‘The best accumulation of pitching talent that I’ve ever been around’: How the Royals’ crop of pitching prospects came to be

Chad Lee had to send the text.

It was the day before the 2018 MLB Draft, and Lee, a Kansas City Royals area scout, was supposed to be relaxing at home in Texas. He couldn’t. Not when he saw who was pitching in an NCAA Regional elimination game between Oklahoma State and South Florida.

“Hey,” Lee typed to one of his higher-ups. “Jon Heasley’s pitching on television.”

“OK,” Royals regional scout Greg Miller responded. “We’ll get it put on.”

By “we,” Miller was referring to Royals scouting staffers, who were sitting in the glass-cubed, sixth-floor draft room at Kauffman Stadium. The staff was meeting that afternoon, finalizing preparations for the following day’s draft — one that was enormously important for the Royals’ future.

Not only did the organization have five of the first 58 picks, in part because it lost Lorenzo Cain and Eric Hosmer during the previous offseason, it controlled the biggest bonus pool of money of any team. Pitching was undoubtedly a focus, according to Royals scouting director Lonnie Goldberg, which is why Lee sent the text.

Even as they were winning playoff games throughout the 2014 and 2015 seasons, Lee was driving across Oklahoma and Texas to watch players like Heasley. Lee shared the same goals as Royals scouts across the world: Assess players’ talents and build relationships.

In Florida, former Royals area scout Jim Buckley was becoming familiar with a hyped high schooler named Brady Singer. In Virginia, Jim Farr focused on a lanky lefty named Daniel Lynch. In Venezuela, Joelvis Gonzalez spotted a flamethrowing right-hander named Carlos Hernandez. The list goes on.

Heasley’s was an interesting name on that list, given that months before the elimination game, the Royals had graded him as an early-round pick. The projection did not match Heasley’s performance at Oklahoma State, but the Royals kept following him because Lee felt something spiritual about what he saw.

On that Sunday before the draft, Miller turned on the television. Staffers watched as Heasley, then a draft-eligible sophomore, pitched a complete game, allowing one run and seven hits. Five hours away from the glass-cubed room, Lee sat smiling on his couch at home. He was happy Heasley left a lasting impression. But he was also anxious.

Did another team see what the Royals saw that day? Did another organization have Heasley higher than they did? Did Heasley show enough?

What makes those questions intriguing is what makes the draft so intriguing. In the end, you never truly know.

Royals minor-league pitching coach Steve Luebber (Ryan Griffith / Wilmington Blue Rocks)

Projecting pitchers’ careers is kind of like projecting peoples’ lives. Scouts can go off history and context and prepare and study and set expectations. In the end, there’s only so much predicting what may happen.

Steve Luebber, the Royals’ 70-year-old pitching coach at High-A Wilmington, knows that well. He has spent 50 years in and around professional baseball, pitching in the major leagues himself, and now coaching players whose dream is to reach that level.

While with the Florida Marlins, he supervised a staff that boasted A.J. Burnett and Brad Penny. Since he joined the Royals in 2006, he has coached the likes of Mike Montgomery, Danny Duffy and Yordano Ventura. The course each pitcher’s path took baffles Luebber. Each has provided a perspective that has shaped his approach: You can never have enough good arms, and appreciate the ones you have. With the current crop of Royals pitching prospects, that’s what he’s done.

“I can say,” Luebber said, “it was probably the best accumulation of pitching talent on one staff that I’ve ever been around.”

Even after pitchers have had success, projecting their careers is an inexact science. One positive season of good health does not always indicate another. Life also intervenes. That said, the success thus far feels notable enough to now ask how the Royals came up with so many pitching prospects and how have they performed so well.

The answers are not obvious. They may never be. But there are leads, specifically in the way the Royals have scouted, drafted and developed, beginning nearly four years ago.

In December 2016, a year removed from the Royals’ first World Series title in 30 years, staffers convened at the Winter Meetings at Oxon Hill, Md. Assistant general manager J.J. Picollo had a proposition for national supervising scout Paul Gibson.

“He came to me with sort of a dual role,” Gibson said.

The Royals wanted to add a scouting element to their player development side of pitching. Gibson made sense for many reasons.

He had pitched 10 years in the big leagues. He had started All Pro Sports Academy on Long Island, N.Y., overseeing the development of pitchers such as Marcus Stroman.

Gibson didn’t know how much he missed the oversight process of a pitcher’s growth. He would learn over the next few years.

But he liked Picollo’s idea, so he accepted.

“I stayed on the scouting side,” said Gibson, now the Royals’ director of pitching performance. “But in the summer, I started to spend more time evaluating, trying to bridge the gap, saying to the pitching coaches, ‘This is what we saw in this pitcher both when things were going good and not.’”

In the new role, Gibson noted when a pitcher winced and made sure to ask about it. If a pitcher struggled to maintain a consistent arm slot, Gibson noted that, too, and alerted the coaches and the player. The goal was to assist player development in its pitching philosophy, but the role, he believes now, also helped fine tune the scouting department’s philosophy.

Analytics helped, too. The Royals’ research and development department refined formulas on particular players.

“I think we uncovered a lot of things,” Gibson said.

In summer 2017, while Lee was scouting Heasley, area scout Travis Ezi was establishing a relationship with Jonathan Bowlan and area scout Mike Farrell was acquainting himself with Zach Haake, the Royals drafted college-aged pitchers Evan Steele, Daniel Tillo, Tyler Zuber and others, many of whom Gibson had seen.

“He helped us tremendously with scouting,” said Goldberg, the Royals’ scouting director. “Now he’s walking into the role of, ‘How can I help our coaches and player development side prepare a plan for these guys?’ When he did that, it was like he walked out the door with a bunch of Christmas presents and was dishing them out to the staff.”

The highlight was the 2018 MLB Draft. With five of the first 58 picks, the Royals piled homework on their scouts.

“We did a good job with a guy like Brady because we never gave up on him,” Buckley said. “We did a good job not saying, ‘Hey, he’s not going to be there. We don’t need to see him anymore.’

“We stayed on it because — obviously — the draft is unpredictable.”

Jackson Kowar during the 2018 College World Series (Steven Branscombe / USA Today)

In January 2018, the Royals’ scouting staff met in its glass-cubed room at Kauffman Stadium and made its calculations. It put together a mock draft, laying out options.

Singer, whom the Toronto Blue Jays drafted with a second-round pick out of high school, was one of them. He had dominated at Florida with a plus fastball and slider and looked to be a surefire prospect. Jackson Kowar was similar. He, too, had dominated at Florida, boasting a plus-plus changeup and mid-90s fastball. And then there was the lanky lefty, Lynch. He had pitched well enough at Virginia to project premium upside if he could improve his fastball.

The scouts liked each pitcher, but they weren’t sure if Singer would be available at No. 18, or Kowar at No. 33, or Lynch at No. 34.

The saving grace: The Royals thought highly of so many others.

“You sat down in meetings and said, ‘Guys, all we’re going to talk about (right now) is college pitching, so let’s go through each guy,’” Goldberg said. “You take a break and then talk about the college position players. It kept leaning back toward the college pitchers because there was such good feedback from our scouts on their makeup.”

Kris Bubic, a left-hander from Stanford, had an effective changeup but also an intuition that impressed. Bowlan, a big right-hander from Memphis, had so much power but also a sense of care. Mercer lefty Austin Cox carried a Southern gentleman’s vibe. Haake, a Kentucky right-hander, had a fastball that ranked as highly as the rest but also competitiveness that mirrored Singer’s.

Lee pounded the table for not only Heasley, but also a lefty named Austin Lambright.

“Lambright was definitely a gut-feel guy,” Lee said.

Ahead of his senior year in college, Lambright transferred from Abilene Christian to Central Oklahoma. The year before, he underwent Tommy John surgery. The year before that, he had a 13.85 ERA.

“You want to talk about not having success?” Lee said. “He really struggled at Abilene, but the stuff was still good.”

One day in spring 2018, Lee sat in the stands watching a game at Central Oklahoma, the only scout in attendance. Lambright walked the first batter he faced. Lee worried he could be wasting his time, knowing Lambright struggled with command. Lambright, though, bounced back. He didn’t walk another batter that game.

Afterward, Lee texted Miller about the performance, saying Lambright was up to 95 mph with a hammer curveball.

The day of the mock draft, Lee listened as the room discussed the pitcher. There was interest, but Lee was not sure how much. He knew he’d have to wait until June to find out which players the Royals truly valued.

When the draft arrived, he found out quickly.

Goldberg was sitting in the glass cube once again. The night he had prepped months for had arrived. The same televisions that showed Heasley a day earlier were showing the Detroit Tigers selecting right-hander Casey Mize with the No. 1 pick.

The picks kept rolling in. At No. 4, the Chicago White Sox selected Oregon State infielder Nick Madrigal. At No. 9, the Oakland Athletics chose Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray.

“When it got to No. 10,” Goldberg said, “we were like, ‘Oh boy. What’s going on here? We’ve got some guys still on the board.’”

The Royals staff regrouped, working to reset its board. Someone in the room asked, “Does anyone know what’s up with Singer? Why’s he still on the board?”

Goldberg had seen Singer pitch against Auburn and Mize late in the 2016 season. He hadn’t expected either pitcher would be on the board by then, but he knew Buckley’s connection to Singer was strong enough to think Singer would sign if he fell.

He did.

“We take him,” Goldberg said, “and obviously, there were a few guys we were looking at that pick as well that, you know, turned around.”

Daniel Lynch with the Wilmington Blue Rocks in 2019. (Brian Westerholt / Four Seam Images via Associated Press)

The Royals had targeted Lynch since high school. During his junior year at Virginia, he struggled a bit. But Farr, the area scout, continued to show up. He watched Lynch’s last four starts and built a relationship. Royals general manager Dayton Moore even attended the ACC Tournament to watch Lynch pitch. Lynch dominated in front of swaths of scouts.

Once the Royals grabbed Lynch and Kowar, the room was buzzing.

“I’ll be honest with you,” Goldberg said. “When we got Jackson and took Lynch, I was like, ‘Holy crap, man. We just got three guys who have a chance to move pretty quick through a system.’ So then, you’re like, ‘Are we gonna take a position player at No. 40?’ Well, Bubic was still on the board.

“That’s when it probably hit me. I made the turn and said, ‘All right, guys. We’re just going to pound pitching today. We’re rolling with this.’

Assistant director of scouting Danny Ontiveros loved Bubic. The Royals’ entire staff loved Bowlan’s projection. They snagged both, with the No. 40 and 58 picks, respectively.

Exiting the glass-cubed room that night, Goldberg said the entire staff was pumped.

“I don’t remember all of it because we had a crowded room,” Goldberg said, “but I remember guys coming up to me going, ‘I can’t believe we just pulled this shit off. How does this happen?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, look, it’s a bigger day tomorrow.’ I left that night going, ‘How in the hell is Kyle Isbel still on the board?’”

'I think it’s unique that we’re going to have Brady and Jackson together. I think they’ll feed off each other and continue to push each other and make each other better like they’ve done in school.' – Director of Scouting, Lonnie Goldberg on our first two #MLBDraft picks. pic.twitter.com/UbqG7AbqnH

— Kansas City Royals (@Royals) June 5, 2018

Goldberg woke up the next day, knowing 18 teams would pick before the Royals. He did not expect Isbel to be on the board, but he was, so the Royals selected the outfielder. Then it was back to pitching.

They saw Cox was available in the fifth round and snagged him. Haake made sense in the sixth. Lambright was a lock in the 10th. Lee watched the picks pass and noticed what was happening. Still, he wanted the Royals to select Heasley, so he texted Miller and Goldberg before Day 3. Then he texted them again.

He was relentless.

“I annoyed them enough,” Lee said.

“‘Annoying’ isn’t the right word,” Goldberg said recently. ‘“Fighting’ is the right word. He did what you want a good scout to do because of belief and conviction.”

The Royals selected Heasley in the 13th round. At the end of the draft, the Royals realized they had selected 21 college pitchers.

“It just kind of fell that way,” Buckley said. “Pitching is obviously a focus in every draft to some extent. It’s a commodity in baseball. And if you can develop, it’s something that you strive for.”

Drafting was the first step to securing a crop of pitching prospects. Developing was next.

Last spring, after a fall in which Lynch and Kowar helped lead Low-A Lexington to its first championship in 17 years, Moore sat in an office overlooking Surprise Stadium in Arizona, fielding questions from reporters.

“Do you like your system?” one reporter asked.

“We like our system,” Moore responded.

Purposeful or not, he then shifted the conversation entirely.

“We’re always going to develop players,” Moore said. “There’s no doubt in my mind we’re going to develop players. We developed players in Atlanta. We’ve developed players here. And the reason we’re always going to develop players is not because we’re smarter than anybody else. It’s not because we work harder than anybody else. It’s because we care deeply for our players.”

In answering the question, Moore blended scouting and player development, which sheds light on the Royals’ approach. Communication between both sides continues to be one of the critical elements of successful franchises. That explains why Gibson accepted the dual role years before. He had helped scout a number of the Royals’ pitching prospects. While Moore was speaking, Gibson was helping develop those prospects.

Cox threw bullpens and afterward talked with Gibson.

“He wasn’t afraid to ask, ‘How is everything feeling? What’s going on?’ That type of stuff,” Cox said.

Once spring ended, the pitchers worked with Luebber and eventually became what he called the best accumulation of pitching talent he had ever worked around. Here’s how each performed:

Would the pitchers surprise Moore? Possibly, but it’s doubtful.

Because that same day, as he sat overlooking the stadium, he added some thoughts.

“I think this time next year, people will write a lot of different things about our farm system,” he said. “It’s a good group. There’s a lot that goes into developing a player, but if you get a lot of guys that play team baseball and compete for one another, you’ll put together a good Major League Baseball team.”

The time has come for the Royals to put together their roster for 2020.

A few weeks ago, they announced their major-league spring training invitees. The list included two 2017 draftees: Tillo and Zuber; both could contribute to the Royals in 2020. The list also featured four 2018 draftees: Singer, Kowar, Lynch and Bubic, some of whom could even start in 2020.

Kris Bubic in 2019 (Ryan Griffith / Wilmington Blue Rocks)

Promotions for the rest of the pitchers means more opportunity, which prompted Lee to ask the ultimate question.

How did that crop of so many pitching prospects come to be?

“The one thing that’s kind of constant,” Lee said, “and it sounds cliched a little bit, but they’re all competitors, man. I knew the one thing I could hang my hat on when we took Heasley was that he was a terrific competitor. And you take guys like that, and you get them around each other, and it just pushes them.”

Goldberg agreed.

“The one thing I can tell you our scouts did a really good job with was — those kids especially — they’re wired differently,” Goldberg said. “They all have a uniqueness about how they prepare. They’re fearless. And they just have fed off one another. That’s probably been the most rewarding and exciting thing.”

Last week, during the Royals’ rookie class development camp in Kansas City, scouts once again convened on Kauffman Stadium’s glass-cubed room. They discussed the upcoming season and whether the crop of pitching prospects could contribute.

(It’s almost certain.)

During the conversation, Goldberg posed questions: What did we do so well then? And how do we duplicate it?

The answer isn’t a one-liner as much as it is a process: Identifying players; homing in on their makeup; making the correct choices. In scouting pitchers, as in life, that’s not always the easiest thing to do.

Goldberg has appreciated the current group because that’s all he can do, as Luebber has learned.

With spring training approaching, Luebber said he’s excited to continue working with the prospects. He, too, has marveled at their makeup as much as their plus fastballs and plus changeups. He watched the way they analyzed video and took notes. He watched the way they prepared before games.

His hope as the start of the season soon arrives?

“(That) we go out there and keep getting some more,” Luebber said.

You can never have enough.

(Top photo of Singer: John Sleezer / Kansas City Star / TNS via Getty Images)