Kansas City Royals: Brady Singer considered best Royals prospect

For many years, the Kansas City Royals had one of the best farm systems in all of baseball. Being terrible for decades will often do that to a franchise. The farm system isn’t as good now, but Brady Singer tops the Royals prospect list.

Once the Kansas City Royals started to compete for World Series, their farm system took a major hit. They traded big prospects to get big players and that has shown over the last few years.

The only good part about being bad is that it means the Royals can get decent prospects for their minor league system. That was the case last season and it’ll likely be the case again this summer when the trade deadline begins for the contending teams needing a few weapons.

MLB.com released each organization’s top 30 prospects and Brady Singer, the Royals’ first round pick from a year ago, tops the list. Singer was pitching for Florida at the time and Royals fans got to watch him in the College World Series, which was pretty cool.

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Not only that, but the Royals also drafted Jackson Kowar in the first round, another pitcher out of Florida who also started a few games in the College World Series. Kowar is seventh on the prospect list and actually threw in some games for the Lexington Legends last season, posting a 3.42 ERA in nine starts.

It’s interesting that Singer is listed as the best prospect, considering he has yet to throw a pitch in the minors for the Royals. He was shut down after the College World Series last year and did not don a minor league uniform at all in 2018. Still, he’s fresh out of college and that means he’ll be ready for a call-up sooner than a lot of guys on this list due to his age.

Remember in 2014 when Brandon Finnegan got called up and contributed heavily throughout the postseason? That’s because Finnegan was a college pitcher and not a high school pitcher when the Royals drafted him. Collegiate players are definitely able to get called up sooner due to being more fine-tuned. Hopefully that happens with Singer.

Here are the top five Royals prospects, according to Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com:

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1. Brady Singer
2. Khalil Lee
3. MJ Melendez
4. Daniel Lynch
5. Nick Pratto

All five of these prospects were drafted by the Royals in the last three years, with the most recent being Singer and Daniel Lynch. Lynch was a late first round pick by the Royals out of Virginia and looked solid in the minors last year, posting an ERA of 1.58 in 12 starts between Lexington and Burlington.

Khalil Lee was a third round pick in 2016 and is only 20 years old. He spent most of his 2018 season in Wilmington, where he hit .270 with four home runs and 41 RBI in 301 plate appearances. Lee is an outfielder, who spent a good chunk of 2018 in center field.

MJ Melendez is another young guy, currently just 20 years old. The Royals drafted him in the second round in the 2017 MLB Draft and Melendez, assuming he continues to develop properly, will more than likely be the Royals catcher once Salvador Perez calls it a career.

Melendez hit .251 with 19 home runs and 73 RBI in 472 plate appearances for Lexington last season. He’s still a young player, but the hope is that he can start contributing to the major leagues once Perez’s career is done.

Nick Pratto was the Royals’ first round pick in 2017 and at the time, many thought the pick was made to eventually replace Eric Hosmer. Pratto is very Hosmer like for many reasons, but the main one is that he’s also a first baseman.

Pratto is 20 years old and hit .280 with 14 home runs and 62 RBI for the Legends last season. He’s definitely one of the more well-known prospects, which makes sense considering he was a first round pick, and the hope is that he’ll be ready for his MLB call-up by the 2020 season, though that might even too soon for the first rounder.

While the Kansas City Royals used to have one of the best farm systems in baseball, winning comes at a price. That price for the Royals was having to trade those talented prospects, but in the end, it got the team a World Series, so we’d all do it again in a heartbeat.

These five players are now the best in the minors for the Royals and three of them are 20 years of age. That should get fans excited for the next wave of talent to roll through Kansas City.