The Kansas City Royals are having a fantastic 2024 season in more ways than one. Most prominently, the team is currently in the thick of the division race, currently a game and a half back from first place. Minor league affiliates are winning as well, including the first-place Omaha Storm Chasers. Quad Cities has the best pitching staff in the entire High-A ranks. Outside of the standings, some of the team’s top prospects have shown early signs of a step forward this season.
Among those prospects are the 2022 duo of Gavin Cross and Cayden Wallace at Double-A Northwest Arkansas. Both players saw varying levels of success last season, but in all came away as a disappointment to some degree. Wallace had a solid 117 wRC+ with the River Bandits last season, but that fell to just 75 after a mid-season promotion to Northwest Arkansas. Cross, of course, struggled with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and had a miserable season across the board. In 2024, that’s changed. Cross is in the midst of a scorching month of May. He posted a 127 wRC+ so far at Double-A this season. Wallace isn’t too far behind him at 115. With both players getting back on track, what’s the path forward this season?
Logjams ahead of them make the path forward cloudy for Royals prospects
To know what the path forward looks like for Cross and Wallace, it’s first important to look at the current situation in Kansas City. That situation pertains much more to Cross, as the Royals’ outfield has been among the worst in major league baseball this season. At third base, they’re a bit more set with Maikel Garcia manning the hot corner. Despite the team’s shortcomings on offense, the roster has been rather steady to this point. Offseason additions of Hunter Renfroe and Garrett Hampson aimed to add veteran leadership and depth to the big league roster.
Both players have struggled greatly to start the season, as have Adam Frazier and Michael Massey to some degree. Despite the holes in the lineup, the Royals have yet to make the seemingly obvious move. Looking to Omaha, outfielder Drew Waters and infielders CJ Alexander, Devin Mann, and Nick Loftin have all been extremely hot at the plate. Waters has slashed .317/.393/.545 thus far in 33 games. The International League is known as an offensive-friendly environment, but the results are promising regardless. Despite the success, moves have yet to come.
There’s still time, so it’s not too surprising that the Royals haven’t been quick to make a change after less than two months of big-league action. However, the rope has to be getting shorter as the season progresses. It’s unlikely that Renfroe or Frazier would find themselves out of the organization. Both are veteran players with enough owed on their contracts that letting them loose wouldn’t make a lot of sense. Both players would have to agree to an option to the minor leagues, taking that out of the cards as well. Where more flexibility lies is with Garrett Hampson and the team’s other corner outfielders.
Both MJ Melendez and Nelson Velázquez have options remaining. Velázquez has been turning things on at the plate of late but offers less defensive value than Melendez. Hampson signed a one-year, $2 million contract this offseason and the low dollar amount makes letting him go a bit more plausible. Swapping Melendez or Velázquez for Waters seems like the current obvious move. Alongside that, swapping Hampson for Nick Loftin — who provides nearly the same amount of defensive versatility, with less speed — seems obvious as well. Until the Royals make some moves, the logjam for some key prospects will remain.
The logjam at the top of the farm system will have to go to continue development in the system
Pivoting back to Gavin Cross now, the seemingly obvious moves at the big-league level are impactful to the team’s prospects as much as they are to the team’s winning chances. Cross’s resurgence has been a welcome sign and if it continues much longer, he will be forcing a promotion to Triple-A. Only, there’s no space in Triple-A. The current Omaha outfield is patrolled by Tyler Gentry, Drew Waters, Nate Eaton, and John Rave. Even a swap of Velázquez for Waters would leave no place for Cross in the Storm Chasers’ outfield.
The same applies to Cayden Wallace. Omaha has employed a mixture of CJ Alexander, Nick Loftin, and Devin Mann at third base this season. Should Wallace continue to succeed and start to force the issue, there’s simply nowhere for him to currently play in Omaha. Designating Garrett Hampson for assignment would open the door for Nick Loftin, thus opening a place for Cayden Wallace to play more regularly in Triple-A. The time is coming for the Royals to make some decisions at the big league level, not just because it makes sense, but because the farm system needs it.
Beyond Cross and Wallace, Peyton Wilson has been back at Double-A all season. That’s despite his 108 wRC+ at the level in 2023. He’s struggled to a degree this season, slashing .200/.281/.408. However, he’s struggled through a .238 BABIP despite a career-high .200 ISO. Wilson, like the others, has a cloudy path forward with Loftin, Mann, and Ryan Fitzgerald taking up spots at Triple-A.
If there’s a bright side here, it’s that there aren’t really many hitters pressing the issue at High-A. There’s not too much to lose by letting hitters continue developing in Double-A, especially when they’re playing well. Jared Dickey looks ready for Double-A at times but he’s still within his first 50 plate appearances at the level and more time makes sense. Making tough decisions in the upper minors can wait until some of the High-A hitters are ready to make the move. However, they’ll still have to be made to some degree at some point.
The sooner the Royals can make the tough decisions necessary, the sooner they can continue progressing their top talent up the ladder. For a team currently in the thick of the race, it may seem counter-productive to change things up. However, the best teams fix problems before they impact the win column, not after. Injecting new life could be exactly what the lineup needs to find a new gear and start to take charge in the American League Central. That’s what the team needs, rather than just staying in the thick of it.
It would allow the team to move their Double-A prospects up and see just how big-league-ready they might be. Gavin Cross could be ready for big league at-bats as early as this fall. For a team in serious need of outfield help, the Royals would be wise to take the necessary steps to find out sooner rather than later. It was a different time — with different leadership — but Eric Hosmer only played 50 games at Double-A. From there, it was only 26 games in Omaha until he made the move to Kansas City. Cross is now 15 games short of that 50-game threshold. He should be in Omaha by the time summer rolls around, but the Royals will need to clear the path in order to make that happen. That process should start sooner rather than later.