It’s no secret that some of Kansas City’s best offensive prospects have been struuuuuuugling to get 2019 started.

Kansas City has had, legitimately, MAYBE 5 guys to be really excited about on the farm offensively. Kyle Isbel was destroying the baseball before straining his hamstring. Gabriel Cancel is off to a magnificent start to his first go at AA. Nicky Lopez looks fantastic. Kelvin Gutierrez was hitting the ball well but now he’s in KC. Bubba is hitting singles, but at least he’s hitting. Outside of that…it’s been ROUGH early on.

I wanted to get a better look at just how much the Royals young hitters were struggling, so I dug up the league averages and medians for the Royals affiliates. Here are the averages and medians for some select stats:

In the South Atlantic League (A):

	Age	BB%	K%	BB/K	OPS	ISO	BABIP	wRC+	SwStr%
Averages	21.4539	.09044	0.26508	0.37935	0.66905	0.12639	0.30654	98.5751	0.13653
Medians	22	0.08812	0.27084	0.3125	0.6521	0.11257	0.30656	97.6323	0.13545

In the Carolina League (A+):

	Age	BB%	K%	BB/K	OPS	ISO	BABIP	wRC+	SwStr%
Averages	22.5701	0.09956	0.23944	0.48941	0.68864	0.11852	0.31279	98.9352	0.12769
Medians	23	0.09375	0.23214	0.4	0.69702	0.10784	0.30882	104.179	0.1277

In the Texas League (AA):

	Age	BB%	K%	BB/K	OPS	ISO	BABIP	wRC+	SwStr%
Averages	23.8804	0.10146	0.24402	0.49181	0.71969	0.1407	0.31428	99.0049	0.11471
Medians	24	0.09602	0.23861	0.4	0.72131	0.12558	0.31373	98.8649	0.1107

In the Pacific Coast League (AAA):

	Age	BB%	K%	BB/K	OPS	ISO	BABIP	wRC+	SwStr%
Averages	26.2989	0.10399	0.22194	0.54508	0.8233	0.19627	0.3233	101.64	0.11124
Medians	26	0.10301	0.21795	0.44444	0.80228	0.17974	0.31623	98.259	0.1071

With those in mind, let’s take a look at some of Kansas City’s top offensive prospects and see how they are doing compared to the league they are in:

#1 MJ Melendez

• 2 years younger than league average
• Above average:
  • BB%
  • ISO

#4 Khalil Lee

• 2 years younger than league average
• Above average:
  • BB%
  • K%
  • BB/K
  • SwStr%

#5 Nicky Lopez

• 2 years younger than league average
• Above average:
  • BB%
  • K%
  • BB/K
  • OPS
  • wRC+
  • SwStr%

#7 Seuly Matias

• 2 years younger than league average
• Above average:
  • BB%
  • ISO

#8 Nick Pratto

• 2 years younger than league average
• Above average:

#9 Michael Gigliotti

• 2 years older than league average
• Above average:
  • BB%
  • K%
  • BB/K
  • OPS
  • wRC+
  • SwStr%

#11 Kyle Isbel

• League average age
• Above average:
  • K%
  • BB/K
  • OPS
  • ISO
  • wRC+
  • SwStr%

#17 Gabriel Cancel

• 1.5 years younger than league average
• Above average:
  • OPS
  • ISO
  • wRC+
  • SwStr%

#18 Brewer Hicklen

• 0.5 years older than league average
• Above average:
  • BB%
  • BB/K
  • OPS
  • wRC+

#22 Meibrys Viloria

• 1.5 years younger than league average
• Above average:
  • BB%
  • BB/K
  • SwStr%

#23 Blake Perkins

• League average age
• Above average:
  • BB%
  • K%
  • BB/K
  • SwStr%

#28 Jeison Guzman

• 1.5 years younger than league average
• Above average:
  • K%
  • SwStr%

#29 Nick Heath

• 1.5 years older than league average
• Above average:
  • BB%

#30 Emmanuel Rivera

• 0.5 years younger than league average
• Above average:
  • K%
  • OPS
  • SwStr%

That’s all of the Royals offensive prospects left in the Minor Leagues that made our top 30 list this off-season. Only five of them have a wRC+ that registers above league average. Nick Pratto seemingly can’t get anything going right now. Some guys have good plate discipline, some guys are hitting the ball well, but almost none of them are doing both well.

I don’t really know what to make of this. Outside of the aforementioned group consisting of Cancel, Gigs, Lopez, and Kyle Isbel, You can’t really frame any one else’s season as being “excellent” to date. There are way more hitters that have performed closer to alarming than excellent.

I’m not going to stress about it too much until June, but we’ve officially hit the point where the massive struggles by most of the Royals offensive prospects have entered my radar. There is still, of course, PLENTY of time for them to get this turned around, as most of our top prospects are much younger than the average player in the league. Hopefully they get going sooner rather than later.