Here is an analysis of the prospects of the Kansas City Royal Farm System. The scout report compiles information provided by industry sources and our own observations. This is the fifth year we divide between two expected relief characters, the abbreviation we see in the “Position” column below: MIRP for multi-set relief pitchers and SIRP for single-set relief pitchers. Listed ETAs are usually associated with years that must be added to the 40-player lineup to avoid being eligible for Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments were made where it looked right, but we took it as experience.
A quick overview of what FV (future value) can be found here. A more in-depth overview can be found here.
All ranking prospects below also appear on the board, and the website provides each organization with a resource for sortable reconnaissance information. It has more detailed information than this article (as well as track and field data from various sources) and integrates a list of each team so readers can compare potential customers across farm systems. Can be found here.
Other prospects to note
Grouped by type and listed in order of preference for each category.
Fall from the list of past
Tyler Gentry
Gavin Cross,
Daniel Vazquez, SS
Anderson Paulino, RHP
Gentry looks like a left-handed horn ranking Guy on the peak, but over the past two years he has hit him with about 30% of the clips, on the edge of 40 people. Cross is the first round of the game, with a solid 2024 between the 2023 and 2025 performances. He played nearly a third of the time in Double-A and the bats were very slow. Vazquez, 21, is an excellent shortstop defender with below-average offensive tools. The typical utility guy has better gloves than him. Paulino is a 26-year-old reliefist who has had fastballs in the 94-97 mph range for most of the past few years, but it has been declining, with his career era above 5.00.
Great delivery
Logan Martin, RHP
Julio Rosario, RHP
Jordan Woods, LHP
Martin is Kentucky’s 2023 round 12 and is currently in a highly spinning state. He has a gorgeous delivery service in Jason Marquis Mold. His fastball hit 92-96, he had a 45-grade slider and his shift could delay the leap because his arm movement was so smooth. Rosario is a 22-year-old A-ball buffer, ranked 91, but has a good slider and substitution. Woods, 21, is a projectable Canadian Southpaw who signed an undrafted free agent in 2022. His 6-foot-3 frame and curve ball make him a good sleeper for TJ. From Velo’s point of view, he has not made progress yet and is still 88 years old in Colombia.
Signature of 2025
Ramcell Medina, SS
MoisesMarchán, c
Kendry Chourio, RHP
Medina is a twitching shortstop prospect with above-average bat speed and premature pulling power. His swing element looks like the ones of Miguel Andujar, designed to pull him to make concessions on the outside two-thirds. He is the exciting DSL prospect for surveillance in 2025. Marchán is a huge arm, a capture prospect for justice. Chourio is a rather short right curve, and the fastball of the curve ball will spread into the mid-90s.
Surprise royal family members
Jhonayker Ugarte, 3B
Darison Garcia, inf
Kyle Degroat, RHP
Sthiven Benitez, RHP
Ugarte signed $1.4 million in 2023, becoming a full-scale third base prospect. He simply didn’t track Arizona’s stadiums, and it looked like a high-risk prospect due to his lack of contact. Garcia is a predictable ACL infielder with an advanced feel, but bat speeds below average. Degroat signed $350,000 in the 14th round of the 2024 race, instead of going to Texas. He is a 6-foot-1 right-hand side, drop-driven, 90s fastball and above-average off-ball material. Benitez is one of the more difficult complex levels of arms, relieved 94-97. He’s crazy, with a career whip of over 2.00, but he’s a 6-foot-3-foot 20-year-old with high arms speeds and needs to be monitored if he’s speed coral.
Deep South Claw
Hunter Owen, LHP
Hunter Patteson, LHP
Dash Albus, LHP
Jacob Widener, LHP
Chazz Martinez, LHP
Owen was big and tenacious, with a high release point on his left hand, and piled up whiff with a tight gyro slider. He is still at a 91mph speed, and his below-average athleticism adds an additional fear factor to his recent miscontrol situation. Patteson is the club’s fifth round of 2022 in Central Florida. Now 25 years old, he is a high-level entry-level up-to-date entry. Albus, a reliefist for South Claw, signed $150,000 from Abilene Christian in 2024. He only named it 90, but he had a deceptive move and directed above-average sliders. He may be a left-handed expert. Widener is a 6-foot-7 GiDearmer from oral Roberts, who had elbow surgery and had recovered in Arizona. He has a classic look – low 90s fastball, large sweeping slider – but on the XXL frame. Martinez, a former college player who legally bumped into a 19-year-old in the West Coast League, transferred to Oklahoma’s draft year in 2022. He earned a solid job in the third day draft, becoming the $125,000 bonus for Sooners’ Swingman and invested his way in December with the 40-year-old. Of course, this is not a huge command leap. But opposing batsmen usually go against Martinez’s super-runs 30% of the time, low 90s lateral ray heaters, his sliders and swaps when keeping them in the same tunnel. If throwing a strike, it looks like a stylish mid-ticket expert profile.
The right relief
Brandon Johnson, RHP
Beck Way, RHP
Jacob Wallace, RHP
Johnson is a former Ole Miss Close (not Chicago’s current mayor) and has an average speed below average on four-aircraft with strong downhill aircraft. The ingredients and athletic ability aren’t exciting, but the double hitter doesn’t keep his heater in full, and his mid-80s gyro slides do well in the arm slots of his axe. A portion of the three returning from the mid-2022 trade sent Andrew Benintendi back to the Yankees, who stood out from the low three-thirds roster, making him a tough hang for the right batsman, but his bad control rate has been going on for three years. Wallace’s speeds are a bit slowed in 2025, but at its peak he will show you 94-97 at a speed of 94-97 with sliders and unstable commands.
Long-term development of bats
Derlin Figueroa, 3b/1b
Hyungchan UM, c
Figueroa is the rookie dance in the 2023 trade with the Dodgers. The 21-year-old left-handed Dominican infielder is repeating lows starting in 2025. His arms are large, but inaccurate, but (potentially) lack the first base of range and are not enough to support here, not enough to support here, and enough to support here. UM is a 21-year-old Korean catcher with an average power projection and risk strike tool.
System Overview
It’s a below-average system with one big fish at the highest level, several high-altitude hitters with hitchhiker risk, and a large number of pitchers with starter quality commands. Since the pandemic, royals have invested a lot of capital into high school pitching (Ben Hernandez, Frank Mozzicato, Ben Kudrna, Shane Panzini, Shane Panzini, Blake Wolters, Hiro Wyatt, Hiro Wyatt, David Shields, David Shields and a few six-figure people), totaling more than $15 million, and their jobs are still big and important in their prospects and all are very hard work in their work, and their staff are all to a certain extent, and their jobs are certain. The risky choice of high school catcher may still be effective. Blake Mitchell and Carter Jensen have a lot of left-handed power over young backs, a crowd known to take longer to develop. Any attempt to diversify risks through college player choices is wrong, as Gavin Cross, Asa Lacy and a few other players who have redirected are not out, or don’t look like they do. Noah Cameron is an exception and should be the rotating midstream platform for the next fifty years.
Amateur talent is the lifeblood of smaller market teams like the Royals, and while they are more competitive and interesting than they were a few years ago, they don’t have enough drafts to break through and really compete in any sustainable way. This is a question of development, reconnaissance or draft strategies (why continue to feed the weapons of the system without proving that it can develop them?), and organizations need to change courses in domestic amateur space.
Internationally, things are more interesting. The volatility inherent in the market, but royals tend to have instrumental, projectable players on their complex complexes, and they tend to get them without putting all the eggs in one or two baskets. Many of the best international prospects in the system are signed for less than $200,000. Several 6-foot-3 (or larger) pitchers, with good delivery, athletes with typical size and a degree of pitch lurking here. The industry as a whole has not produced many Latin American firsts, but there are several potential exceptions to the system.
Royals are fighting for a mediocre (although improved) crown and can be buyers for deadlines, but they may not have the promising quality to really cause a real splash in the trade market. That said, they have made meaningful deals over the past year or so (for Jonathan India, Hunter Harvey and Lucas Elseger) by giving up players like Mason Barnett and Carden Wallace, and this Ilk deal seems to be coming again. But this is not a “shark’s teeth” farm system, and when one player sets off, another player moves to his position. They can only do a lot of things before the cabinet looks naked. Once a CAGS graduate, this will be one of the lowest-level systems in baseball.
