Kansas City Royals: 2018 draft picks give hope for future

The Kansas City Royals went a different route in last year’s MLB Draft, drafting collegiate pitchers with their first five picks. The first four picks are giving fans a lot to look forward to.

Last year, the Kansas City Royals had several first round selections due to losing so many free agents the prior offseason. They used those extra draft picks on five total college pitchers, four coming in the first round.

Here are the pitchers that the Royals took with their first four selections:

• Brady Singer – 17th overall (Florida)
• Jackson Kowar – 33rd overall (Florida)
• Daniel Lynch – 34th overall (Virginia)
• Kris Bubic – 40th overall (Stanford)

The fifth pick in the 2018 MLB Draft was Jonathan Bowlan out of Memphis, who has a 3.11 ERA in 46.1 innings pitched for Lexington. So yes, the Memphis product is doing just fine, but this article is mainly fixating on the aforementioned guys who, up until Monday evening, were all pitching in the Blue Rocks’ rotation.

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Royals fans were fortunate to see both Brady Singer and Jackson Kowar pitch for Florida in the College World Series last year. Both looked solid during that time and Kowar did well in 2018 in the Royals minor league system.

Singer didn’t pitch for the Royals last year, but he’s been REALLY good during his first pro season. He’s coming off an absolute gem of a performance on Monday in which he went six scoreless innings while only surrendering three hits. His time in Wilmington has been so good that he was promoted to Double-A Northwest Arkansas on Monday evening. More on that later.

As the tweet below indicates, Singer went 20 straight scoreless innings for Wilmington. He’s not the only one impressing in the minor leagues though, as Kowar, Lynch, and recently promoted Bubic are all doing well.

Kowar has a 3.31 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, and a 3-3 record in 49 innings pitched. Lynch is also wheeling and dealing, posting a 3.00 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, and 4-2 record in 54 innings.

Bubic, who recently was bumped up to Wilmington, earned the promotion from Lexington after throwing 47.2 innings with a 2.09 ERA and 0.88 WHIP. He had nine starts with the Legends before his move to Wilmington and his first start for the Blue Rocks resulted in him throwing five innings and allowing two runs.

Bubic joining Wilmington meant that the Royals’ first four picks from last year’s draft were all together in the Blue Rocks rotation. That lasted for all but two days (if that), as Singer graduated to Double-A ball after his tremendous outing on Memorial Day.

The first three draft picks had been in Wilmington together all season long and Lynch noted on the Blue Rocks’ website that the three share an apartment and it was good to see them becoming buddies. Now it looks like Singer’s spot in that apartment could go to Bubic (only speculating that, of course) and hopefully he becomes fast friends with his teammates.

Even with Singer off to Northwest Arkansas, there’s a lot to like about these four. Singer, Kowar, and Lynch are all 22 years old and Bubic is 21. That means that, assuming they all pan out, they’ll be pitching together in the Royals rotation for a long time.

Perhaps the strategy of drafting college pitchers will end up paying dividends for the Kansas City Royals, who haven’t done a great job at drafting over the last decade. They’ll need to right that ship if they want to be contending again in the next two or three years and while it’s still too early to tell with this group, things look to be off to a nice start.

If all goes according to plan, the Royals rotation during those contention years will look the same as the Wilmington Blue Rocks rotation did for two days: Brady Singer, Jackson Kowar, Daniel Lynch, and Kris Bubic.

It’s pretty fun to think about, isn’t it, Royals fans?