The Royals don’t have a consensus top prospect, which Josh argues is a good thing.

Now the haters (of which there are many) might be saying, “Just because they’re the top prospect doesn’t mean they are anything to write home about”. To them I say, “Nay, hold thy tongue”. Of those 13 players, 5 of them end up on someone’s Top 100 prospects lists in all of baseball. (Singer, Lee, and Melendez made 2, Lynch and Matias each made 1; I included Keith Law’s Top 100 list).

Royals #3 prospect Daniel Lynch was kind enough to tell us about this wild 2018 season.

Q: You had a couple of elite level catching prospects in Lexington. How much easier do they make your job as a pitcher?

DL: “I was lucky to have MJ catch me every start except for one. He and I formed a great relationship and he really took accountability for getting to know how I like to pitch and what my strengths were. I am very grateful for that, it makes my job easier knowing we’re on the same page. The same thing goes for Sebastian, he took controlling the game and being a leader very seriously and it showed by the way he handled the staff.”

ICYMI: The Royals have been linked to one of the top international free agents for this summer: Erick Pena.

Pena is a left-handed hitting outfielder standing 6’3″ who speaks both English and Spanish.  He trains with John Carmona and is expected to sign for a sum between $3-$4 million.  Badler says he is an advanced hitter who makes consistent hard contact with his strong hands.

Speaking of international signings, Drew breaks down four starting pitchers to watch in 2019, all of whom were international signings.

Carlos Hernandez
The Royals started throwing around Hernandez’s name before the start of last year’s minor league season.  JJ Picollo told me last January about Hernandez saying he is a guy you need to pay attention to because he is going to be a top 20 guy for us by the end of the year.  And Hernandez was.

Marcus wonders if the Royals best bullpen won’t be in Omaha once again in 2019.

In fact, it’s entirely possible that the Royals could start 2018 with a better bullpen in Omaha than the one they’ll have in Kansas City by virtue of decisions meant to delay service time, build inventory, and give Rule 5 picks a chance.

We made a couple mistakes on our top 75 rankings that needed addressing.

Over at Beyond the Box Score, Patrick breaks down Ryan O’Hearn’s magnificent 2018 season.

With this, O’Hearn defied all logic when it comes to league-to-league transitions. He was somehow better. He never missed a beat, hitting a home run in his first major league game, hitting for a 138 wRC+ in the month of August, and a 157 wRC+ for September.

Photo Credits: Ken Inness, MiLB.com