Royals fans have new arm to watch as 2025 draftee shines in dominant Low-A debut

One of the most unique and frustrating aspects of baseball is what separates one organization from another. Whether it be the payroll differences that still exist in 2026 or how much a team invests in technology and when, there are dozens of ways teams can differentiate themselves and try to gain an edge, whether that edge shows up in profit for the owner or in the win-loss column.

I believe drafting and developing pitchers is one of the clearest paths to consistent success, whether that means building out a sustainable pitching staff or creating a chest of trade assets for when it is time to go all in.

Many of those players do not pan out, and others remain wait-and-see stories for years, but the Kansas City Royals had one such player begin his professional career on the right note.

Royals 2025 ninth-rounder Shane Van Dam made his professional debut with the Low-A Columbia Fireflies on Saturday night, and it was hard to ask for a much better first impression.

Can Shane Van Dam turn his stellar debut into something more in 2026?

The former NC State pitcher tossed three scoreless innings, allowing only two hits while walking nobody and striking out three.

Van Dam was the second Fireflies pitcher to go at least three innings on Saturday, after fellow righty Hiro Wyatt opened the game with 3.1 innings of his own.

Van Dam was much more efficient in getting his nine outs, though, needing only 37 pitches to do it. He stayed around the zone plenty, with 24 of those pitches landing for strikes. That was the biggest red flag in his profile heading into the 2025 MLB Draft, as he was hardly a strike-throwing savant during his college career.

Van Dam also suffered a torn UCL in May 2024, and the resulting surgery and recovery limited him to only eight innings in 2025.

Van Dam was largely a two-pitch pitcher in college, relying heavily on his fastball and sweeping slider. But FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen noted a “plus curveball” when Van Dam pitched in the Arizona Instructional League late last summer.

That was the same look where the FanGraphs prospect evaluator called Van Dam the “most impressive arm” on a “loaded” Royals roster.

Van Dam even got a look against rehabbing former All-Star Xander Bogaerts in the footage Longenhagen referenced.

Baseball America said the New Jersey native is likely a reliever in professional baseball, but it appears Kansas City is giving him a run as a starter, or at least a starter’s workload. Van Dam is still older than much of his competition in Low-A, so perhaps his experience helped smooth over some of the shortcomings he still has.

But Van Dam represents something the Royals organization desperately needs and something fans can hopefully buy into: turning late-round draft picks into notable prospects and, eventually, useful big-league players.

Van Dam still has thousands of pitches ahead of him before he reaches that latter goal, but first impressions matter, and his in Columbia was a strong one.