Get to know a Royals prospect: Noah Murdock

Welcome to a new series called Get to know a Royals prospect! In this series, I’ll be looking at prospects at each level, giving you some background and analysis about each of them. The talent in the Kansas City Royals minor league system runs extremely deep. This series will aim to help you get to know about some of the great players that make up the Royals minor league system, including the ones you read and hear about daily and some of the not-so-well-known prospects. I’ll give you the background of where the player came from, take a look at their minor league numbers, provide some analysis about each player, and potentially feature some incredible stories that look at the human behind the athlete.

Here’s a list of the ones I’ve written up so far:

Today we are taking a look at right handed pitcher Noah Murdock. The 23-year old was taken in the 7th round of the 2019 MLB Draft out of the University of Virginia. He is another high-powered arm in the Royals system. Murdock looked like he was about to explode onto the prospect scene in 2021 before injuries derailed his season. He’s only thrown 60 innings since his start in professional baseball because of COVID-19 and the injuries, but he was dominating hitters in High-A Central for the Quad Cities River Bandits to start 2021 before the injuries got the best of him.

🤯 pic.twitter.com/sTJ6mXNno5
— Royals Farm Report (@RoyalsFarm) January 9, 2022

When healthy, Murdock has shown legitimate starter’s stuff. He’s got a good fastball that sits in the mid-90s and he has been able to rev it up to 99 mph. He has a really good curveball as his main secondary to go along with a changeup that seems to have a lot of promise. At the very least, Murdock looks like he could be another high-octane arm coming out of the Royals bullpen. He stands at 6’ 8′ on the mound as well which gives him an imposing presence and steep angle on all of his pitches. That on top of his dynamic stuff gives you the feeling that he can stick as a starter as long as his command and control comes around.

Noah Murdock brought the 🔥 in 2019! Here is what the @Royals can look forward to ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/7GoKrEzsYV
— Virginia Baseball (@UVABaseball) June 4, 2019

Outside of baseball, Murdock has some really cool facts about him. In high school, he was a three sport athlete in baseball, volleyball and basketball. He was a two-time First Team All-State and three-time All-Region award winner in volleyball. He even won the Virginia State Player of the Year in volleyball while winning a volleyball state championship. I am excited to potentially see a healthy Murdock on the mound in 2022 as he starts to take his next steps in development. Everyone knows he’s got elite stuff and just like Alec Marsh and Asa Lacy, this might be the year he stays on the mound and we see the dominant pitcher we did at the beginning of 2021.