Kansas City Royals: Newly drafted prospects may be fast tracked

The Kansas City Royals selected six players in the 2020 MLB Draft who might make an appearance in the big leagues sooner rather than later.

For a small market team like the Kansas City Royals, making sure they get the most value out of their selections is crucial. They can’t afford to throw big bucks at the top free agents on the market, but instead have to rely on their homegrown talent to get to the big leagues and help the team win.

The consensus from MLB pundits is that the Royals had themselves a nice draft on Wednesday and Thursday. Here are the six prospects drafted by the boys in blue:

• Round 1, Pick 4: Asa Lacy, LHP (Texas A&M)
• Round 1, Pick 32: Nick Loftin, SS (Baylor)
• Round 2, Pick 41: Ben Hernandez, RHP (De La Salle Institute)
• Round 3, Pick 76: Tyler Gentry, OF (Alabama)
• Round 4, Pick 105: Christian Chamberlain, LHP (Oregon State)
• Round 5, Pick 135: Will Klein, RHP (Eastern Illinois)

Five of the six selections were collegiate players and four of the six were pitchers, showing that Dayton Moore is continuing to zero in on pitching, especially college pitchers. The good news about adding a lot of collegiate talent is that it normally speeds up the process of when these prospects should be getting to the major leagues while high school prospects have to spend a few more years in the minors.

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Moore also made it pretty clear that he wants these players contributing in the majors as soon as possible and that could be the case with a lot of these guys.

Ben Hernandez was the only high school player drafted by the Royals and as a result, he’s – in all likelihood – going to take the longest amount of time to get to the big leagues. Fans shouldn’t expect to see him anytime soon, but 2024 is probably a good estimated time of arrival to the K. That should hopefully be during a time when the Royals are winning big games and contending for the postseason.

The rest of these drafted players could honestly make it to the major leagues as early as 2022 with Asa Lacy obviously being the one to keep an eye on. If this season had gone on as planned, the Royals could have potentially called him up in September, but that’s probably not going to happen now due to the COVID-19 pandemic shortening the regular season.

While 2022 might be too optimistic, 2023 could be a year in which the other four players make their debuts if they haven’t already.

We obviously don’t know how these prospects will perform in the minors or what players will be doing for the Royals in the majors (therefore potentially blocking any of these guys from contributing), but with the emphasis on collegiate talent, the Royals could be hoping to get their 2020 draft picks into the big leagues sooner rather than later.