Kansas City Royals: 3 prospects to keep tabs on in 2020

The Kansas City Royals 2019 season is winding down but fans should be excited for next season. Here are three prospects to keep your eyes on.

The Kansas City Royals 2019 season has not gone the way they had hoped and are just a few games from officially being eliminated depsite their dysmal record already implying so. However, the future is bright for this franchise as they have done well re-stocking prospects.

A team desperately in need of future starting pitchers did just that in the 2018 MLB Draft, taking 5 collegiate pitchers in the first two rounds.  Only Danny Duffy, Jesse Hahn, and Jake Junis are under contract or team control next season. Mike Montgomery is under team control through 2021 and it remains to be seen if the Royals intend to keep him in the rotation long-term.

Hahn is still trying to make his way back from having surgery on his UCL and Duffy has recently dealt with some hamstring problems. Needless to say, having too pitchers in the farm system is never a bad thing. As for position players, Salvador Perez has missed the entire season with Tommy John Surgery in spring training but should be good to go at the start of next season.

Alex Gordon‘s $20 million mutual option is pretty steep so it will be interesting to monitor that situation. I’d like for the Royals to find a way to keep him around to help the young guys develop, but if he finds the money elsewhere, I wouldn’t be shocked if he left.

This team has a lot of holes all over the roster but, like I said, they have done well drafting prospects. Let’s take a look at the top 3 prospects that Royals fans should keep tabs on in 2020.

1. Seuly Matias, OF

Seuly Matias has dealt with a hand injury that has hurt his performance for most of 2019. The former international free agent played 94 games in Single-A Lexington last season, slashing 0.231/0.303/0.550 and displayed incredible power for a player his age. Matias will turn 21 early next month, but he smacked 31 home runs with 63 RBI’s in 2018.

As is common with most young players, he also struck out a lot; 131 K’s in 338 at-bats to be exact. This season, he’s been hampered by hand injuries all season long with the latest being a fractured hand back in mid-July. He was promoted to High-A Wilmington this season but has played just 57 games there and his power has taken a hit (no pun intended).

On the season, Matias is slashing just 0.148/0.259/0.307 with 4 home runs and 22 RBI’s. He’s currently ranked as the team’s 11th best prospect according to MLB Pipeline but he definitely has the opportunity to not only move up in the team’s rankings, but potentially crack the MLB’s Top 100 prospects.

He should focus on getting back healthy and ready for next season. If he can take some at-bats this season, great. However, there aren’t many games left for High-A Wilmington so it almost makes more sense for him to resume playing in the Arizona Fall League.

3. Bobby Witt Jr.

Would it be anyone else? The 2nd overall pick in this year’s draft was an easy choice for the Royals given that Adley Rutschman was a unanimous number one overall pick to the Baltimore Orioles even before the draft had started. Witt, 19, went one pick ahead of where his father had gone back in the 1985 MLB Draft and was named the Gatorade national high school player of the year this past season.

Witt has been playing in the Royals rookie ball league since signing his contract and is slashing 0.262/0.311/0.349 with 1 home run and 23 RBI’s in 33 games. Scouts have been raving about his abilities to hit to all parts of the field:

“A rare potential five-tool shortstop, Witt didn’t always make consistent contact on the showcase circuit last summer, but scouts aren’t worried about his bat, especially as he showed improvement on that front this past spring. The right-handed hitter shows good barrel control and some willingness to use the entire field, so he should hit for average as he modifies his aggressive approach. His raw power and speed are both plus tools, which, combined with his baserunning instincts, could make him a 20-20 player.” – MLB Pipeline

He’s not projected to big-league ready until 2022 so that allows the Royals some to figure out how they are going to handle the potential problem of Adalberto Mondesi occupying shortstop and Whit Merrifield locked in at second base. Mondesi is under team control through the 2023 season and Merrifield just signed an extension that will keep in a Royals uniform at least through the 2022 season, with a club option for 2023.

The easy solution would be the move Merrifield in a package for even more prospects but the Royals front office appears to really like him:

The Royals have no contractual incentive to move Merrifield, who is under team control through 2023, and the team’s front office values him highly as an organizational tone-setter, on and off the field.

It will be interesting to watch this unfold but Witt should get his first look at Single-A to start the 2020 season. He could move up quickly if all goes to plan.