An In-Depth Look at the R By John K
The Kansas City Royals are in a vastly different place than they were when the Columbia Fireflies became affiliated with the team in 2020. The Royals were ready to lose 100 games as the Fireflies took the field for the first time as a Royals’ affiliate, and the farm was very top- heavy. The Royals farm system was going to be ranked in the bottom five in baseball while the team was struggling on the field night-after- night.
Fast forward to 2024. Kansas City is battling for a wild card spot and sits more than 10 games over .500 with just over 50 games left in the season. Meanwhile, the Royals farm has a top-five winning percentage in all of baseball among their full-season teams. That makes attacking the draft a little easier than it has been in the past for J.J. Piccolo, Mitch Maier and the advanced scouts and executives of the Kansas City Royals office. The Royals strength top-to-bottom in the system is pitching and this year they drafted 15 pitchers and a two-way player. In other words, with Salvador Perez signed for a few more years, Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino and Michael Massey all under team control for awhile, the club wanted to see if they could bolster pitching. As the adage goes, you can never have too much pitching available. Look at the reigning World Series Champion Texas Rangers, who are welcoming a few starters off the injured list and they used that surplus to acquire a host of good players at the trade deadline this season. The first pick seemed to be a great case of: it doesn’t matter what the position is, just draft the best player available near the top of the draft. Kansas City selected Jack Caglianone with the sixth selection in the 2024 draft. MLB Pipeline ranked Caglianone as the third-best prospect in this draft. Caglianone is a two-way player from Florida who stands in at 6’5” and displayed some of the best power from the left-hand side in this draft class. It also helps that he can pump a fastball in the zone in the mid-upper 90s. It remains to be seen how the Royals will use Caglianone through his Minor League career, but some have called him the next Shohei Ohtani and he may head to Columbia for a tune-up before the end of the season. He has already started playing in Arizona. Kansas City’s second selection was David Shields. Shields is a stud high school arm, which has been the route Kansas City has walked with their second- round pick in three-consecutive draft classes. They knabbed Ben Kudrna in 2022, Blake Wolters in 2023 and now Shields in 2024. They’ve had success with the last two high school draftees, but even now, Shields feels like a different pitcher. He’s significantly younger than the other pitchers mentioned. He won’t turn 19 until September 9, 2025. He currently throws in the mid-90s and offers a plus slider. It may be awhile before Shields reaches Columbia, but
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