Kansas City Royals 2025 MLB Draft Preview

As the 2025 MLB Draft quickly approaches, the Prospects Live team wants to make your life as easy as possible. In this series of articles, I'll be providing team-by-team analysis of their recent draft trends, their available draft capital for 2025, any areas of the draft they've heavily targeted, as well as a few names in this year's class that might fit into their historically preferred archetype.

This analysis isn't sourced for the upcoming year, nor is it a guarantee the organization won't pivot from what they've done in the past. Simply put, this article aims to provide an in-depth look at teams and their recent draft classes to try and decipher trends that could help uncover players your favorite team might be targeting. It's far from a perfect science, but I've done my job if it makes things easier to follow on draft day.

Kansas City Royals

2025 Bonus Pool Value - $12,794,700 (11th)
Top 100 selections - 23, 28, 61, 71, 97

With a whopping five selections in the first one hundred picks, the Royals are positioned optimally to impact this 2025 draft in a big way. With plenty of monetary capital to move players up or down their board, the Royals are sure to be a major influence in this draft and could easily make things difficult on opposing organizations drafting in the late first round. A homerun class would be a massive get for a Royals organization that feels like it’s on the cusp of a breakthrough.

2024 Draft Overview

Landing one of the premiere college bats in the class, the Royals selected slugger Jac Caglianone ($290,000 overslot) with the sixth overall pick and have already promoted him to the majors. A two way guy in college, Caglianone has moved exclusively to hitting and possesses prodigious power from the left side. Following up with the polished high school lefty David Shields ($20,000 overslot) and right hander Drew Beam ($70,000 overslot) out of Tennessee, the Royals secured two high floor arms that have some super interesting traits. In need of some savings, the Royals took metric monster L.P. Langevin ($100,000 underslot) and funky reliever AJ Causey ($25,000 underslot) in the fourth and fifth rounds, nabbing two relief profiles I’m almost certain will be big leaguers at some point. They took a handful of college pitchers to follow, however it is of note that 14th rounder Kyle DeGroat ($200,000 overslot), a highschool hurler, got a pretty penny to sign and has looked promising to begin his career. A very exciting class for Kansas City that clearly emphasized floor while mixing in enough ceiling to entice.

2023 Draft Overview

Kansas City took a big swing on prep catcher Blake Mitchell ($1,080,000 underslot) with the eighth overall pick in 2023, ultimately using those savings immediately with their second pick Blake Wolters ($850,000 overslot), a prep righty with a high octane fastball and a frame to dream on. Following up with another money saver in Carson Roccaforte ($260,000 underslot), the Royals again took a shot on a prep right hander, this time with Hiro Wyatt ($540,000 overslot) out of Connecticut. Hunter Owen (slot) and Spencer Nivens ($25,000 overslot) were savvy picks in the middle rounds and landing Jared Dickey ($425,000 overslot) in the 11th was a really nice get for this class. I like the general plan they attacked the draft with, however it hasn’t worked out quite as well as they’d hoped for thus far. These players are still incredibly young and possess a ton of potential, but this class is certainly outshined by their stellar 2024 crop of talent. Plenty of time for that to change, but we’ll need to see some tangible adjustments sooner than later.

2022 Draft Overview

The Royals went with toolsy college outfielder Gavin Cross (slot) with their first rounder in 2022 and parlayed that into Arkansas third baseman Cayden Wallace ($120,000 overslot). A trio of college arms followed in Mason Barnett ($25,000 underslot), Steven Zobac ($28,000 underslot), and Hunter Patteson (slot), though 11th rounder David Sandlin ($250,000 overslot) has perhaps shown the most promise of the group. It should be noted that 20th round prepster Austin Charles ($280,000 overslot) did end up signing with the Royals and was considered a legitimate get for Kansas City at the time, however much like the bulk of this class, it’s been tough sledding as a professional. Again, I don’t think the general strategy was unsound, but it’s clear there was a disconnect between the developmental team and the draft team surrounding this crop of talent. Time is beginning to run out on a lot of these players, especially considering their advanced age and relative lack of performance. Perhaps a change of scenery could help out both sides and provide a fresh start to these players’ professional careers.

Early Round Demographics

The Royals seem to like tools over polish with their early picks, though it’s important to note they haven’t selected in this part of the first round in quite some time. With as drastic as the talent gap is between the top of the first and the end of the first, it wouldn’t surprise me if they were more flexible with their plan. That said, I do expect a considerable amount of money to be moved around with their first handful of picks. I like the idea of a bat in round one to push some savings into their PPI/Comp picks. They’ve targeted arms with similar selections in years past, and this class certainly has some quality depth at that position. Keep that train rolling and secure a future rotation piece or two. The dichotomy between Wolters and Shields does pique my interest as it does feel Shields is more the M.O., however the Wolters pick does show they’re open to less refined “throwers” that possess massive upside. Regardless, look for players with a strong carrying tool and a healthy amount of money moving shenanigans taking place in Kansas City this July.

Late Round Demographics

They’ve liked the idea of landing players with an overslot day three pick, and they’ve done so at least once in every class the past three years. I’d expect that pattern to continue to play out, however whether it’s a high schooler or collegiate player with some leverage is less clear. The crux of their late round strategy culminates in how much money they want to float into rounds 11-20 and how many players they want to divide that money between. I’d expect at least one to land a deal a few hundred thousand overslot, but an additional swing on a fun player wouldn’t shock me.

Names to Know

Wehiwa Aloy, Arkansas SS - This would be a bit of a slip for Aloy to fall to 23, but it’s not out of the question he gets to KC’s first pick. I could see his mix of power and defensive utility being attractive to the Royals’ top brass.

Daniel Pierce, High School SS - Pierce has been a big time riser this spring and looks like a future stud in the making. He’s got the toolsy profile Kansas City likes and could be a prep option for them if he gets to them at 23.

Andrew Fischer, Tennessee 1B - Fischer is one of the best bats in this class but comes with the designation as a first base only player moving forward. I think there’s a shot Kansas City could save a few bucks here and secure a really safe floor for their class, perhaps allowing them to take some riskier shots in subsequent rounds.