Tyler Zuber made his debut out of the Kansas City Royals bullpen last night in a week that will see quite a number of newly-minted big-leaguers dirty their cleats on major-league soil for the first time in their careers. Count highly-touted Royals’ prospect Brady Singer among them. The 18th overall selection of the 2018 draft is slated to start tonight’s game against the Indians. The Royals activated Singer earlier today, moving Ronald Bolanos to the taxi squad, the team announced on Twitter.
It’s not the ideal debut in that Singer’s friends and family won’t be able to be in attendance, but after just 26 professional starts, the Royals and Singer both are eager to see the 6’5″ righty against the game’s top competition, per Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star. Said Singer, “Obviously, the difference between the Futures Game and your first big-league start is much different. I feel like the Futures Game you’re kind of just showing what you’ve got and getting through that inning. But (Saturday) is day one. Locking in for as many games as I can go. Absolute huge game plan and studying tonight and figuring out what to do.”
If there were a Triple-A season, it stands to reason that Singer would be making his debut there this season given that he only just reached Double-A in 2019. Still, the Royals would not put him in the majors if they felt he were not ready to handle that level of competition. In his only full season of professional ball, Singer went 12-5 with an eye-catching 2.85 ERA across 26 starts between High-A and Double-A in 2019. Singer notched 8.4 K/9 versus 2.4 BB/9 for an overall 3.54 K/BB as a 22-year-old last season. He’s the #4 ranked prospect in the Royals’ system by both Baseball America and Fangraphs.
Yes! I love this guy’s stuff, but I’m not sure if they brought him up too soon. We’ll see, but at least he gets a taste of what real MLB competition is.
Unless I’m missing someone this makes him the 1st pitcher from his draft class to reach the majors and 2nd player overall (Nico Hoerner, CHC was #1).
I ‘ve mentioned before that the entire paradigm of the minor leagues will be coming under scrutiny. Expect to see more and more of these moves; not overnight,but slowly. Even the service time considerations (which are probably going to change anyway) pale when compared with the high cost of player development, a model that if it yields one “meh” regular a year means you’re a big sucsess.
Not the best business move but that said, it shows (maybe flawed) how KC is pushing the envolope in wanting to be competitive again which should be admired.
I think it might be more indicative of the fact teams are aware that with the new CBA agreement there will be a service time change that comes into affect retroactively. I have no proof of this, just my guess.
Manipulation of service time will hopefully become irrelevant in the next CBA. Tie free agency to the player’s age, not days spent on a Major League roster.
@Cey Hey
F/A won’t be tied to a player’s age. Think about how many players come out of HS, or the 16 & 17 y.o.’s from the Int’l signings. More likely it would start the day they play their first MiLB game.
I like that better. Like you said, you could have a 23 who has spent five years in the minors and another 23 year old who has spent one year in the minors.