Grading the last 5 top KC Royals MLB Draft picks

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STORY UPDATE: When this story was originally published July 11, the KC Royals held a Competitive Balance Round A pick in this year's draft. They no longer have that selection after including it in their July 13 trade with Washington that is bringing reliever Hunter Harvey to Kansas City. The story has been modified accordingly.

The MLB Draft, baseball's annual amateur talent crapshoot, begins Sunday in Fort Worth where the KC Royals will roll the dice 20 times in hopes of hitting prospect paydirt.

Kansas City has the sixth overall pick, their highest position since 2020 when they went fourth. The Royals get 19 shots after that — in addition to their first-round choice, they'll pick second in each of the following 19 regular rounds.

Just who the Royals will, under the leadership of new amateur scouting director Brian Bridges, choose with their top pick is a mystery the club can't resolve until the five teams ahead of them in the order — the Guardians, Reds, Rockies, Athletics, and White Sox — announce their selections.

What isn't a mystery, though, is how the last five drafts have, in hindsight, gone for Kansas City. Let's grade them in chronological order.

2019: Bobby Witt Jr., shortstop

Because the pandemic forced cancellation of the 2020 campaign, Witt, 2019's second overall pick, played only 160 minor league games before the Royals started him at third base on Opening Day 2022. He hasn't seen the minors since.

Witt's .254/.294/.428 rookie line wasn't much to shout about, but he homered 20 times, drove in 80 runs, and stole 30 bases in 150 games. Witt was even better last season — he led the majors in triples with 11, slugged 30 homers, had 96 RBI, hit .276, and became the first Royal ever to post a 30-30 season.

Named to the American League All-Star team for the first time just a few days ago, Witt leads the majors in hits and is slashing .326/.372/.561 with 15 homers, 62 RBI, and 22 steals through Wednesday's doubleheader at St. Louis.

We'll give him an A+.

2020: Asa Lacy, pitcher

One draft suggestion: expect the unexpected. And the unexpected is just what happened to Kansas City in the first round of the 2020 draft.

The Royals had the fourth pick that year; some hoped they'd grab pitcher Asa Lacy, but that didn't seem likely considering everyone wanted Asa Lacy. But for reasons known only to them at the time, Detroit, Baltimore, and Miami all passed ... and Lacy belonged to Kansas City.

I wrote a few months after the draft that the Royals wouldn't rush Lacy to the majors; as it turns out, they've never had the chance, and his future languishes in uncertainty. Whether he ever makes it to The Show is questionable.

Why? Because injuries know Lacy all too well. He's been on and off the Injured List; a troublesome back kept him out of much of the 2022 campaign and robbed him of any game action last year.

And he won't pitch this season after undergoing elbow surgery in March.

Through it all, Lacy has made it as high as Double-A, but then only for 11 games in 2022. He's 4-7 with a 7.09 ERA in 29 minor league appearances, 19 of them starts. Expect him back next year.

It seeming unfair under his circumstances to assign Lacy a grade, we'll give him an Incomplete.

2021: Frank Mozzicato, pitcher

Mozzicato was a Kansas City draft surprise for reasons other than those that made Lacy a shock. Unlike Lacy, Mozzicato wasn't widely known in the weeks leading up to the 2021 draft; also unlike Lacy, he'd only recently graduated from high school, while Lacy was a collegian.

But Mozzicato had a wicked curveball and four straight 2021 season no-hitters to his credit; the Royals snapped him up with the seventh overall selection and dispatched him directly to Single-A Columbia where his introduction to pro ball was statistically underwhelming. He finished his first season 2-6 with a 4.30 ERA in 19 starts. And although he struck out 89 batters in 69 innings, he walked 51 for a 6.65 BB/9.

Mozzicato began 2023 back in Columbia but, after going 2-5 with a much more encouraging 12-game 3.04 ERA, was bumped to High-A Quad Cities where he went 0-4, 7.12 in nine starts. A River Bandit again this season, he's 4-6 with a 3.02 ERA through 13 starts.

Control problems still plague the lefty MLB Pipeline ranks as KC's fourth-best prospect — he's walked 39 in 62.2 innings this year (15.0 BB%) — and he's never had a radar gun-breaking fastball. Mozzicato is, to be sure, a work in progress.

We're giving him a C.

2022: Gavin Cross, outfielder

When the 2022 minor league season ended, it looked like Kansas City had gotten just what it bargained for when it chose Virginia Tech's Cross with the ninth overall pick of that season's midsummer draft. After he signed and reported to the Arizona Complex League, where he played only four post-signing games (and went 5-for-10 with a homer and a pair of doubles), the Royals promoted him to Single-A, where for Columbia he slashed an eye-catching .293/.423/.596, homered seven times, and drove in 22 runs in 26 games.

But uncertainty and misfortune visited Cross last season. Playing 94 games for Columbia and two for Quad Cities, he hit .203/.298/.378 with 12 homers, numbers attributable to a long early-season slump and a case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Fortunately, this year has been different for Cross. His bat is back — in 68 games at Northwest Arkansas, he's hitting .295 with a .367 OBP, eight home runs, 40 RBI, and 17 steals. And he's also been picked, along with Kansas City pitching prospect Ben Kdurna, to play in this Saturday's prospect-studded Futures Game.

All things considered, we'll give the prospect MLB Pipeline says is the organization's seventh-best a solid B.

2023: Blake Mitchell, catcher

Much has been written and said questioning the Royals' decision to spend their top 2023 pick on Blake Mitchell. The many who panned the draft's eighth-overall selection most often cited his status as a prep catcher as the prime source of their disenchantment. High school backstops, they argued, don't reach the major leagues often enough to justify picking them high.

But not everyone or every source found Kansas City's choice of Mitchell out of line. MLB Pipeline, just to name one, soon tabbed him the best of Kansas City's prospects. And despite hitting only .147 in his 13-game pro debut in the ACL, he posted a glittery .423 OBP to at least partially confirm his promise and potential.

Now, in his first full professional campaign, he's played 70 Single-A games and hit 11 homers and 14 doubles, collected 34 RBI, raised his average to .258, stolen 20 bases (not bad for a catcher) and, with a .398 OBP, is proving once again that he definitely knows how to get on base.

Mitchell seems certain to see Double-A Northwest Arkansas at some point this season, perhaps sooner rather than later. We'll give him a B for now; if he keeps improving, the Royals' top prospect will soon deserve an A.

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