Royals Where are They Now? Jason Pruitt

I can honestly say I had never heard this name before I started researching KC Royals top draft picks for my weekly posts. The Royals used their second first round draft pick in 1991 (30th overall) on a high school right-hander named Jason Pruitt.

Pruitt was dominating coming out of Rockingham County High School. He had numbers like these his senior season: 0.77 ERA in 82.1 innings with 155 strikeouts. Unfortunately, he could not transfer his high school success to professional baseball.

Pruitt played just one full season of pro ball and that was in 1992, when he split the season between Eugene (Northwest League) and Low-A Appleton (Midwest League). Combined between the two levels, he was 9-16 with a 5.62 ERA in 26 games (24 starts). In 123.1 innings, he allowed 139 hits and 70 walks while only striking out 75. He also threw 12 wild pitches.

Pruitt attempted a comeback as a hitter in 1995 with Amarillo in independent ball, but he hit just .227 in 14 games (10-for-44). He did not collect an extra base hit and only drove in four runs.

Following his playing career, Pruitt moved on to construction, where he was Construction Management at Pruitt Homes, Inc. According to his Twitter bio (which has not been updated since 2012), he is now a roofing contractor after being a home builder/remodeler and coach.

Pruitt still lives in North Carolina and is married with four sons. One of those sons is named Andrew and he has an NCSA Recuiting Profile. He is hoping to be drafted like his dad (he is a senior at Rockingham HS), but hopefully he can have a better baseball career.