Kansas City Royals Have a Good Problem: A Pair of Highly Ranked Catching Prospects

Some very good news from the Kansas City Royals on Monday: top catching prospect Blake Mitchell is ready to make his full-season minor league debut.

The Royals assigned Mitchell to the High-A Quad Cities River Bandits, meaning he’s recovered from a broken right hamate bone suffered in spring training. He had surgery and was expected to miss six weeks, but the recovery time has been longer.

MLB Pipeline ranks Mitchell as the No. 4 catching prospect, No. 33 overall. Once Jac Caglianone amasses enough service time in the major leagues to fall off the list, Mitchell will be the Royals’ No. 1 prospect.

Mitchell, who turns 21 next month, was selected by the Royals with the No. 8 overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft out of Sinton (Texas) High School.

To prepare for his Quad Cities assignment, Mitchell played in 11 games at the Arizona Complex League and hit a home run, adding five runs and seven RBIs. He had a slash line of .286/.487/.464/.951.

He played 106 games in his first full minor league season in 2024 at Single-A Columbia, hitting .238 with 18 homers, 50 RBIs and a .815 OPS. He had a .973 fielding percentage.

The Royals’ all-time great catcher, Salvador Perez, is 35, and Kansas City seems to have his potential replacement in their farm system in either Mitchell or Carter Jensen.

Jensen, 22, recently was promoted to Triple-A Omaha after beginning the season at Double-A Northwest Arkansas. Off to a slow start at the higher level – he’s hitting .200 in 10 games – he has picked up steam. In the first five games of July, Jensen is 7-for-18 (.389) with four home runs and eight RBIs.

With two highly ranked catching prospects, the Royals have a good problem to have.