3 Double-A farmhands who might be forcing Royals’ hand for promotions

The Kansas City Royals' farm system conversation in 2026 starts and ends in the same familiar places: Carter Jensen, Blake Mitchell, Kendry Chourio, David Shields. Those are the names on the Top 100 lists, the names on the prospect podcasts, the names the organization is building around. That conversation is warranted.

It also leaves out what is happening 400 miles south of Kauffman Stadium in Springdale, Arkansas, where the Double-A Northwest Arkansas Naturals are 15-11 and three players who were not supposed to be making noise in May are making quite a bit of it. None of them are on any Top 30 list. Two of them were draft afterthoughts. One of them had a 7.41 ERA last year.

But the players who make it to The Show do not let their past define them. They prove their future instead. Could these three take that next step?

Sam Kulasingam is developing into the type of infielder the Royals value

Utilityman Sam Kulasingam was a two-time Mountain West Player of the Year at Air Force who hit .426 as a junior with 50 walks and 24 strikeouts, an astounding 2.08 BB/K ratio that made scouts take notice and then apparently forget about him. The Toronto Blue Jays drafted him in the 17th round in 2023. He went back to school. Then the Royals took him in the 13th round in 2024. He moved quickly through the system, and now he is in his first Double-A season doing something that very few players at any level do.

He is walking exactly as often as he strikes out. His BB/K ratio through the early weeks of 2026 is a perfect 1.00, with an 18.9% walk rate matched precisely by an 18.9% strikeout rate. That kind of zone discipline does not appear out of nowhere. It is the same profile he carried at Air Force, the same one that made evaluators curious enough to draft him twice, and it has translated directly to the Texas League, where he is hitting .313 with a .447 on-base percentage and a 145 wRC+.

The asterisk on it all is the .400 BABIP, which is among the highest in the Texas League and will not stay there. When it comes down, the batting average will follow. But a player who walks 18.9% of the time does not need a .400 BABIP to be useful. The OBP will remain elite even with regression. His 6.7 speed score adds another dimension, putting him on pace to exceed his career-high 32 stolen bases from 2023.

Kulasingam is also a high-character player with multi-position versatility, traits the present Royals regime values deeply. The power, with a .143 ISO, is the real ceiling question. If it does not develop, he profiles as a high-OBP utility type rather than an everyday player. That is still a useful profile, and it may be enough to earn a look in Omaha before summer's end.

Lefty Caden Monke has taken significant strides of improvement in 2026

A year ago, left-handed pitcher Caden Monke was one of the most frustrating arms in the Royals system. He posted a 7.41 ERA across 51 innings in Double-A with an 18.0% walk rate, a number that essentially defines a pitcher who cannot get out of his own way. The swing-and-miss was always there, and his career strikeout-per-nine rates have been consistently in the double digits. The problem was that the walks followed him everywhere, and at Northwest Arkansas the margin for error is small enough that 8.12 BB/9 fueled the disaster.

The 2026 version of Monke has not solved the walk problem. A 6.61 BB/9 is still elevated and will need to keep trending down for the results to hold. But here is what has changed: he has allowed zero home runs in 16.1 innings, his strikeout rate has climbed to 37.1%, and the combination of swing-and-miss and homer suppression is producing a 3.31 ERA despite the walks.

On May 3 against Springfield, he entered in the seventh inning with the bases loaded and recorded three consecutive outs without allowing a run, picking up his third win of the season in the process. That is not a performance you expect from the pitcher who posted a 7.41 ERA in 2025.

The 4.37 FIP running significantly above the ERA is the honest warning sign. Monke is being helped by a .241 BABIP and a 68.2% strand rate that will not stay at those levels. The underlying performance is not as dominant as the ERA suggests. But the strikeout rate is real, and zero home runs allowed in 16.1 innings tells you something about how he is attacking hitters.

If the strikeout-to-walk ratio keeps trending in the right direction, the results will follow. At 26 years old, this may be Monke's best and last real shot at a Triple-A promotion. The first five weeks suggest he deserves one. And it's not as if the Storm Chasers couldn't use an arm like him, given the Royals' dwindling pitching depth.

First baseman Brett Squires' power profile is flying under the radar

Nobody drafted Brett Squires. He came out of Oklahoma as an undrafted free agent and signed with the Royals because someone in the organization saw something the rest of the industry had passed on. He hit .309 with a 151 wRC+ at High-A Quad Cities in 2024. He moved to Double-A in 2025 and posted a 105 wRC+ with 10 home runs and 18 stolen bases, solid enough to return, not spectacular enough to move the needle on anyone's prospect list.

The 2026 version of Squires is doing something more interesting. His .244 ISO is among the better power numbers in the Texas League, and a .538 slugging percentage from a first baseman who went undrafted out of college is not a small thing. His 139 wRC+ sits just six points below Kulasingam's despite a vastly different profile. Squires swings more, walks less, and does his damage in larger doses. His 23.7% strikeout rate is the number skeptics will point to, and fairly so, but corner infielders with real power carry higher strikeout rates at every level of professional baseball. The contact he makes tends to travel.

The Royals feel fairly set at first base in 2026 with Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez handling the primary duties, and Squires knows it. That means the most realistic outcome for a strong season may not be a call-up but a deadline trade, a contender in need of corner infield depth acquiring a first baseman with a .538 slugging percentage and three stolen bases in a single game against Corpus Christi. That would be a reasonable outcome for both sides. In the meantime, Squires keeps hitting, keeps running, and keeps making the case that someone should have drafted him when they had the chance.

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