In 2018, the Royals received two compensatory draft picks for the departure of free agents Lorenzo Cain and Eric Hosmer, in addition to a Competitive Balance Round A pick, giving them 5 of the top 60 picks. They sought to replenish their farm system following the breakup of their championship squad, and used their first five picks on college pitchers. Overall 16 of their 23 picks were college pitchers. They did not even draft a high school player until round nine.
Eight years later, Daniel Lynch IV
is the only college pitcher left in the organization. Kris Bubic was traded to the Dodgers a few weeks ago. First-round pick Brady Singer was traded in 2024 for Jonathan India. Jonathan Bowlan was traded last off-season to the Phillies for Matt Strahm. Jackson Kowar, Austin Cox, and Jonathan Heasley all briefly made the big leagues, but could not stick. The Royals did get another player from that draft class to stick – third round pick Kyle Isbel, who is now the starting centerfielder.
Perhaps the 2018 draft class did not meet expectations, but that could be more of a problem with expectations of a draft class, rather than the performance of the players or the scouting department. Eight years later, just 22 players out of this entire draft class have accumulated 6 or more rWAR in their career. The Royals selected three of those players.
Tarik Skubal was a tremendous find, but every team passed on him through eight rounds because of health concerns after he had arm surgery. Skubal, Logan Gilbert, Drew Rasmussen, and Joe Ryan are the only pitchers who have more career rWAR than Singer, who the Royals selected 18th overall. Gilbert is just one of three first-round picks, joining Nico Hoerner and Brice Turang, that has accumulated more career rWAR than Singer.
That puts the Royals’ draft in a different light. It is easy to look back at five picks in the first 58 selections and imagine the kind of talent they could have acquired. But the 2018 draft did not produce very many stars, particularly on the mound. The one real pitching star – Skubal – really didn’t look like a star until his velocity ticked up following a 2023 surgery and mechanical adjustments.
The team followed the philosophy of the adage that the best way to produce a good pitcher is to start with five good pitching prospects. Prospects will break your heart, particularly pitching prospects. By 2021, the Royals had accumulated a decent collection of arms.
But injuries, ineffectiveness, a lack of a third pitch, and an inability to throw strikes prevented many of these pitchers from becoming fixtures in the big leagues.
Still, by going with a volume approach, the Royals did get good value. Singer was inconsistent, but had some good years as a starting pitcher and had some trade value that the Royals unfortunately spent unwisely. Bubic had injury issues but was an All-Star and a valuable reliever in their post-season run. Lynch has struggled as a starter, but is a valuable reliever. Bowlan is having a nice season in Philadelphia after being used as a trade asset to acquire a former All-Star reliever (another deal that did not work out).
Looking back, the Royals had a very solid 2018 draft, and followed that up with perhaps the best draft class in franchise history when they grabbed Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino, Michael Massey, and Tyler Tolbert in 2019. That’s a pretty good two-year haul! Witt became a superstar, Pasquantino a middle-of-the-order bat, Massey a productive big leaguer, and Tolbert is a speedster whose bat has been at least interesting.
That makes it more puzzling that their organizational depth has been so thin in recent years, with the club having to spend millions on free agents and trades to fill holes. Perhaps the squandering of the assets they built up is an indication of why the Royals are in the current predicament.
The Royals actually created a fair amount of value in 2018. What they did with that value, and why they haven’t consistently replaced it, may tell us more about the state of the organization today than the decision to draft five college pitchers eight years ago.
