The 2025 minor league season is right around the corner, and for Kansas City Royals’ prospect Frank Mozzicato, it may prove to be his most crucial season yet. The left-handed Mozzicato was selected by the Royals seventh overall in the 2021 Amateur Draft. Since then, he’s made his way to High-A with a chance to reach Double-A as a 21-year-old this coming season. Although it will be Mozzicato’s age-22 season, he won’t turn 22 until June.

Mozzicato put together a solid season a year ago, posting near-career marks in ERA, average against, and walk rate. Only a 12-start sample at Low-A in 2023 was better. Mozzicato accomplished his 2024 marks over 22 starts and more than 100 innings of work. Still, despite the success, there were concerning underlying metrics as well. Chief among them, the lefty saw a serious dip in strikeout rate. His 21.3% was by far a career-worst at any level. His 4.72 FIP pointed to sizeable good luck alongside more mediocre marks, including a 26.8% CSW%, 80.4% zone contact rate, and 28.8% Whiff rate.

As always, Mozzicato remains a polarizing figure in the Royals’ farm system. Many prospect pundits have fallen out on Mozzicato all together. Even at Farm to Fountains, he fell outside of our Top 30 prospects following 2024 due to many of the underlying concerns listed above. Beyond the metrics, Mozzicato’s stuff simply needed a boost to truly remain a high-ceiling prospect. The fastball, despite great shape and spin, remained 88-90mph for much of 2024. It topped out at 92. Adding a slider was a good step, as was improving his changeup, but the fastball desperately needs more gas to raise the ceiling. That ceiling drew the Royals to Mozzicato in 2021, and it has slowly dissipated ever since.

Until now. Mozzicato threw his first intrasquad outing of the spring on Saturday, and things were different. Mozzicato’s fastball, according to reports, sat 92-93 mph, topping out at 95. That new life is massive. The spin and shape of Mozzicato’s fastball have always been there, he just needed another bit of power behind it to truly make it highly effective. If Saturday was any indication, he is finally starting to show notable progress in that regard.

Last off-season, the Royals worked with their young arm using NewtForce Mounds.

The work last off-season didn’t immediately pan off into added velocity, but now, a full year later, it seems that Mozzicato has finally found a breakthrough in his quest to add more heat behind his fastball. It will be a pivotal season for Mozzicato, drafted a full round ahead of fellow Royals top prospect, Ben Kudrna. The prep duo spent much of their early professional careers together until last season. Kudrna made his way to Double-A by midseason, while Mozzicato finished the full season with High-A Quad Cities. If Mozzicato can maintain the added velocity into the regular season and maintain it to any degree, he could quickly find his way up the prospect ladder once again.

Although the Double-A season won’t kick off until April 4, there’s a good chance we will get a look at Mozzicato sooner than that. He’s spending time in Arizona on the backfields in intrasquad games but will be on the team’s Spring Breakout roster. That March 14 matchup for Mozzicato and the rest of the Royals’ top prospects will hopefully give us a brief glimpse at the new life behind Mozzicato’s fastball that means so much for his pivotal 2025 season ahead.