Vinnie Pasquantino's contract extension a reminder of former Royals player's downfall

The contract extension Kansas City Royals first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino has deserved for so long is finally in the books. Player and club avoided a looming, potentially distasteful arbitration tussle by agreeing to a two-year deal worth at least $11 million last week.

In a not-so-small way, though, Pasquantino's handsome new contract evokes thoughts of another Kansas City first baseman who once seemed destined for the same good fortune, but never reaped it with the Royals.

Nick Pratto.

Kansas City's first choice in the 2017 amateur draft, Pratto's huge 2021 minor league season (more on that momentarily) suggested a spot at first base for the Royals in 2022 was his.

Instead, he failed to master major league pitching, faded from Kansas City's plans, and now pins his baseball future on the minor league deal and invitation to spring training he recently received from Texas. Ironically, he'll try to land a big league job near Pasquantino because the Rangers and Royals use the same Surprise, Arizona, spring complex.

And the contrast between Pratto and the highly successful Pasquantino couldn't be more stark.

Why did Nick Pratto miss with the Royals?

Answering this question requires understanding where Pratto once was — at the head of the class of candidates vying to stake a solid claim to the first base job vacated by fan favorite and future club Hall of Famer Eric Hosmer, who took the four Gold Gloves and Silver Slugger he won as a Royal to San Diego after Kansas City's disappointing 2017 season.

Pratto put himself in that position in 2021 when, in a season divided between Double-A and Triple-A, he reaffirmed his status as a prime big league prospect by slamming 36 homers, driving in 98 runs, and slashing .265/.385/.602.

That performance, exceeded in production in KC's minor league system only by MJ Melendez's incredible campaign, put his disastrous 2019 results — .191/.278/.310 with only nine home runs for Class-A Wilmington — well into the proverbial rearview mirror, and revived the promise of the 14-home run, 62-RBI, .280/.343/.443 season he had at Lexington in 2018.

Pratto appeared ready, then, to take over first base for the Royals sometime in 2022 but his recharged bat suddenly went cold at Triple-A Omaha, where he'd homered 11 times but was struggling with a .233 average, when the Royals chose teammate Vinnie Pasquantino to replace just-traded Carlos Santana at first base. Bypassing Pratto made sense. Pasquantino had 18 homers, 67 RBI, and was slashing .280/.372/.576 when KC made the move.

Pratto followed Pasquantino to the Royals just a couple of weeks later, but only because the club needed fill-ins for players whose vaccination status meant they couldn't get into Canada to play four games against the Blue Jays.

Although he collected his first big league homer in that series, KC sent him back down a few days later, but he soon returned for an extended stay. Unfortunately, his debut campaign wasn't impressive — he clubbed seven homers in 49 games, but hit only .194. He found himself demoted to Omaha with less than three weeks left in the season.

Pratto was a bit better for the Royals in 2023, but not enough to completely redeem himself. His playing time almost doubled (95 games), his average increased to .232, but he only matched the seven homers he hit the season before.

That he has played in the majors only once since then is the sad consequence of a combination of poor big league hitting, a seriously wanting minor league bat (his average fell below .200 and his OBP below .300 twice in the last three Omaha seasons), and Pasquantino's emergence as a star.

Pratto's numbers and sampling of generally subpar metrics explain much about his hard fall. They tell us how he performed, and provide some insight about the battle with his bat he's yet to win in the majors.

What they don't tell us definitively, however, is how Pratto will fare with the Rangers. That only time will tell.