Recently, a follower of the Royals Farm Report twitter account named “Ryan Heffernon” expressed concern after watching a clip of a Gavin Cross home run. He quote tweeted the clip with the comment “I cannot unsee Ryan O’Hearn’s in his swing and that terrifies me.” Understandable. Royals fans are conditioned to expect the worst. Years…
First, if you haven’t yet, check out the consensus midseason top-50, which is an aggregate of the rankings from a few different Royals prospect writers. Honorable Mentions 50-31 30-21 20-11 10-6 5-1 I was one of the people asked to contribute a top-50 of my own, and I must say, my thoughts differ significantly from…
Heading into day 3 of the 2022 MLB draft, many in the Royals squak-o-sphere (myself included) were puzzled by some of their day 2 selections. The Royals used rounds three through 10 to target what seemed like long-shot college pitching that no public draft boards had anywhere near the slots in which they were taken.…
Take a bow, Danny Ontiveros. You played this one beautifully. One of the persistent cries of Royals fans and commentators alike voices a desire to see a coherent plan for roster building by the Royals front office. As outsiders, it’s often difficult to know if the Royals have a good plan (unlikely given the team’s…
With the 9th pick in the 2022 MLB Draft, the Kansas City Royals selected Gavin Cross, an outfielder from Virginia Tech. Before draft night, many saw Cross as a likely selection for the Royals, as he will fit their strengths in hitting development and has more defensive value than some of the other college bats…
Hear more from Marcus on the Royals Weekly Podcast and follow him on Twitter and Facebook @RoyalsWeekly The Royals offense looks like egg salad that’s been sitting in a flaming dumpster for 3 weeks … very bad. They have the lowest BB% in baseball and the second lowest wRC+. There are plenty of simple explanations…
You can follow Marcus’ work on Twitter and Facebook @RoyalsWeekly and on the Royals Weekly Podcast. The Royals haven’t had an answer in center field since Lorenzo Cain left for the Brewers before the 2018 season. That’s four years of uncertainty at one of the most important positions on the field. And now, they’re faced…
When any draft nears–MLB, NFL, NBA, whatever–the phrase “best player available” immediately takes root as a central tenet of the discourse. All the professional and amateur pundits shout from the rooftops about the wisdom of taking the best player available and foolishness of drafting for need. And I get. I completely understand the reasoning behind…
Uh, we may have a problem. Recently, I was looking through this excellent draft rankings comparison from Alex Duvall and day dreaming about who I want the Royals to draft when it occurred to me that the Royals’ system might be light on outfielders … specifically center fielders. I thought I must be forgetting someone…
In the broad scope, this is as much a debate of old media ideas versus new ones. Traditionally, media companies maximized profits through vigorous and rigid control of access to their content, but young people grew up in a world of flexible and free media content. And they aren’t going back. Most of them will give up on baseball and find something else before they give up on cheap, flexible media.
Whit Merrifield is the Royals’ best player and has been for a few years. As a result, commentators fixate on him as a model for any player who kinda, sorta fits a similar mold. Good at a few positions, not great at any. Some pop, not great pop. Good baseball know-how. Really good hit tool.…
To be clear, most people are wrong about Jackson Kowar. They try to fit him into a well-worn narrative about pitcher development that contradicts every bit of information we have on him. As is the narrative for so many young pitchers, the conventional wisdom on Kowar holds that an underdeveloped breaking ball is all that…
It’s baseball season, and people approach that in different ways. Some dive head first into spring training hope. Some ignore it until the regular seasons starts. Some make up increasingly elaborate stories to coverup cheating scandals. To each his own. I’m starting this spring by thinking about which prospects I want to follow this season.…
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think someone is going to trade for Homer Bailey. It seems crazy to say since he was a train wreck of injury and ineffectiveness for four years, but he’s found some glimmer of his old self in Kansas City. And it looks like that might pay off…
Day three of the MLB draft is where teams make serious money plucking gems from obscurity. Nolan Ryan, Albert Pujols, Kenny Loften, Brett Saberhagen, Ryne Sandberg, and so many more (including the fabled Jarrod Dyson) were taken after the 10th round. For teams like the Royals, small-market teams that need to excel at drafting to…
Royals Farm Report 