The Detroit Tigers Have Top Prospects. Now What?

The 2011 Kansas City Royals

Prospects (BA/MLB): Eric Hosmer (8/8), Mike Moustakas (9/7), Wil Myers (10/16), John Lamb (18/34), Mike Montgomery (19/14), Cristian Colon (51/NA), Danny Duffy (68/NA), Jake Odorizzi (69/37), Chris Dwyer (83/NA)

At the time this group was considered perhaps the single best collection of prospects ever. They don’t look all that special now, but a few things stand out in retrospect. First, the Royals did an excellent job of trading prospects. They sent Wil Myers, Mike Montgomery, and Jake Odorizzi to Tampa for James Shields and Wade Davis, who were both huge parts of Kansas City’s deep playoff runs, and they moved John Lamb to help land Johnny Cueto, who was the final piece of their championship puzzle.

The second noteworthy aspect of the Royals 2011 farm system is just how absurdly deep it was. In addition to the nine top-100 prospects listed above, the 2011 Royals minor-league system also boasted Lorenzo Cain, Jarrod Dyson, Kelvin Herrera, Greg Holland, Salvador Perez, and Yordano Ventura. Cain technically wasn’t a prospect anymore because he had 147 at-bats for the Brewers in 2010, but he spent the majority of 2011 in the minors. In any event, those six players went on to produce 34.7 WAR for the Royals during the 2014 and 2015 seasons, helping Kansas City take home its first World Series title since 1985.