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No rest for 2 KC Royals and a half-dozen prospects

Kansas City is sending eight players to the Arizona Fall League.

By Mike Gillespie |
/ Kyle Rivas/GettyImages
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This distressing season will end a week from Sunday when the KC Royals either beat or lose to the Yankees at Kauffman Stadium. Not until March 28, when they host Minnesota for the 2024 season opener, will the Royals play another regular season game.

But while most of the Royals will depart Kansas City for their winter homes soon after the club's Oct. 1 season finale is in the books, two will have baseball left to play. Along with six minor league prospects who haven't yet seen the majors, Nick Loftin and Ángel Zerpa will head for the Arizona Fall League, where play begins Oct. 2. Joining Loftin and Zerpa with the Surprise Saguaros, a team comprised of players from the Toronto, Milwaukee, Texas, Cincinnati and Kansas City organizations, will be KC prospects Gavin Cross, Peyton Wilson, Rylan Kaufman, Beck Way, Jacob Wallace and Eric Cerantola.

Designed to provide top prospects with high-level, post-regular season competition, the AFL campaign will last from the first Monday in October until early November.

Two KC Royals major leaguers lead the organization's Fall League contingent

Loftin and Zerpa are, of course, the highest profile players the Royals are sending to Surprise. Loftin, whose versatility may come to rival former Royal Whit Merrifield's, has appeared at four positions and is slashing .372/.426/.535 in 13 games since being called to the majors for the first time Sept. 1. Six of his 16 hits have been for extra bases and he's driven in eight runs. Zerpa is 3-3 with a 4.82 ERA with the Royals after throttling Cleveland for over five innings Wednesday.

Who else is Kansas City sending to Arizona? Let's find out...

One of their top prospects will be returning to action for the KC Royals

Gavin Cross made his presence known soon after Kansas City picked him in the first round of the 2022 amateur draft. Stopping first in the Arizona Complex League after he signed, the talented outfielder banged out five hits, including a homer and two doubles, and knocked in three runs in 10 at-bats before moving up to Single-A Columbia, where he homered seven times, drove in 22 runs, and slashed .293/.423/.596 in 22 games.

Unfortunately, he had no such luck this season. In 94 games at High-A Quad Cities abd another two at Double-A Northwest Arkansas, he hit just .203 with 12 home runs and ended the campaign on the Injured List, where an illness forced him in mid-August. Selecting him for the AFL strongly suggests the Royals believe Cross, who was the organization's No. 1 MLB Pipeline prospect until Blake Mitchell recently displaced him, is ready to play again.

Infielder Peyton Wilson is the only other non-pitcher who'll accompany Loftin, Zerpa, and Cross to Arizona. Rated the organization's 26th best prospect by Pipeline, Wilson spent this, his third professional season, at Northwest Arkansas and had a .286 average, and .366 OBP, and stole 19 bases in 26 attempts.

Who else is headed for fall play?

Besides Ángel Zerpa, the KC Royals will have four pitchers working in the AFL

Kansas City is sending three righthanded hurlers, Beck Way, Jacob Wallace and Eric Cerantola, and a lefty, Ryan Kaufman, to Arizona.

An excellent fall will benefit Way, who may want to simply forget his 2023 season. Way, originally a Yankee after New York chose him in the fourth round of the 2020 draft, was 2-9 with a 6.67 ERA in 28 appearances (17 starts) at Northwest Arkansas, and is 14-20, 4.73 over three minor league campaigns. How the Royals choose to use him in the AFL — as a starter, reliever, or both — will be interesting.

Wallace's first season in the KC organization (he played previously in the Colorado and Boston systems) wasn't stellar. Utilized exclusively as a reliever, he went 1-5 with a 4.20 ERA in 49 games for Northwest Arkansas; that he walked 40 batters in 49.1 innings evidences his season-long struggle with control, but he also had a nice 10.40 K/9 and boasts a four-year minor league 12.19 K/9.

Like Wallace, Cerantola fought his control this season, issuing 46 walks in 76.1 innings (5.42 BB/9), and was 3-4 with a 3.66 ERA across 28 relief appearances and four starts during a campaign split between High-A and Double-A. But also like Wallace, the righty fanned plenty of hitters — 99 in those 76.1 innings, to be precise.

Kaufman is, other than Zerpa, the only lefty the Royals chose for this year's AFL work. He spent much of this season on the Injured List and, dividing time between the Arizona Complex League, High-A and Double-A, went 0-3 with a 4.97 ERA in 13 games (eight starts).

Check back with Kings of Kauffman for updates as the AFL campaign progresses.

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