Kansas City Royals Top 36 Prospects

A third-round pick out of Kansas City’s own Park Hill High in 2021, Jensen has dutifully climbed about a level per year since his selection. He crushed the high minors last season and debuted in September, posting a 159 wRC+ with three bombs in 20 games. It was a mouth-watering performance, one that makes us think that the transition out of the Salvador Perez era may already be underway. A 120 wRC+ in the first few weeks of 2026 action only strengthens those convictions.

Narrowly described, a hitter’s job is to hit the ball hard as often as possible, and Jensen does this exceptionally well. He led the Royals organization in hard-hit rate (56%) last year, which doesn’t really do justice to the scale of his ability, as the closest KC farmhand to that figure was Carson Roccaforte, at a distantly-behind 43%. It comes with a good approach, patient but not passive, with aggression on pitches in his wheelhouse in the lower part of the zone.

Could swing-and-miss upstairs pose a problem? There’s a hand loop in Jensen’s load, the kind that has bedeviled a number of promising young hitters who had problems catching up to good velocity, and if anything, his deep load gives him even more ground to make up. He also doesn’t have a manipulable bat path. Plus bat speed and a relatively flat swing plane help compensate, but he’s had trouble getting to pull-side lift throughout his career, and if you’re wondering why the hit tool looks light given his production thus far, this is why.

As is the case with a number of the catchers we’ll get to in this system, Jensen’s framing is just okay. He starts low, but there’s a lot of body movement as he reaches, as well as a jaggedness to his glovework that contrasts with the more supple and subtle hand movement elite framers tend to have. His control of the running game is better. Jensen is capable of sub-1.9 pops, with a quick transfer and strong arm, though you’ll have to live with a fair number of errant throws.

The overall package is that of a power-and-OBP catcher with a chance to grow into an average defender. It’s a promising blend of skills and tools, and while there’s some chance elite velocity substantially cuts into Jensen’s production, he actually feels relatively safe. The combination of power, patience, and fringy contact tends to work, particularly at an impactful defensive position. Jensen, who graduated from prospect eligibility in the season’s early going, projects as a regular, and should have a chance to ease into that role as the Royals manage his playing time alongside Perez.

Of the five seven-figure bonuses KC doled out in last year’s draft, Hammond’s $3.2 million was the second largest. It’s still very early, of course, but he looks like the best selection of the bunch out of the gate. Drafted as a two-way player, Hammond is a plus athlete with a couple of plus tools already and a path to more. He’s off to a great start in Low-A, where he’s hitting .315/.383/.519, albeit with an elevated strikeout rate.

Hammond’s athleticism jumps out immediately. He’s twitchy, with good hip-and-shoulder separation and excellent coordination, which is letting him do all sorts of interesting things on the diamond. He’s got a fast bat with present power and more in the tank, a manipulable bat path, and an ability to (at least sometimes) make mid-flight adjustments against breaking balls from arms three years his senior. There are a couple of mechanical things he does that I don’t love: He leaks off the plate pretty significantly, and the huge move in his swing sends his head flying all over the place. These are relevant hit tool orange flags, and it’s part of why he’s striking out more than a quarter of the time. Let’s not lose sight of the positive, though: This is a teenager tearing it up against older competition, and one who hasn’t spent his whole career focusing on hitting to boot. There’s plenty of time for him to soften some of his roughest edges in the box.

Defensively, Hammond has played a mix of third and short, and in my admittedly brief looks, he has looked sharp at the latter. He’s rangy, he’s been accurate with his plus-plus arm, he can contort his body in a way that lets him make plays and throws from a variety of angles, and he’s handled a couple of tricky plays with aplomb. In one recent sequence when he was playing shortstop, the third baseman cut in front of him and screened him while failing to scoop up a grounder. Hammond stopped to avoid a collision, kept his glove in the right place to make the play, and delivered a cannon shot to first to nab the runner.

All of this is hugely positive, and we haven’t even gotten to the pitching part yet. Some evaluators preferred Hammond on the mound as an amateur last spring, when he was touching the mid-90s and flashing a plus slider. Perhaps he’ll wind up there, but at this point, the combination of his bat and glove at short look very promising. He’s spent the vast majority of his pro career as a hitter and we’re projecting him as a position player only for now. It’s possible that I’m drunk on tools and not properly docking a 19-year-old for some of the hit risk that his swing and mechanics present. Sometimes, though, you have to take chances, and the best time to walk on the wild side is when a player really lights you up. Hammond fits the bill. He projects as a high-variance regular at shortstop, and moves into the Top 100 on this update.

When we’re diving into DSL streams for these lists, there’s a lot of mediocre pitching to grind through. One reason for that is that when someone like Chourio, an 18-year-old who looks more advanced than a bunch of the first-round college guys in recent years, pops, they don’t tend to stick around long. In Chourio’s case, 17.2 innings with a 22-to-1 K:BB ratio was enough to vault from the DSL to the ACL last year, and after fanning 17 without a free pass in three starts there, he was again promoted. In Low-A, still too young to excuse himself from high school classes, he again pitched well, whiffing more than a batter per inning with rock solid peripherals. He’s off to an even better start in a return assignment this April.

Chourio runs his fastball into the upper 90s and comfortably holds 94-97 mph throughout starts. It doesn’t yet have great shape or spin traits, but he has an advanced feel for moving it around the plate already. He regularly tosses above-average curves and changeups, and his best of both flash plus. His feel to spin also suggests the possibility of a power breaking ball down the line, and a path to three 55 secondaries or better.

Chourio’s size works against him. He isn’t a big guy, and even if he fills out a little, he’ll be smaller than most of the prospects we like to project as innings-eaters. Between that and the fastball shape, there’s a lot of variance here, even though Chourio has plenty of traits we like and is absurdly advanced for his age. From a purely scouting perspective, I’d project a mid-rotation arm without thinking twice. From a value perspective, the roadside is littered with slender six-footers who burned bright but early, and if nothing else, the Royals’ developmental choices will be fascinating to monitor. You could understand if they’re tempted to push the kid quickly to capture some of that value sooner rather than later, and his talent may force their hand anyway. It wound up forcing ours, with Chourio moving into the Top 100 on this update. He’s off to a fast start in Low-A and, health willing, likely won’t be there long.

Kansas City selected Mitchell eighth overall in the 2023 draft, which was widely seen as a controversial choice at the time. Some of that had less to do with Mitchell, whom evaluators generally liked as a toolsy, if high-variance, backstop, than the risk inherent in taking a high school catcher that high in the draft. The Royals were aware of the heuristics but fell in love with the player, and felt they just couldn’t pass up the chance to get a guy who projected to impact the game from both sides.

Mitchell entered pro ball with plus power projection, but questions about how much he’d hit and whether developing him as a catcher would be worth the squeeze given the risk/reward in his bat. Nearly three years on, we aren’t any closer to resolving these questions. Part of that stems from the broken hamate bone he suffered last spring. The injury limited him to 49 regular season games in 2025, and while it explains away some of Mitchell’s diminished measurable power output, it gave his season a lost-year sort of flavor.

That’s unfortunate because we’re still trying to determine how much stick is coming. Mitchell is a patient hitter who works the count and takes long at-bats, but his 64% contact rate is scary even for someone who projects to grow into plus power and walk a fair amount alongside. We want to stay on him, as the way he hits — a connected swing, some manipulation in the path, above-average bat speed, can use the whole field, tends to put the ball in the air, a decent approach, a strong hard-hit rate when he connects — is encouraging. Catchers often develop slowly, but even amidst the injury and a 30% career whiff rate, Mitchell has been a productive bat and could be one at the highest level even if he’s a .215 hitter.

Mitchell has also taken strides defensively. He entered pro ball needing a ton of work on that side of the ball, but he’s grown as a receiver and found a way to double his caught stealing percentage in 2025. He’s still not quick out of the crouch, but the operation looks a lot more fluid now, and even a modest time improvement from catch to release has helped his plus arm play back there.

While we wish Mitchell was a little further along, a little perspective is in order. He’s going to be 21 for most of the 2026 season, and unless he takes a big step back at the plate, he’ll probably get to Double-A before his birthday. He has big league power, and the aptitude he’s shown behind the plate gives us confidence that he’s going to be at least an adequate defender. If anything, the adoption of ABS should only help, as the tech should allow him to get in a better position to throw. Back in the Midwest League to begin 2026, he’s off to a strong, if three-true-outcomes-oriented, start.

Ramirez was a small-bonus signee out of Venezuela in 2023, but it only took a couple of months for him to emerge as one of the jewels of the class. He’s a large, powerfully built catcher with plus power and arm strength, a high motor, and enough bat-to-ball to make everything work.

Ramirez’s set up and load are unconventional but effective. He’s a little hunched over, and his load is robotic and deep, but Ramirez has a fast bat that lets him get away with the length. His path is relatively flat. There’s enough late lift to project average in-game power, but to this point, he’s been more of a line drive hitter than a consistent home run threat. The looming worry is spin. He seems to see it fine, and does a good job of keeping his hands back. But he doesn’t always deliver the barrel to the right spot, and his tendency to expand and chase on sliders could be a problem down the line. It’s the only major hole in his game, as he’s mostly swinging at the right pitches, and he’s making plenty of hard contact when he does connect. Statistically, his contact rates are on the lower side of the viability range, though tolerable in a young catcher with power potential.

Defensively, Ramirez is a hulk and has the frame to withstand the position’s rigors. He’s got a strong wrist and a low setup, a good base for framing pitches with room to quiet his other movements as he matures. He’s always had a cannon, and while his slow and low transfer doesn’t let him fully take advantage of it, he’s getting more accurate. As was the case with Blake Mitchell, ABS could be his friend.

Ramirez projects as a regular behind the plate. From a valuation standpoint, we’re holding him in this tier for now, as we’d like to see him maintain this level of offensive performance against better arms and ideally clean up a few things defensively along the way. He’s a Pick to Click candidate, and also a compelling trade chip for an org flush with good options behind the plate.

Avila has been in Kansas City’s system for eight years, but it wasn’t until a velo breakout a couple of seasons back that he really popped onto the radar. He has a live arm and has sat 95-97 while touching 98 with both fastballs in starts this season. His high slot limits his ability to generate swing and miss, but hitters have to respect the velocity and the different ways he can make the ball move, which helps his secondaries play up. He has great raw feel for spin, and both his slider and curve flash plus, but he doesn’t always finish or execute them. At times he’s shown a decent changeup, but it has become increasingly peripheral and he only threw one in his first big league start.

Avila has a shot to start, particularly if he can more consistently execute the best versions of his breaking balls. Still, to my eye, he looks more like a reliever. Avila’s motion is complicated, with a rock and fire, big glove throw, deep stroke, and head movement as he falls off the mound. He’s a good athlete and is generally around the plate, but he isn’t a marksman and he likely won’t become one. He’s also rarely thrown 90 pitches in an outing and hasn’t often seen the fifth inning. Just as he was starting to do that a little bit last year, he got hurt. So, while there’s a path to starting, he’ll need to work deeper into games, with better execution, and ideally a command uptick. Not impossible, but it feels like we’re asking for a lot.

Avila pitched pretty darned well out of the ‘pen in 13 late-season games in 2025. He struck out more than 10 per nine and generated a 50% groundball rate on contact while allowing just a couple of runs in 14 innings. He looked like a late-inning guy, and that’s where he projects if and when KC decides he’s a reliever.

This one comes courtesy of Eric’s overview of the 2026 international class: Gomez is a sinewy outfield prospect whose hands have fantastic strength and quickness for a hitter his age. It’s his top hand that’s generating a lot of the power through his contact, and this helps him cover the top of the strike zone and be on time to pull the ball even though he’s a long-levered 6-foot-2. It’s rare for hitters to have this kind of contact profile while also having this kind of lanky build. If Gomez fills out and gets stronger, he might start immediately accessing all of that power in games because of how efficient his swing is. He also has a great track record of in-game hitting. He might not be the quality of athlete you typically find in center field, and his size could be a gating factor regardless, but he’s fast enough right now for the Royals to try to develop him there. More likely, Gomez ends up in a corner, where his mid-range outcomes look like Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and his right tail outcomes look like Starling Marte. He signed for $2.9 million in January.

Shields was KC’s second pick in the 2024 draft, selected out of a Pittsburgh high school. He was seen as a polished lefty at the time, and he dutifully mowed over Low-A hitters in his debut season, registering a 2.01 ERA with 81 strikeouts and 15 walks in 71.2 innings.

Shields is extremely loose. He has a clean delivery and one of the most graceful arm actions you’ll see on a minor league field, which facilitates the lofty command projection you see above. There just aren’t a whole lot of 19-year-olds who can move the fastball to all quadrants, and he’s got feel for landing all three of his secondaries in the zone as well. He has a reputation as the kind of high-aptitude pitcher coaches love to work with, as he’s able to quickly absorb and apply instruction.

Even with shapely secondaries and uncommon control, Shields is walking a tightrope. It’s really hard to succeed in the modern game with a fastball that barely crests 90 mph, even with above-average extension and a low release. High-A bats have given him a sneak peak at the looming challenge, as they’ve tagged his fastball seemingly every time he strays from the edges of the plate this spring. Leaning more on his secondaries and further tightening his command will help, but for Shields, the key to exceeding this valuation is likely finding more arm strength. As a fairly filled-out young man, that likely means some kind of velo training. He’s tracking like a backend starter right now, with the ceiling of a solid no. 4.

Lamkin was the 71st overall pick in last year’s draft and signed for $1.16 million. He’s a lefty with fringy arm strength but mature pitchability and a chance to move through KC’s system fairly quickly. While his delivery looks more robotic than smooth, Lamkin repeats his motion well. He threw a ton of strikes over his last couple of years at Texas A&M and has an advanced feel for location. He can work both sides of the plate with his low-to-mid-90s fastball and is able elevate to the top rail seemingly at will. Long sliders are generally difficult to command, but Lamkin has harnessed his: He adds and subtracts movement and velocity, he can both throw strikes and bury it in the dirt, and he puts an awful lot of them just a hair beneath the zone, an ideal spot to generate chases. His change isn’t quite as refined, but it too flashes above average.

While Lamkin has the command and secondaries to start, two things make me hesitate a little. The first is the fastball itself, which, command aside, lacks the velo and shape to miss bats reliably. He’s also got a different slot on it, and the way he drops down on his secondaries looks like something good hitters will be able to identify. Lamkin has the ceiling of a no. 4 starter if these concerns prove overblown, but I’m more comfortable projecting him as a backend guy for now and tipping my cap if he’s able to exceed that.

Gonzalez is a loose and athletic center fielder, and was a two-year dart throw on Eric’s 2025 edition of the Picks to Click. He’s been a relevant prospect since at least his stateside debut in 2024, when he notched a 110 wRC+, made a lot of contact, and played sterling defense on the complex. He had another productive season in 2025 as a league-average bat in the Carolina League while stealing 78 bases. Alongside, his routes and reads showed improvement in center, where his range and ability to make plays at full stretch had already given him the look of a future plus defender.

The big question here is whether Gonzalez will ever hit the ball hard enough to blossom into an everyday player. He’s young enough to grow into fringy, even average raw if things break right, but there’s a lot of work ahead. His 90th-percentile exit velocity last year was only 98.5 mph, his hard-hit rate was 20%, and he’s hit all of two homers in his pro career. He didn’t show up to spring camp looking significantly stronger, either.

Perhaps seeking to address a lack of power in his game, it looks like Gonzalez has tweaked his swing. He’s still starting open and loading early onto his back foot, but at least at times it looks like he’s wrapping the bat further behind his head, which is making his path steeper. It hasn’t helped thus far. The swing itself doesn’t look natural, his contact rate has plummeted, he’s hitting the ball too deep when he does connect to drive it anyway, and he’s toast on fastballs above the belt. Hopefully he’s just a little out of sync to start the year, because he doesn’t look like himself right now.

Gonzalez has paths to an everyday role, but he’s starting to look more like a nice reserve. It’s really hard to play everyday with 40 game power anywhere but catcher, and he may not even grow into that. He has the secondary skills to beat the odds, but at this point, Gonzalez projects as a fourth outfielder.

While Kendry Chourio has understandably gobbled our attention, Contreras was one of the top 2025 international pitchers himself. He isn’t a big guy and doesn’t have a lot of physical projection, but he has a strong arm and a clean, easy delivery. Occasionally he’ll rock back and fire, but usually he throws 95-97 like he’s playing catch, with no excess head movement or heel grind. He gets pretty good carry along with that velocity, as well as decent extension for a pitcher his size.

As with Chourio, Contreras is advanced. He’s around the plate a lot, and while it’s control over command right now, you can project heavily on the latter. More evident is his ability to manipulate the ball. He throws a shapely 11-5 curve with depth, and flashes a plus change with fading action and great arm speed, particularly for someone his age. He’s a good candidate to develop a sharper breaking ball as he progresses, too.

Contreras will likely be, if not the best pitching prospect in the ACL this summer, then one of them. He throws strikes, he throws hard, he’s got secondaries to work with, and he has a strike-throwing foundation. His size limits how nuts we can get with his projection for now, and there’s a long way between Surprise and Kauffman Stadium, but out of the gate, he’s tracking like a mid-rotation starter.

Kudrna (pronounced Koo-der-nuh) has climbed about a level per year since he was selected out of a Kansas high school in the second round of the 2021 draft. More of a powerful athlete than a dynamic one, he’s grown considerably from the last time he was formally asked to step on a scale and now has the build of an old-school innings-eater. He’s a downhill thrower with a deep holster of average stuff to go along with an average control projection. He came out throwing atypically hard in his first Triple-A outing, then almost immediately hit the IL with elbow discomfort.

Prior to the injury, Kudrna was tracking like a backend starter. His fastball was up to 97 last year, though it’s tended to live in the low-to-mid-90s over extended outings. As you might have inferred from the “downhill thrower” comment earlier, neither of his fastballs miss bats, though each has its use. He can make the ball move a bunch of different ways with his secondaries: His change and curve have mirroring two-plane shape, while his slider has hard north-south break with a little horizontal action at its best. Kudrna’s arsenal depth and his ability to hit the box with everything helps him get away with a mix that lacks a true out pitch. It’s the mix — and ideally eventually the command — of an innings-eater. It’s a profile that would have carried a little more heft in the 11- or 12-pitcher era, but it’s a valuable role as is. Provided the elbow injury is a brief setback, Kudrna has a chance to debut this summer and has the ceiling of a no. 4 if he maxes out on all the grades above.

Arronde is a Cuban righty who has been developed as a starter. He’s moved slowly but steadily since signing back in 2021, and he was promoted to the high minors to start this season after notching a 2.80 ERA at High-A, where he had generally solid peripherals if low strikeout totals. He’s about a 50/50 shot to stay in the rotation, as he has the arsenal depth and out pitch to turn a lineup over, but also a couple of boxes to check.

Arronde runs his fastball up to 98. He sits a few ticks lower with unremarkable shape, and needs to lean on his secondaries to miss bats. The slider has been his go-to in that regard, a tight two-plane bender, and an object lesson in how extremely low-spin breaking stuff can work just fine. He’ll sometimes lose feel for both that and his split, the latter of which he hasn’t thrown much for a couple years now. Getting a better handle on those will be key for him as he ascends.

Arronde’s command is perhaps the biggest risk to his prospects in the rotation. He isn’t especially limber and tends to pull the ball with him as he falls toward first base at the end of his delivery. He’s thrown strikes — his career 3.2 BB/9 is quite good — but just about everything lands up and arm side or down and glove side. To get nerdy for a second, if his pitch location map was a correlation plot, the coefficient of determination would be positive and pretty high. A greater diversity of locations would help, because Arronde’s stuff is more good than great, and he’d benefit from less predictability. There are ways forward there, and he can perhaps do so by simply adding a sinker or a more traditional change that moves arm side. Arronde has enough control and breaking ball quality to stay on him as a starter, even as he’s got a couple things to work through to hit that projection.

Medina is an athletic shortstop who signed for just under $950,000 as part of KC’s 2025 international class. He hit the ground running, with a .260/.398/.404 DSL line and more walks than strikeouts. He’s the rare sweet swinging righty, with a pretty and direct path, and a chance to grow into average power depending on how he fills out. He’s still pretty slight and his measurable power numbers were below league average last year, but as a projectable 18-year-old, that’s okay for now. The same can be said for his pitch recognition skills, which are raw (he doesn’t like front door spin in particular). Defensively, he has good actions and projects to stay at short. DSL sources see a potential regular, which makes him a high-priority eval on the complex for Eric and I this summer.

Gamble transferred from a Des Moines high school to IMG Academy for his senior year. He’s a twitchy athlete with speed and power, and while some evaluators had him as more of a second-round talent (Eric included), the Royals rolled the dice, took him in the first, and signed him for just under $4 million.

Gamble is off to a tough start at the plate. Through his first 13 games, he has struck out 21 times in 60 plate appearances, and is struggling with both spin and fastballs upstairs. As was the case throughout the spring, his timing is off, and he’s often off balance and lunging against breaking balls. He has bat speed, but his effortful, uphill swing looks grooved, and the length and direction of the path is leaving him badly behind on good velocity. We don’t want to overcorrect on an intriguing athlete this early, but it’s becoming clear that Gamble needs time to adjust to pro pitching; perhaps a stint on the complex would be helpful. He has a strong defensive foundation — he’s made plays in center and has also looked alright on the dirt this spring — and has everyday upside if he can find a way to get the bat on the ball more often.

Ricardo was Kansas City’s top international signee in 2024. The Cuban breezed through both complexes on schedule and is playing a mix of infield positions at Low-A Columbia. Atypically for a big-dollar signee, Ricardo is more skilled than tooled up. He’s a reliability-over-range defender at short, he’ll flash the short game at the plate, and he’s successfully executed enough delayed steals in my looks at him to assume that he’s been honing his timing there for awhile.

The big question going forward is how much Ricardo will produce at the plate. He’s a switch-hitter and has performed far better from the left side statistically, even though he’s a natural righty. As a lefty, he has average bat speed and a long, at times stiff-looking swing. He’s struggling to maintain rhythm on breaking pitches, and his bat path tends to be tardy on fastballs up. This isn’t new, either, as Ricardo was a somewhat divisive international prospect whom some evaluators didn’t think would hit. There’s enough glove and power coming here to stay patient with him as he adjusts to better pitching, as he’ll only need to hit so much to have a career as a utility infielder, which is where he projects.

Calcaño is a lanky, projectable, switch-hitting shortstop with a defense-oriented toolset who signed for $1.85 million last January. His initial DSL campaign was encouraging but brief, as a shoulder injury put him on the shelf after only nine games. The switch-hitter posted a .346/.514/.538 line in that time, befitting his reputation as an advanced bat with a mature approach. Last year, Eric wrote that Calcaño needs to get a lot stronger to develop big league strength and that remains true. Defensively, he’s rangy with a strong arm, and he projects as a shortstop, so there’s a path to value in a utility role even if he remains on the lean side. He’s a priority complex evaluation this summer.

Beam was the Saturday night guy on Tennessee’s CWS-winning club in 2024 and KC’s third-round pick that summer. He has a good arm, up to 98 in starts, and reliably sits 94-96 with both fastballs. Despite a somewhat stiff and mechanical delivery, he has always thrown strikes. He has a deep arsenal of fringy and average secondaries, though he lacks the bat-misser that would drive an aggressive FV grade. Instead, Beam succeeds with good fastball locations and a knack for running his sweepy curve on and off the plate. He projects as a no-frills no. 5 with a middle relief fallback if he proves too hittable in a length role.

Zobac signed for $500,000 out of the fourth round back in 2022. He’s progressed steadily since then, throwing strikes, logging innings, and missing bats with well-located fastballs and sliders. He has the build and command of a starter, but he lacks the repertoire depth. His fastball sits 92-94 mph and plays when he locates at the top rail, though it looks vulnerable when he misses down. His slider flashes plus but isn’t quite a chase-generating monster. Zobac hasn’t unlocked a good cambio yet, and his curve is a rarely-used change of pace. He commands his two primary pitches well enough to start, but the overall package feels lean for a length role. It’s worth continuing to develop him as a starter in the hopes that he finds a functional change, but he looks like a 70/30 or 80/20 relief fit in the long run. Zobac could work high-leverage innings out of the ‘pen if the slider in particular ticks up in short stints.

There are two things worth monitoring here. The first is that Zobac has been hurt a bunch over the past year. He missed time with knee patella tendonitis last year and is on the shelf now with a shoulder impingement. Relatedly, Zobac was suddenly dinger prone last summer. After surrendering 12 homers in his first 215 pro innings, he gave up 10 in 44.2 frames last summer. The guess here is that his command suffered as he battled through knee pain — it isn’t easy to consistently land time after time on a wonky hinge — but taken together, the injuries and the long ball have slightly jostled an otherwise steady ship.

Kansas City selected Wolters 44th overall in the 2023 draft and paid him nearly $3 million to forgo his commitment to Arizona. At the time, he had the build and arm strength of a frontline pitching prospect, and he initially impressed evaluators with his upper-90s velocity and projectable slider. He’s lost a few ticks since then, though, and has been far more scattered than you’d expect from watching his relatively low-maintenance delivery. He both walked and struck out 40 hitters in 47.1 Low-A innings last year, which led to a third successive assignment to Columbia, where he’s off to a wild start again this spring. Amidst concerns about his control, pitchability, and deception, he’s at something of an early-career crossroads.

As is the case any time the traits don’t line up with the results, Wolters is a tricky evaluation. As mentioned above, he has a fairly clean delivery and looks the part of a decent strike thrower. You can pick nits in his motion: His open stride and longer, not especially quick, arm path limit his deception, and he doesn’t always repeat well. But plenty of pitchers with stiffer deliveries or more moving parts have found their way to average control. It’s a similar story with his arsenal. Wolters may not have great shape on his fastball, but he’s still touching 97 plenty and with good extension. Is there a grip or slot tweak that could unlock better locations or more missed bats? Both his slider and change flash above average but are inconsistent, and they could be stagnating in part from relatively low usage (he throws a lot of fastballs). Then there’s the pitchability question, as Wolters has a tendency to lose hitters after getting ahead, and can sometimes spiral as traffic piles up around him. Evaluators of all stripes are left to wonder whether this is a frustrating stage in his development or the sign of a long-term pattern.

It’s important to remember that growth often isn’t linear and that Wolters has plenty of traits to stay with. It’s clearly going to take some work to unlock a better fastball, more consistent secondaries, and crisper command, to say nothing of the deception or pitchability. It’s a lot to ask, and there’s a significant gap between what he looks like now and what he could become if everything breaks right. This grade tries to account for both of those dynamics. Wolters is an interesting change-of-scenery candidate for a team eager to get creative.

Van Dam was a ninth-rounder out of NC State, a promising righty who slipped in last year’s draft in part because Tommy John surgery wiped away the end of his sophomore and most of his junior season. It didn’t take long for his modest draft position bonus to look out of step with his talent.

Van Dam is an above-average athlete with good body control and a very loose arm swing. After throwing well in front of Eric last fall, he looked good again on the backfields this spring, sitting 95-96 with average carry and limited tail on his fastball. He flashes a plus curve, and while he doesn’t throw his slider much, his feel for spin suggests he could have a pretty good one of those as well. Van Dam maintains arm speed on his change, which makes it projectable, even if he’s not yet generating the kind of movement likely to miss a bunch of bats. He isn’t especially deceptive, as his arm stroke and delivery are long and timeable, and if I had one nagging thought about my in-person look, it was that hitters seemed to make surprisingly good contact against him. That could also just be a coincidence, because Van Dam’s stuff and control look big league-caliber.

Kansas City is using him in a multi-inning relief role out of the gate, an understandable choice to manage his innings in his first full season after surgery. In the long run, Van Dam has a shot to start. It’s possible his fastball won’t have the same zip or that he’ll be too hittable in that role, but for now you can dream on a no. 4 with a mid-to-high-leverage fallback. Good scouting from the Royals here.

The Royals paid Wyatt just under $1.5 million to sign out of a Connecticut high school in 2023. He’s a loose and athletic, if slightly undersized, righty with a whippy arm action and good feel for a sweeping breaking ball. His fastball has popped 96 on the gun, but he tends to work in the low 90s with both his two-seamer and four-seamer, and is likely to stay in that band. Even though his low slot theoretically gives him a favorable platform to generate movement, Wyatt’s heaters don’t yet have the kind of tail or carry to compensate for fringy arm strength. The secondaries are going to have to carry the mail here.

Wyatt’s changeup development looms large. He doesn’t yet have great feel for the pitch, perhaps in part because he doesn’t throw it much — just 9% of the time last year, and sparingly early in 2026. This isn’t a lost cause: Wyatt maintains his arm speed and gets a ton of fade, but it often misses non-competitively and needs reps. Even if he takes his lumps in the short run, throwing that pitch more seems like an obvious path forward for a guy who otherwise has the command and arsenal depth to start. The lack of an impact fastball puts a lot of pressure on his secondaries, and he needs to have three or four good ones for this to work. We think Wyatt can get there, and have him projected as a backend starter.

Lombardi signed for just shy of $1.3 million, the fourth-largest bonus in KC’s draft last season. He was a two-way player at Tulane, where he was an amusing combination of wild on the mound and selective at the plate. As a pro, he’s a pitcher only. He works out of an over-the-top slot, where he tunnels a carrying, low-to-mid-90s fastball with a sharp 12-6 curve. The fastball missed a ton of bats in school and has continued to do so in Low-A. At its best, the curve is an absolute hammer, though it’s a little up out of the hand and a beast to control. Lombardi is a candidate to develop a power slider, as he has great feel for spin and might benefit from a breaking ball that’s a little easier to harness.

There are a lot of different directions for this profile to go. Two-way players sometimes take a big step forward after narrowing their responsibilities, and perhaps more attention to his craft on the mound will help Lombardi improve his control, facilitate changeup development, or add a new pitch. So far, the big noticeable change is that he’s working out of the windup, which he didn’t do at Tulane last year. His new motion is long with a bunch of moving parts, which is sort of an odd direction to go for a pitcher with a history of control problems (he walked 6.5 per nine in college). It’s worth developing him as a starter, but between the shallow arsenal and several relief markers in the delivery — high effort, big tilt and fall off the mound, heel grind — I’d bet pretty heavily on a future in the bullpen. Lombardi projects as a middle reliever with late-inning upside.

A two-way prospect in high school, Charles was the Royals’ last pick in 2022 and signed at the 11th hour after visiting the team’s facility. He’s the kind of player who stands out immediately. Partly that’s from his stature, as even in this era, he’s a tall drink of water at shortstop. He’s also twitchy and obviously athletic in a variety of ways that’ll draw your attention.

Charles does not look comfortable in the box. His hands shake as he loads, he’s a hard lander, he’s constantly off balance against secondaries, there’s a ton of head movement, and the way he tends to fall toward third base as he swings sometimes gives the appearance of being on skates. He hit just .205/.260/.298 at High-A last year, with a 65% contact rate and scary chase numbers, particularly on spin. You might expect that a big guy like this still jolted the ball once in a while, but that wasn’t really the case. Perhaps in part due to a nagging wrist injury, all of his measurable power outputs were 40-grade.

Defensively, Charles looks like a pretty good shortstop, where his long legs seemingly swallow ground 10 feet at a time. He’s exceptionally coordinated for a player his size and has good feel for the hop. As you’d expect from a two-way guy, he has a strong, accurate arm and can make throws from a variety of angles.

If ever a player came with a neon-flashing “stay patient” sign, it’s Charles. He was a two-way player, we can pin some of the lack of production on an injury, he’s very long-levered, there’s a good chance he’ll develop more raw power, and he has the defensive foundation to support even a 30 bat. There’s a little too much development needed to forecast a regular for my tastes, but he still has a few paths to a productive career in some kind of reserve role. He projects as a utility infielder with higher right-tail outcomes than just about anybody else in this FV bucket.

Roccaforte has had some of the best surface stats in the system in recent years. Last year, he notched a 138 wRC+ in a season split between High- and Double-A and was arguably better at the latter stop, where he hit .290/.387/.475. It’s come with a ton of swing and miss, though: a 67% contact rate and concerning whiff totals on both fastballs and spin. Roccaforte’s swinging gate bat path is long, tough to adjust when he gets going, and leaves him vulnerable in the upper part of the zone. He’s able to drive pitches down and in, and has enough power to be dangerous there, but the high strikeout/average pop combo is a tricky mix, and it’s actually his defensive ability that’s likely to carry him to a roster spot someday. Roccaforte has plus speed and is crisp route runner with good instincts off the bat, and he projects as a plus center fielder. His speed has proven useful on the bases as well, where he swiped 43 bags last season. It’s the skill set of a fourth outfielder.

Guerrero’s college career began at Washington State before he transferred to Lower Columbia Community College and finally Washington for his draft season. After he was limited by injuries early in his pro career, he pitched well in 2023 and 2024, working 123 innings of 4.54 ERA ball in the latter and finishing at Triple-A Omaha. Guerrero has two breaking balls with vastly different shapes. The curve is a long, 1-7 bender that steals strikes, while the slider is shorter with late horizontal break; it projects plus in short stints. His low-90s fastball is sneaky fast because of its uphill angle and the deception created by his short arm stroke. Lacking typical starter’s size and a quality changeup, Guerrero seems likely to wind up in the bullpen; a torn UCL last April knocked him out for the rest of the 2025 season and made that outcome perhaps even more likely. He projects as a lefty middle reliever, or a no. 5 or 6 type starter if KC elects to keep him stretched out.

Hansell gained a few ticks between the 2024 and 2025 seasons. That brought his fastball velocity firmly into the mid-90s and did wonders for his 12-6 curve, which turned into a legitimate plus weapon. There may yet be a bit more velo coming in a shift to short stints, as Hansell isn’t a great mover and doesn’t have the command to stay in the rotation over the long haul. Perhaps that extra gas will breathe more life into the heater, which didn’t miss a ton of bats at High-A last year. More likely, Hansell is going to be a spin-to-win bullpen arm with a mid-leverage ceiling if he hits the command grade forecast above. Scouts are divided on the feasibility of that, but for now let’s give the long-levered lad the benefit of the doubt, a vote of confidence after showing a little growth in that department last season.

Cerantola is a tall, downhill thrower with a nasty tight slider. The pitch sits in the mid-80s with about 10 mph of velo separation from the fastball. That’s a bigger gap than normal for a slider with this kind of projection, but Cerantola’s has nasty late vertical break and he’s run huge whiff rates with the pitch at the upper levels. The fastball isn’t quite an afterthought, but it serves mostly to keep hitters honest and to set up the hammer; an occasional low-90s cutter serves a similar function. He’s been wild throughout his career, though a bit less so as he’s moved from multi-inning outings to a more traditional one-inning role in Triple-A. The way Cerantola tilts in his delivery and falls off the mound isn’t conducive to a ton of strikes, however, which likely limits him to low-to-mid-leverage work at the highest level.

Williams has the frame, build, and command of an innings-eating starter. He sits in the low-90s with both fastballs, and while he locates them in a way that allows them to perform their separate functions, their respective shapes don’t allow them to play if he’s not very precise with his placement. He’ll flash an above-average slider, but the other secondaries have a vanilla look. He projects as a no. 6 and could have more utility in a multi-inning relief role, particularly if he gets an extra tick or two out of the bullpen. Pro clubs in Asia should also be circling, as the strikes/low-90s velo/above-average secondary blend tends to play quite well over there.

Millar was the fifth and final seven-figure signing from the 2025 draft, though at just under $1.5 million, he got the third-largest bonus of the group. He checks a couple of boxes the Royals tend to like. He’s physical and has the frame to eat innings, and he’s also a downhill thrower who pitches with plane and generates above-average sink on his fastball. He pairs the pitch with a projectable change and a north-south slider that’s a work in progress. Millar is in extended right now, and with scant data and video footage available, he’s a high-priority look for us over the next several weeks.

Even after a rough junior year at Northeastern, the Royals were happy to give Colleran about a quarter of a million bucks to sign out of the 2024 draft. While he has some of the best arm strength in the system, the gas plays beneath the number, as crude locations and dead zone shape dampen the effect of top shelf velocity. His two breaking balls are more effective. A cutterish slider and a longer, sweepier bender both missed a ton of bats last year, the former especially. He’ll also throw an effective change once in a while, infrequently enough that he may just scrap the offering at some point. While he’s under control with a fairly straightforward delivery — he’s added a high leg lift in pro ball — Colleran’s feel for release comes and goes, and with it his ability to throw quality strikes. Improvement in this regard would unlock a path to leverage work. As is, he projects as an optionable middle reliever.

Bryan is a large-bodied catcher with plus power who the Royals drafted in last year’s eighth round. He has a big move and long swing that predictably leads to a fair bit of swing and miss. Normally guys with a 25% strikeout rate in the Sun Belt aren’t prospects, but Bryan has enough hit skill to go with the power to be dangerous, even if the path leaves him vulnerable on heat upstairs. He’s got pretty good timing and he’s able to adjust off the fastball. Defensively, he’s below average but playable in all facets. The ceiling looks something like an era-adjusted version of Josh Bard’s career.

Cerice signed for about $700,000 out of Cuba as part of the 2024 international class. He’s an uber-aggressive hitter with plus-plus contact skill and a short swing. He lets it fly from practically the time he leaves the on-deck circle — his 62% swing rate paced the organization, a full 5% ahead of grip-and-rip maestro Salvador Perez — and is making it work. He’s hitting around .300 again early in Midwest League action, a figure he’s topped at each previous stop. Cerise isn’t getting to much damage yet, but he has a good chance to hit for at least doubles power as he fills out. One other aspect of Cerice’s game stands out: hustle. He is everywhere all at once, digging out of the box, laying out in the field, taking (or at least trying to take) an extra base, you name it. As with his approach, there’s a case for dialing things back by 5% here, but better to play too hard than not hard enough. Defensively, Cerice has seen time at third and first base, and if he can add a couple of outfield spots to his résumé, he has the makings of a short-side, four-corner bat.

While generally seen as more of a late-first-round talent, the Royals popped Mozzicato with the seventh overall pick in the 2021 draft. He took a haircut on his bonus, which helped facilitate a number of other big-dollar signings, including Carter Jensen. Mozzicato himself has progressed slowly. His long, high-spin curve has missed bats and barrels up and down the minor league ladder, but the pitch is arguably his only weapon. His change looks and plays fringy, and while the lefty was drafted in part on his physical projection, his velocity has stubbornly remained in the same range throughout his career. His feel for the zone and ability to locate look better when you’re watching him than the numbers imply, but his stuff is so soft that he has to nibble; essentially, he can get strike one, but strike three is a real problem. It’s the skill set of an up-down spot starter or long reliever.

Edge was a 2025 20th-rounder out of an Oklahoma JUCO. He has a loose arm and a low release, and he works in the low-to-mid-90s with a sharp, sweeping slider. He’s a little wild, but there’s a path to two above-average offerings, and it’s worth staying patient with the command. It isn’t every day that we put last year’s 20th-rounder on the list, but when a guy has stuff and takes to High-A like a fish to water — nine strikeouts, no walks, one hit allowed in his first 4.2 innings — it’s time to get aggressive. Edge is an interesting arm, particularly for his draft orbit.

Another from Eric’s 2026 international update: A physically mature Cuban shortstop, Suárez puts up good exit velos for his age, and he runs and throws well. He lacks the physical projection typically associated with a top-of-the-class prospect, and a utility outcome is more realistic for him long-term. He signed for $1.7 million this winter.