The Royals’ draft picture is still a little fuzzy, but one thing is clear: Kansas City is entering the weekend with options, and plenty of them.
MLB.com’s Anne Rogers checked in on the club’s approach and spoke with scouting director Brian Bridges, who said the Royals are looking at a wide mix of players. The names tied to Kansas City include shortstop Jacob Lombard out of Gulliver Prep (Fla.) -- if he makes it that far -- left-hander Gio Rojas out of Stoneman Douglas (Fla.)
HS, outfielder Eric Booth Jr. out of Oak Grove (Fla.) HS, UC Santa Barbara right-hander Jackson Flora and Georgia Tech outfielder Drew Burress.
Another possibility is Huntington Beach (Calif.) HS left-hander/outfielder Jacob Grindlinger, a 17-year-old who reclassified for this year’s Draft and brings real two-way upside.
Grindlinger sits No. 16 on MLB Pipeline’s Top 250 Draft prospects list and is climbing as the draft gets closer.
Bridges made it sound like the Royals aren’t locked into one lane.
“There’s a good mix of high school and college,” Bridges said. “To tell you the truth, our range is pretty broad.
There’s a clear-cut four players, five players in this Draft, and then believe it or not, where we’re picking, you can go a number of different directions. So we have a pretty good balance of what we’re looking at, both high school and college.”
That tracks with the broader read on Kansas City’s board. Prep players bring more upside and more risk, while college players usually come with a higher floor and a faster path. The Royals appear willing to work both sides of that equation.
Still, there’s been some noise around the direction of the pick. Baseball America reported a less-than-clear picture of the club’s strategy, including a divide between ownership and the scouting department.
Keith Law’s latest mock draft has the Royals taking USC left-hander Mason Edwards at No. 6 overall. Law noted that Kansas City could also land on Jacob Lombard or Eric Booth Jr., but said there has been a rumor for about two months that the Royals would love to grab a college pitcher there, possibly at a discount, so they can target several higher-upside high school players later.
Law added that Edwards would come in well under slot, and pointed to scouting director Brian Bridges’ recent high school hits Josh Hammond and David Shields as part of the thinking. If it’s not Edwards, Law wrote, it could be Logan Reddemann or Liam Peterson, and he said Jackson Flora’s absolute floor would be there.
ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel also raised the same basic question: will Kansas City stay conventional at pick six or do something that shakes up the board? McDaniel said most teams have a top tier of six-plus players - Roch Cholowsky, Vahn Lackey, Grady Emerson, Jackson Flora, Jacob Lombard and Eric Booth Jr. - and that the Royals could simply take the best name left.
But he also noted Kansas City tends to have stronger opinions than many clubs, which makes it possible one of the players the Royals like less from that group could still be the one available when they pick. McDaniel also floated the possibility of a Frank Mozzicato-type move, with the Royals going well down the consensus board to save money and spread it around on high school talent later.
He said those rumors are circulating around a few picks in this range, including Kansas City’s.
The Royals’ draft uncertainty comes against a rough backdrop on the field. The Athletic’s latest power rankings dropped them to last, with Cole Ragans serving as the face of the 2026 struggles.
Bobby Witt Jr. has been very good, but that doesn’t change the bigger picture. Ragans was an All-Star in 2024 and a major reason Kansas City reached the playoffs, yet since then he has appeared in just 21 games - 13 last year and eight this year - while dealing with one injury or another.
Even when he has pitched this season, he has gone 1-4 with a 4.84 ERA.
At the end of 2024, the Royals looked like a team on the verge of a glow-up. After a disappointing 2025, this season has felt like more of the same.
There was also a bullpen move that drew attention. Eric Cerantola landed with the San Francisco Giants after the Royals designated him for assignment, and Kings of Kauffman’s Caleb Moody questioned whether Kansas City should have handled it differently.
The Royals may not have liked the results Cerantola was giving them, but Moody argued it would have made more sense to give him the same merciful treatment they gave Mitch Spence after his historically bad outing a few weeks ago and kept him an option. He wrote that the club should have stayed patient with what it had developed, and said the move doesn’t exactly shoot them in the foot, but does leave them in a precarious spot if the injury bug hits the bullpen again.
In Other News...
Royals Just Made A Move That Says Plenty About This Staff
The Royals have added another arm to the organizational mix, signing right-hander Justin Topa to a minor league contract and sending him to Triple-A Omaha. It is the kind of move that rarely turns heads on its own, but it fits the reality Kansas City is dealing with right now as it tries to keep pitching depth intact.
Injuries have already thinned the staff, and the possibility of more turnover before the deadline only makes that depth more important. Topas path has taken him through Minnesota and Seattle before this latest stop, and the Royals are giving themselves another experienced option to lean on if the pitching picture keeps shifting. [Read more 🡒]
Royals Suddenly Face A Trade Deadline Decision That Could Change Everything
With the trade deadline drawing closer, the Royals find themselves juggling more than just their place in the standings. Injuries have thinned the roster, with Kyle Isbel dealing with a setback and Cole Ragans also in the mix, while Bobby Witt Jr. and Michael Wacha gave the club at least a little national recognition with All-Star nods. It is the kind of stretch that forces a front office to weigh short-term survival against the bigger picture, especially when the team has already shown it can be pushed around by a rough patch.
The Royals Rundown Podcast dug into that pressure point, along with the recent slide and the kinds of moves that could still be on the table if Kansas City decides to get aggressive. There is also uncertainty around Maikel Garcia, which only adds to the sense that the roster is in flux at exactly the wrong time. The bigger question now is whether the Royals follow a more cautious path or take a page from a rival that chose to act boldly when the deadline arrived. [Read more 🡒]
Former Royals Arm Is Suddenly Raising A Familiar Question Again
Foster Griffins name is back in circulation for all the right reasons, and for Royals fans, it comes with a familiar kind of curiosity. The former Kansas City left-hander has put together a steadier run lately, showing the sort of consistency that can make a pitcher interesting again after a few uneven stretches, even if the control still leaves something to clean up.
Griffins recent work has also put him on the radar as a possible trade piece for Toronto, which is still weighing how aggressive it wants to be on the pitching market. He spent the last few seasons in Japan before signing a one-year deal with the Nationals, and that path has only added to the sense that he could be one of those arms who quietly re-enters the conversation when contenders start looking for depth. [Read more 🡒]