KC Royals: Risers and fallers in 2020 top prospect rankings

The KC Royals’ top 30 prospects for 2020 represent a light at the end of what’s been a dark tunnel for the past few years.

The KC Royals are entering a pivotal season as an organization. As the team is coming off consecutive 100-plus loss campaigns, the pressure is on to field a competitive product within the next year or two. Some of that work starts now, but a lot of it has been going on for several years.

One of the downsides of having a great team to root for is coming to terms with the fact that finding top-tier talent in the MLB Draft and being able to keep it is a tall task. Winning more games means the team is later in the draft order, which in turn leads to lesser talent to pick from. Trades have to be made to acquire MLB-ready pieces (Johnny Cueto, Ben Zobrist), resulting in the farm system becoming depleted.

The last few drafts have been a lot better than the ones Dayton Moore led when the Royals were a World Series team. MLB.com has the farm system ranked 17th among all 30 teams, citing the “pitching-heavy 2018 draft” as one of the main reasons why.

MLB Pipeline has come out with its list of the top 30 Royals prospects for 2020. Let’s compare that list to the one from last year, pointing out any changes and noting who stayed relatively static in the rankings.