MLB.com’s Anne Rogers provided some insight into the Kansas City Royals’ draft approach for later this week, including speaking with scouting director Brian Bridges.
The Royals have been linked to shortstop Jacob Lombard out of Gulliver Prep (Fla.) — if he makes it that far — left-hander Gio Rojas out of Stoneman Douglas (Fla.) HS, outfielder Eric Booth Jr. out of Oak Grove (Fla.) HS, UC Santa Barbara right-hander Jackson Flora and Georgia Tech outfielder Drew Burress, among others. Maybe they shake
up the board and go with Huntington Beach (Calif.) HS left-hander/outfielder Jacob Grindlinger, who is just 17 years old after reclassifying for this year’s Draft and has legitimate upside as a two-way player. Grindlinger is No. 16 on MLB Pipeline’s Top 250 Draft prospects list and is rising on boards as Draft day nears.
Prep players usually mean a lot of upside but with more risk, while college players bring a higher floor and more experience — often with a chance to move quickly. Over the full Draft, the Royals are going to value both.
“There’s a good mix of high school and college,” Bridges said. “To tell you the truth, our range is pretty broad. There’s a clear-cut four players, five players in this Draft, and then believe it or not, where we’re picking, you can go a number of different directions. So we have a pretty good balance of what we’re looking at, both high school and college.”
Baseball America had a less-than-clear picture of Kansas City’s strategy for the upcoming draft, with a reported divide between ownership and the scouting department. Fast forward to the 44:00 mark.
Royals Keep’s Yirsandy Rodríguez concludes that Noah Cameron’s curveball “isn’t enough anymore”.
The pitch itself has barely changed. Its velocity, vertical movement, and spin profile have remained almost identical. What changed was the hitters’ response. They’re no longer chasing it at the same rate. One plausible explanation is that the rest of Cameron’s arsenal no longer poses enough of a threat to force hitters to protect the zone early in the count.
The rest of his arsenal supports that theory. None of his other pitches has complemented the curveball with any consistency. His four-seam fastball has allowed a 49.3% HardHit rate and a .280 batting average. The cutter hasn’t provided a reliable alternative either, surrendering a .338 average, while both the slider and sinker have been hit even harder. Combined, those four pitches account for 61.5% of Cameron’s repertoire, compared to just 16.8% for his curveball. The results suggest hitters can afford to wait for something more hittable instead of protecting against his best pitch.
The Royals fall to dead last in The Athletic’s latest power rankings, with Cole Ragans being the personification of the 2026 struggles.
Chad wasn’t wrong in the intro. Bobby Witt Jr. has been very good, which is not an accurate representation of the Royals as a whole. Instead, we’re going with Ragans.
Why? Because Ragans was an All-Star in 2024, and a huge reason Kansas City surprised the sport and made it to the playoffs. Since then, he has pitched in just 21 games — 13 last year and eight this year — as he battles one injury or another. Even when he was on the mound this year, he was just 1-4 with a 4.84 ERA.
At the end of 2024, the Royals seemed to be a team on the brink of a glow-up. But after a disappointing 2025, this season seems to be more of the same
Keith Law’s latest MLB mock draft sends USC left-handed pitcher Mason Edwards to Kansas City at sixth overall.
The Royals could very well go for Jacob Lombard or Eric Booth Jr., but there’s been a rumor for about two months now that they would love to get a college pitcher here, perhaps on a discount (Edwards would certainly come in well under slot), so they can grab several higher-upside high school picks later on, especially since scouting director Brian Bridges appears to have hit already on recent high school picks Josh Hammond and David Shields. If it’s not Edwards, it could be Logan Reddemann or Liam Peterson, and I believe this would be Jackson Flora’s absolute floor.
Kings of Kauffman’s Caleb Moody reacts to Eric Cerantola landing with the San Francisco Giants after the Royals DFA’d the righty.
The Royals may not have liked the results Cerantola was providing, but it seemed wiser to give him the same merciful treatment they did with Mitch Spence after his historically bad outing a few weeks ago and kept him an option. They should’ve been content with what they’d developed with him and allowed for some patience.
It’s not a move that shoots them in the foot per se, but it certainly puts them in a precarious spot should the injury bug look to the bullpen for it’s next victim.
ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel has a draft question and some Royals intel ahead of this weekend’s draft.
One big question: Do the Royals throw a curveball at pick six or play it straight?
Most teams agree on a group of six-plus players in the top tier (Roch Cholowsky, Vahn Lackey, Grady Emerson, Jackson Flora, Jacob Lombard, Eric Booth Jr.), so you’d think picking at No. 6 means the Royals just take the best player left on the board. They tend to have opinions about players who are more pointed than other teams, so the odds are a little higher that the one or two players in that group that Kansas City is less excited about will be the one who gets to their selection. Could this be another Frank Mozzicato moment where they go way down the consensus board to save money and spread it around high school players later? Those rumors are swirling around a few picks in this range, including the Royals’ pick.
Kings of Kauffman’s Matthew Swigonski grades the Royals’ last five first-round picks.
A company linked to the Royals bought the former headquarters of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, near the proposed ballpark district.
England’s Declan Rice wore a Royals cap following his team’s 3-2 victory over Mexico in the World Cup this past weekend.
Pittsburgh Pirates rookie Konnor Griffin will miss 8-10 weeks “due to an issue with the knuckle on the ring finger on his left hand”.
Detroit Tigers third base coach Joey Cora leaves the club over “philosophical differences”.
The Houston Astros demoted offseason acquisition Mike Burrows to Triple-A after a horrendous outing.
The Milwaukee Brewers called up outfield prospect Luis Lara in a bevvy of roster moves.
Ben Rice will represent the New York Yankees in the 2026 Home Run Derby, joining divisional rival Junior Caminero.
FOX reports that 30 million people tuned in for The World Cup’s U.S. versus Belgium, the most-watched soccer telecast in U.S. history.
In Pittsburg, Kansas, Chicken Mary’s and Chicken Annie’s have similar stories and similarly high standards in an overhyped rivalry.
Could Kansas City’s vacant office buildings be turned into affordable housing?
Joe Posnanski announces final submission of new book, FIFTY SEASONS, set to release in February 2027.
Today’s song of the day is Walk a Straight Line by Mack Geiger.
