The Royals used the 30th pick in the 2026 MLB draft on Taylor Rabe, a right-handed pitcher out of the University of Mississippi, betting on a big arm and a profile that already looks built for pro development.
Rabe brings the kind of fastball that gets attention right away. At 6-foot-5, he works in the upper 90s and has touched 100, pairing that velocity with the sort of strike-throwing that made him one of the more appealing college arms on the board. This season at Ole Miss, he logged 76 innings over 17 games and posted a 3.55 ERA, a 34.2% strikeout rate and a 4.9% walk rate.
That draft slot lined up well with how scouts viewed him. Rabe generally landed in the late-20s to mid-40s range on big boards, making him a fairly natural fit for Kansas City at 30.
He’s also a draft-eligible sophomore, so he’s younger than most pitchers in his class. The Royals’ savings from taking Zion Rose sixth overall would presumably help them convince Rabe to sign instead of going back to school.
There’s risk in the profile, too. Rabe has already had Tommy John surgery, though that’s become a familiar part of the modern pitching landscape.
The reports on him all point in the same direction: power stuff, real arm strength, and enough control to dream on a starter. The Athletic noted that Rabe redshirted as a freshman while recovering from Tommy John surgery, then threw only 16 innings in 2025 and allowed 22 hits while striking out eight.
But he caught fire late this season, emerging as a dominant starter for Mississippi with a 35 percent strikeout rate and a 3.4 percent walk rate through the SEC tournament. He closed the regular season with 27 strikeouts over his final two outings and 12 innings.
That report described him as sitting 96-98 with late hop, featuring a hard slider as his main secondary pitch, plus a sweeper slider that comes in a few miles per hour slower. His changeup was described as a straight change that isn’t much of a factor yet, and the overall view was that he has at least mid-rotation upside.
MLB.com’s evaluation was similarly bullish. It said Rabe’s fastball generates chases, whiffs and groundballs because of its velocity, carry, command and deception.
It also pointed to improvement from both his upper-80s cutter and mid-80s slider, especially during a Southeastern Conference tournament start against Alabama, when he struck out 13 in six shutout innings. The report also highlighted his command, noting that he issued just one unintentional walk to 79 batters faced a year ago before posting a 5 percent walk rate and ranking fourth in NCAA Division I with a 7.0 K/BB ratio this spring.
The overall conclusion: he could become a mid-rotation starter.
FanGraphs framed him as an athletic, strong pitcher with good body control and a short arm swing. It described him as having two fastballs, a four-seamer that gets into the upper 90s and a sinker with late, short sink, while his breaking balls remain a work in progress.
The mid-80s slider was labeled the nastiest and furthest along of the group, and he also flashes an above-average changeup with fade and sink. The biggest question in that view is whether he can maintain his arm strength over a long season, especially as the secondaries develop.
Even so, the upside was clear: a mid-rotation starter if the Royals can keep the velocity and sharpen the details.
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