3 Royals prospects who deserve a taste of Triple-A before 2025 season ends

If Kansas City Royals fans think the regular season's end is approaching to fast, that has already become a reality for most minor-league affiliates.

The Low-A Columbia Fireflies extended their season with some postseason success, but the High-A Quad Cities River Bandits and Double-A Northwest Arkansas Naturals are not so lucky. The Naturals season wraps up on Sept. 14 on the road trip against the Frisco Rough Riders.

As the Royals have promoted some players to Double-A since the High-A season ended earlier this month, there is room for conversation if some Naturals should get the same bump to Triple-A Omaha before the Storm Chasers' season ends the following week.

It isn't a make-or-break move for any prospect, rather a reward and way to continue a player's season. Outfielder Asbel Gonzalez got that treatment to the nth degree in 2024, jumping from the Arizona Complex League following its conclusion to Double-A, where he made four appearances.

No one should skip from Double-A to say the majors after the Naturals season ends, but an extra week of baseball and suiting up for a new team can end a player's season on a higher note.

So, if we are looking at the numbers, are there any Northwest Arkansas players screaming they are promotion-worthy? At a glance, there are three strong candidates with both present production and future projection.

Note: The Royals also included pitchers Luinder Avila and Anthony Simonelli on their Arizona Fall League roster after post-September promotions from Double-A to Triple-A. It makes sense for a team to hold off on such moves if a player is already ticketed for the AFL, but as last year proved, that’s far from a hard rule.

OF Carson Roccaforte

The Naturals started 2025 with two regualrs who are now on the Royals' 26 man roster: outfielder Jac Caglianone and catcher Carter Jensen. Both are seen as building blocks for Kansas City's future, but were once just lighting up Double-A competition.

After Jensen's promotion to Omaha, there was some question regarding who would step up and fill his shoes in Arkansas. Outfielder Carson Roccaforte not only did that, but he did so emphatically.

The 55th overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, Roccaforte was a head-scratching pick at the time. But after lighting up High-A competition to start 2025, he was an undeniable promotion and has 39 games in Double-A this season.

Like Jensen's jump from Double-A to Triple-A, Roccaforte hasn't missed a beat at the plate and is actually producing better. Sure, some batted-ball luck (.425 BABIP in Double-A) may be fueling that, but a .308/.405/.491 line and 151 wRC+ are pretty hard to ignore.

Overall, Roccaforte already has a 18 home run and 43 stolen base campaign, a combination that puts him in rare air. Only five other players have done that across a whole season since 2020, including former Royals outfielder Brewer Hicklen. Even though five have a massive gap between those who turn into stars, like Jackson Chourio and Anthony Volpe, and those who don't, like Hicklen or Mike Antico.

None of this accounts for Roccaforte's best tool still being elite: his glove. Roccaforte has been an elite fielder in center field since his collegiate days at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, but it was always the bat holding back his overall propsect profile. Now that production at the plate is coming around in a big way, while he looks like a Minor League Gold Glove Award patrolling Arvest Ballpark
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LHP Hunter Owen

Left-hander Noah Cameron wasn’t on many prospect radars, weighed down by injury concerns and stuff that didn’t wow evaluators. Yet his rookie season turned into a resounding success, forcing fans to rethink what a Royals pitching prospect can look like. If you use Cameron’s 2024 Double-A campaign as a benchmark, the best comp in the system right now might be another lefty—Hunter Owen.

MLB Pipeline ranks Owen 26th on Kansas City’s top-30 prospect list after a so-so first full season with High-A Quad Cities. The former Vanderbilt arm came with some injury red flags in his final college year, but the Royals still nabbed him in the fourth round of the 2023 MLB Draft.

His first task as a pro was proving he could stay healthy for a full season—he did that in Quad Cities, then carried it forward with stronger production after moving up to Northwest Arkansas. Like Noah Cameron, Owen doesn’t rely on a dominant fastball but makes it work by spotting it up in the zone and leaning on his secondaries to induce weak contact and rack up strikeouts.

Owen has the prototypical starter’s frame at 6-foot-6, 261 pounds, very reminiscent of Royals reliever Jonathan Bowlan. Unlike Bowlan, though, Owen hasn’t had the kind of major injury that can derail a starting career.

It’s fair to assume he’d see a velocity bump if shifted to the bullpen full-time, but his above-average slider and a curveball that’s still coming along give him more than a reliever’s profile. Pair that with a 28.5% CSW%, and there’s plenty of reason to keep Owen in the rotation conversation.

Owen started on Sept. 9 for the Naturals, keeping him in line for one, two max, Triple-A starts. It isn't much, but Kansas City did something similar to close out the 2024 season with Avila. It would be advantageous to have some publicly available data on Owen after a Triple-A appearance and get a look at how the 23-year-old might factor into the 2026 Triple-A roster chase, if the Royals so choose to promote him.

1B Brett Squires

Football fans love the story of an NFL undrafted free agent, but in baseball, the odds are even steeper. Early Royals like Frank White and U.L. Washington beat those odds, but with today’s analytics and expansive scouting, it’s rare for true big-league talent to slip through 20 rounds of the draft.

In Kansas City, the most notable undrafted free agents in recent memory are pitcher Walter Pennington and catcher Logan Porter, and made it but didn’t leave a lasting mark. Sure, baseball has its outliers like Bobby Bonilla and Larry Walker, but they’re the exceptions. This isn’t to say first baseman Brett Squires is destined to join them, but the Texas native is clearly trending further than most of his undrafted peers.

Kansas City signed Squires in 2022 after two strong seasons at Oklahoma, and he wasted no time making an impression. He debuted with Columbia in 2023 and earned MiLB.com Organization All-Star honors at first base, pairing surprising speed (32 stolen bases for a corner infielder) with a .263/.381/.430 line and 128 wRC+.

The Royals bumped him to High-A in 2024, where he took another step forward, posting a 151 wRC+ over 62 games and earning Midwest League All-Star honors. The steady rise made starting 2025 in Double-A the natural next move.

Squires finally hit a production roadblock to start off the season, slashing .222/.301/.383 in 45 games through the end of May. The 36.0% strikeout rate in that span was untenable, and the stolen base production was not there anymore. But Squires has turned things back around in a big way in the second half.

His 120 wRC+ is more in line with expectations, while his walk rate came in at 11.9% to an 18.6% strikeout rate across the last 47 games. It is much more of the form that the Squires showcased in the previous two seasons, and it begs the question of whether Kansas City would consider pulling the promotional trigger early and giving Squires a taste of Triple-A.

At 25, time isn’t exactly on Squires’ side, but he’d still be the youngest first baseman on Omaha’s roster. The Storm Chasers already carry organizational depth pieces like Jordan Groshans and Nick Pratto, while veteran Bobby Dalbec has been on a tear at the plate and can handle the position for now.

Still, the farm system is thin at first base beyond the big-league level. Expecting Squires to become a future everyday contributor may be unfair, but he’s consistently proven he can handle the position and hit above average at every stop.

With his Rule 5 Draft eligibility looming this winter, Squires is set to be 26 on Opening Day and deserves a chance to show what he can do.