Blake

Mitchell

Mitchell has been somewhat usurped in Kansas City by the emergence of fellow prospect Carter Jensen at the position, but he’s one of the more promising young backstops in the game. The 20-year-old, who was selected eighth overall in the 2023 MLB Draft, will undergo surgery at some point next week, which will keep him on the shelf until at least late March.

While Jac Caglianone is the biggets name on the list of non-roster invitees, Cross is intriguing in his own right. The 23-year-old outfielder — and ninth overall pick from the 2022 draft class — slashed .261/.342/.428 with 15 homers, 59 RBI and 30 stolen bases (32 attempts) in 101 games at Double-A Northwest Arkansas in 2024. There’s a good chance that we see him in Kansas City at some point during the 2025 season and his speed would give him some appeal from a fantasy perspective.

Jim Callis of MLB Pipeline reports that the 18-year-old catcher will receive a signing bonus of $4.9 million — which is well under the slot value of $5.98 million for the eighth overall selection in the draft. Perhaps the ability to sign him to a lower bonus is the reason that the Royals pulled the trigger on Mitchell instead of Virginia backstop Kyle Teel, who wound up going a couple picks later to the Red Sox.

Virginia backstop Kyle Teel was considered the top catching prospect in this year’s draft class, but the Royals have decided to go with the younger Mitchell, the top-ranked prep catcher instead. The 19-year-old backstop possesses promising raw power potential, although there’s some strikeout risk in his profile. The track record for prep catchers in the first round isn’t a particularly fruitful one, but Mitchell has a legitimate chance to stick behind the plate and also offers some experience on the mound as a fallback plan. He could be the future behind the plate in Kansas City once the Salvador Perez era is over.