The strength of this system remains the 2018 draft class, which should start to make its mark on the major-league club’s rotation this year, while their class of top position-player prospects stalled out badly in High A Wilmington last year.
The Top 10
1. Daniel Lynch, LHP (Top 100 rank: No. 13)
From the Top 100: If it wasn’t for Padres prospect MacKenzie Gore, Lynch might have the best pure stuff of any lefty prospect in the minors. Lynch hit 99 mph in the Fall Stars Game in the Arizona Fall League, and regularly worked from 94-97 during the season with a plus slider and an above-average changeup, mixing in a two-seamer and curveball as well. He starts on the extreme third-base side of the rubber, keeping him well online to the plate through his delivery, and extends very well out front to make use of his long 6-foot-6 frame. He’s a good athlete, but still somewhat gangly, and doesn’t repeat his delivery as well as he should just yet, so his command and control are behind the stuff. He also missed part of the summer due to a sore shoulder; the Royals shut him down for precautionary reasons, and he finished the year healthy and with the same velocity he had had before the injury. He’s really not far away and has the highest ceiling of any of the Royals’ stable of legit starting pitching prospects.
2. Bobby Witt Jr., SS (Top 100 rank: No. 47)
From the Top 100: The Royals took Witt with the second pick in the 2019 draft, one slot ahead of where his father was selected in 1985. Unlike his dad, Witt Jr. is a position player, a shortstop with three pretty promising tools right now in his speed, arm and glove, but he faces questions about his ability to hit and make contact. Witt is a 70 runner (on the 20-to-80 scouting scale) with an outstanding arm, having earned some interest as a prospect on the mound when he was younger, and he has the actions and footwork to become a plus defender at shortstop, perhaps even better than that. At the plate, he has a simple swing but can collapse his back side, which makes his swing longer and pulls his bat uphill. It’ll produce more power but at the cost of less contact over time. He does have a good approach at the plate and isn’t a free swinger, so this is a matter of getting him to stay upright through contact, not overhauling his approach or teaching him to recognize pitches.
Witt turned 19 right after the draft and will play at 20 this year, so there’s a bit more pressure on him to hit now, but his ceiling is still very high given his other tools, and the potential for him to become a plus hitter if the Royals can iron out that back-leg issue.
3. Jackson Kowar, RHP
Kowar has the best mixture of upside and floor of any of the Royals’ pitching prospects after Lynch, thanks to a changeup that is a 70 on its best nights and above-average control. His fastball can be plus, but he lacks a consistent breaking ball, with a curveball now but a slider probably being his ultimate third pitch. He’s a back-end starter as is, but I see No. 2 potential if he develops even an average breaking ball.
4. Khalil Lee, OF
Lee should have hit for more power in Northwest Arkansas, and he still struck out a bit too often. But for a 21-year-old in Double-A, he had a solid year, especially in terms of getting on base; on Aug. 1, he had a .379 OBP for the year, then had his worst month and it dropped to .363 by year’s end. The bigger issue with Lee’s bat is that he hits the ball on the ground way too often for someone with above-average power, nearly 60 percent across a year-plus in Double-A now, a function of how deep he lets the ball get before committing. He has a cannon of an arm and can handle all three outfield spots, so if he gets to even average game power, he’s a regular with upside beyond that.
5. Kris Bubic, LHP
Bubic projects as a fourth starter right now with an average fastball, plus changeup and great deception but just a fringy curveball that led to him having a significant reverse platoon split last year, with lefties posting 114 more points of OBP against him and 155 points more in terms of slugging percentage.
6. Brady Singer, RHP
Singer has an above-average fastball, plus slider and an above-average curveball while pitching from a low arm slot that makes him death to right-handed hitters but leaves him vulnerable to lefties, who posted a .352 OBP against him last year. He doesn’t have a changeup that’s even close to average, and his slot makes it hard for him to go inside to left-handed batters. He’s aggressive and throws strikes, but I don’t know how he can start without a way to get lefties out more consistently.
7. Kyle Isbel, OF
Isbel’s season was wrecked by a hamstring injury then a broken hamate, the latter of which sapped any power he might have had after he finally came back in mid-July. He hit .176/.236/.277 the rest of the way, with just a .209 BABIP that I think reflected his lack of hand strength, not an inability to hit. He has had trouble with velocity when I’ve seen him, even before the injuries, but he’s athletic enough, with above-average speed and some quickness in his wrists, that he should get a mulligan on 2019 and a shot to re-prove himself once healthy this season.
8. Brady McConnell, SS
McConnell was the Royals’ second-round pick in 2019, a draft-eligible sophomore out of the University of Florida who has first-round tools but has never produced in that way. He’s an outstanding athlete and plus runner who doesn’t steal bases, and he has good bat speed but strikes out way too often (39 percent in short-season ball after he signed) and doesn’t walk that often. He doesn’t project as a shortstop; it sounds like the Royals see him as a center fielder in the long term, and he certainly has the speed to play there and be an asset. He really must hit first, then the possibility of him being a regular somewhere comes into play.
9. Brewer Hicklen, OF
Hicklen is a 70 runner and will occasionally post 80 run times out of the box, and he’s not afraid to work deep into the count to try to get on base, with at least average power but probably not enough contact right now to call him a future everyday player. He’d be a superb extra outfielder who can substitute at all three spots, pinch-run and provide a right-handed option off the bench who smokes lefties. If he develops a better two-strike approach, he could be a solid regular.
10. Seuly Matias, OF
Matias has 80 power and swings at everything in sight — including cutting right through or under fastballs — and it was all exacerbated by his attempt to play through a broken hand to start 2019. His season ended on June 11, by which point he was hitting .148 with a 44-percent strikeout rate … But did I mention the 80 power? He should return to High-A to start 2020 with a healthy hand, and we’ll see if the Royals’ efforts to simplify his swing and get him to stay “in” his legs more so there’s less up-and-down to his hands pay off with more contact.
The next 10
11. Alec Marsh, RHP
The second of the Royals’ two second-round picks in the 2019 draft, Marsh is a very advanced pitcher with a four-pitch mix but nothing truly plus. He should move very quickly, probably starting 2020 in High-A and finishing in Double-A as Kowar and Singer did. He walked just 4 batters in 33 1/3 innings after signing.
12. Austin Cox, RHP
Cox started 2019 in Low-A because Wilmington’s rotation was already full of guys they’d drafted ahead of him, but he finished the year in High-A and pitched extremely well at both levels, enough to suggest that he’s not far behind Singer or Bubic as a prospect. He’s filled out his 6-foot-4 frame — he’s now about 240 pounds, according to the Royals — and can sit up to 94-95 mph with his fastball to go with a 12-to-6 curveball (which serves as his out pitch) and a delivery he can repeat. He should be at least a back-end starter but has some upside from there, probably more so than Marsh with a little more variability.
13. MJ Melendez, C
Melendez has an 80 arm, has really improved his catching technique since signing — including calming down back there so he’s better able to receive the ball — and has power, but he was part of the “Terrible Trio” of Royals hitting prospects in Wilmington, hitting .163/.260/.311 with a 39.3-percent strikeout rate. There’s nothing positive in that performance. I saw a lot of Wilmington — it’s my local team — and Melendez struggled with all pitch types and locations, even fastballs, and lefties especially dominated him. He’s 21 with a lot of ability, but all three guys could use a hard reset.
14. Nick Pratto, 1B
Pratto is the third of those three Blue Rocks prospects and his season was arguably the worst of all, as his value is entirely tied up in his hit tool, yet he hit .191/.278/.310 with a 34.7-percent strikeout rate, struggling with good velocity and breaking stuff from lefties when I saw him. He’s a smart player, an above-average base stealer despite having below-average speed, but he wasn’t ready for High-A pitching at all, and he doesn’t have the power of a Matias or defensive value of a Melendez to help him get by without hitting.
15. Zack Haake, RHP
Haake had a first-round arm but caught the “University of Kentucky forearm flu” that has hit a lot of Wildcats pitchers the past few years, so he pitched poorly that spring and slipped to the sixth round. He has been up to 99 mph but sometimes pitches at 92-93, always with big life on the pitch. His secondary stuff is inconsistent, and he has had intermittent shoulder soreness since he signed. His delivery isn’t very easy or free, and I think ends up a reliever who sits high-90s and gets a lot of swings and misses on the fastball.
16. Erick Peña, OF
Peña is still just 16, having signed an international contract with the Royals in July for a $3.8 million bonus, but he’s already strong with a great frame that you can see as a future middle-of-the-order bat. He has plus bat speed and a good swing for hard, line-drive contact already.
17. Jonathan Bowlan, RHP
Bowlan looks like he should be throwing 100 straight downhill, but he’s more 90-94 with sink on some pitches but not all, and his three secondary offerings are all fringy to below-average. If he could sink the fastball more consistently, we could say he was throwing “Bowlan balls” … but he doesn’t, so we can’t. He throws a ton of strikes and his 6-foot-6 frame and higher slot give him some deception, but I can’t see more than a back-end starter without better pure stuff.
18. Michael Gigliotti, OF
Gigliotti came back midyear from an ACL injury that had ended his 2018 season after just six games. His plus-plus running speed is still there, but his swing is too inside-out and he needs to focus on increasing contact, as he’s always going to be a small-ball hitter and should embrace that. He can handle center Field well, and his speed would give him impact if he just shows a propensity to get on base more.
19. Carlos Hernandez, RHP
Hernandez missed half the year with a broken rib, but when he came back for instructs, he was at 98-101 mph. He has had so many injuries that he has never exceeded 79 innings in a season and is almost certainly ticketed for a relief role.
20. Jeison Guzman, SS
Guzman is a potential 70 defender at short with huge range — his lofty error total there (33) is a function of how many balls he can get to — but his bat is still behind because he needs to add strength. Even while repeating Low-A last year at age 20, he hit only .253/.296/.373, putting the ball in play often but far too little impact.
Others of note
Right-hander Yefri Del Rosario missed the 2019 season due to a nerve issue in his shoulder. He has a big arm but is not very advanced as a pitcher and even prior to the injury seemed more likely to end up in the bullpen. … Right-hander Tyler Zuber sits 93-95 mph with a hard but inconsistent slider, attacking hitters in the zone with the fastball as a one-inning reliever. … Lefty Foster Griffin had a small bounce-back last year as the Royals helped him shorten his arm stroke, so his curveball got tighter and he was more 90-91 mph. He could be a fifth starter as long as MLB isn’t using the Happy Fun Ball this year. … Lefty Daniel Tillo is now in the bullpen, where he’s 96-plus with heavy sink and good tilt on a slider, with everything he throws (including a changeup) coming from the same spot. But so far he hasn’t missed as many bats as he should with this kind of stuff. … I admit to some curiosity over lefty Justin Hooper, who threw just two-thirds of an inning for UCLA last spring, didn’t pitch in 2018 after Tommy John surgery or this summer after signing, but way back in high school would bump mid-90s from a tough low-arm slot that made him interesting if not an actual prospect.
2020 impact
It wouldn’t shock me to see Singer, Kowar or Lynch debut at some point this year; they aren’t that far away from the majors, and the Royals will probably need the pitching. Griffin could debut before any of those guys but lacks any ceiling.
The fallen
Scott Blewett was Kansas City’s second-round pick in 2014 and made slow progress up the ladder, always showing better stuff than results, but 2019 was a fiasco as he gave up a run an inning in Triple-A and allowed 24 homers across 81 1/3 innings pitched.
Sleeper
Austin Cox is the most intriguing of their prospects after their top tier, showing at least flashes of the stuff you’d expect from a mid-rotation starter.
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2020 Royals Official Offseason/Season Repository
(https://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/showthread.php?t=327755)