3 KC Royals who have one last chance to make an impact in 2025

Nick Pratto's time with the Royals should be running short

Like Melendez, Pratto flashed brilliance at the plate in 2021 when, dividing the season between Northwest Arkansas and Omaha, he homered 36 times, knocked in 98 runs, and put up a .265/.385/.602 line. But also like Melendez, he has little to show for the three seasons after that.

So bad have things been that Pratto's minor league average hasn't exceeded .242 in any post-2021 campaign and his home runs dropped to 17 in 2022 and 16 in 2024 (he spent most of 2023 with the Royals). His major league stats are worse — he's hit .216 with 14 homers and 55 RBI in 144 games spread across 2022 and 2023. That he strikes out too frequently is a well-established fact.

Many considered Pratto the Royals' long-term solution at first base — a position where no one had succeeded since Eric Hosmer tested free agency after the 2017 season and left Kansas City for the San Diego Padres — but his collapse at the plate that began early in 2022 enabled Vinnie Pasquantino to vault over him and take Hosmer's old job later that season.

Now, almost three full years later, his weak bat leaves Pratto stranded in Omaha, where he's destined to start the new season and from where he'll have to rediscover his 2021 form to have any real hope of returning to, and staying in, Kansas City. The Royals can't wait much longer for him to prove himself worthy of a major league job.