Billy Buckner, a right-hander from South Carolina who is not related to the former Red Sox first baseman, was 6-2 in the regular season this year, with a 3.16 ERA in 14 games. Later in the second round, the Royals took Erik Cordier, a right-hander from Southern Door High School in Sturgeon Bay, Wis.

The Royals rate the arm of their first pick as average, but consider Butler’s bat to be extraordinary. The 6-foot-2, 225-pound infielder hit .433 in his senior season with four doubles, one triple, four home runs and 14 RBIs. His on-base average was .672.

“We’ve got an impact-type bat right here,” said Cliff Pastornicky, who scouted him for the Royals. “He’s very, very disciplined for a high school kid. But when he does get his pitch, he’s aggressive on it. He has power to all fields.”

He’s also played first base and outfield.

“I’d leave him right at third base right now,” Pastornicky said. “He’s going to be able to handle it. He’s going to be adequate and make all the routine plays that are required out of a third baseman.”

Butler certainly had a way of putting fear in the hearts of opponents. In 115 plate appearances, he had 48 walks.

“He’d lead the inning off with nobody on base and they’d still walk him,” Pastornicky said. “That’s where a lot of his selective discipline came in. They would try to get him to fish and he would lay off those pitches. But the ball just jumps off his bat.”

Campbell, a junior left-hander from Gray Court, S.C., was 9-4 for the Gamecocks with a 3.02 ERA in 19 games, including 16 starts. He had a team-high 129 strikeouts with just 26 walks in 107 1/3 innings.

“He had a very good strikeout-to-walk ratio,” Ladnier said. “His fastball touches 92 (mph). He has tremendous command of what we feel like is an above-average curveball. And he can throw it for strikes at any time.”

The Royals hope he can make a quick trip to the majors.

“We felt like here’s a guy we can get as a college left-handed pitcher who can move quickly through the organization and in two or three years help us win games at the major league level,” Ladnier said.

Howell, a junior, was 13-2 for the Longhorns with a 2.24 ERA. He led the Big 12 with 140 strikeouts in 116 2/3 innings and held opponents to a .186 average.

The 6-2, 210-pound Buckner was 6-2 with a 3.16 ERA for the Gamecocks, with 95 strikeouts in 77 innings. He originally was drafted by Tampa Bay in the ninth round in 2003.

Cordier was taken No. 63 overall. He was rated the top player in Wisconsin by Baseball America.