MLB Draft 2021: 3 straight days of KC Royals surprises

Two KC Royals, Salvador Perez and Whit Merrifield, played in the All-Star Game Tuesday night. Perez put on a show of power in the Home Run Derby the evening before.

But if those baseball moments didn’t give Kansas City fans at least a brief respite from this dismal season, the Royals’ efforts to land talent in the 2021 amateur draft probably did. From Sunday evening until mid-afternoon Tuesday, the club dished up three days of major and minor surprises.

The Royals rattled the baseball world with a shocking first round pick Sunday, continued surprising Monday with the type of players they selected, then reversed field Tuesday.

When all was said and done, what did Kansas City do?

Day 1: The KC Royals shake up the 2021 draft with their first selection.

Even casual followers of this year’s overstock of mock drafts knew who Kansas City’s first round pick would be. All Vanderbilt pitcher Kumar Rocker, whose name appeared next to “Kansas City” in almost every reputable projection, had to do to become a Royal was sit back and wait for KC to choose him.

And he was available when the time came, undrafted by the first six clubs to pick and destined for Kansas City. But the Royals had another plan, one even a pitcher as fine as Rocker couldn’t change. Some people will say they went rogue.

The club spent its enviably high seventh-overall pick on Frank Mozzicato, a barely-18 lanky lefthander just out of high school who’d manage to avoid a lot of radar. The selection sent fans and baseball media scrambling for the Internet to find out just who Mozzicato might be.

They discovered an excellent pitcher who may eventually vindicate the Royals, a team not known for much recent success with high school hurlers. He threw four straight no-hitters this season, went 9-0 with an 0.16 ERA, and averaged just under 22 strikeouts per nine innings. He has a mesmerizing curveball, an improving fastball which should increase in velocity as he matures, and a changeup.

And Mozzicato already has a new fan:

Few knew who Frank Mozzicato was before Sunday night. Whether his becomes a household name remains to be seen.

Day 2: The KC Royals didn’t shy away from high-schoolers on the second day.

Calling some draftees “high school players” is a useful inaccuracy—none are high school students, but the label serves the limited purpose of differentiating those who’ve played college ball from those who haven’t, an important distinction for clubs, like Kansas City, which seem to prefer the former to the latter. Although that preference doesn’t invariably dictate picks—take Bobby Witt Jr. for example—it makes sense given collegians’ experience advantage.

That he’s a “high-schooler” added to the Royal surprise Frank Mozzicato turned out to be, especially given KC’s recent struggles with high school draft picks. But not long after Draft Day 2 began, the Royals surprised by choosing more high school pitchers.

The Royals used their second round pick on another prep pitcher and didn’t venture far from home to get him, selecting Ben Kudrna from Blue Valley High School in nearby Overland Park, Kansas. Two rounds later, they turned to high-schoolers again and chose Red Bank (New Jersey) Catholic High righthander Shane Panzini. Both boasted Mozzicato-like 2021 records: Kudrna was 9-1, 0.99 and fanned almost 16 batters every nine innings, and Panzini went 9-0, 0.91 with an SO9 of almost 17.

Pitchers weren’t Kansas City’s only prep target. The Royals chose Park Hill High (Kansas City) catcher and decent hitter Carter Jensen in the third round. Jensen had already committed to LSU, but sounds like a young man headed instead to the Royals.

KC went farther away for their final high school selection of the day by choosing shortstop Ryan Cepero of Puerto Rico’s Carlos Beltran Baseball Academy in the eighth round.

Kansas City’s other Day 2 picks included community college infielder Dayton Dooney (Central Arizona College) in the sixth round; collegiate pitchers Peyton Wilson (Alabama) with their Competitive Balance-B pick, Eric Cerantola (Mississippi State) in the fifth, Noah Cameron (Central Arkansas) in the seventh, and Shane Connelly (Virginia Tech) in the 10th; and college outfielder Parker Bates (Louisiana Tech) in the ninth.

Kings of Kauffman’s Batoul Hammoud has a more comprehensive, and excellent, look at all the KC Royals’ Day 2 picks right here.