{"id":2165825,"date":"2025-11-19T04:40:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T04:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2165825"},"modified":"2025-11-19T04:40:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T04:40:08","slug":"kc-royals-protect-2-minor-league-prospects-from-rule-5-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/kc-royals-protect-2-minor-league-prospects-from-rule-5-draft\/","title":{"rendered":"KC Royals protect 2 minor-league prospects from Rule 5 Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Kansas City Royals added two players<\/a> to their 40-man roster just ahead of the Rule 5 Draft deadline on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

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The Royals protected minor-league pitchers Ben Kudrna and Steven Zobac. Both pitchers were eligible for the Rule 5 Draft if not added to the major league reserve list.<\/p>\n

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Kudrna, 22, is among the Royals\u2019 top pitching prospects. He posted a 5.30 ERA in 24 games (22 starts) across to minor-league levels.<\/p>\n

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In 2025, Kudrna made the jump from Double-A to Triple-A Omaha. He appeared in 11 1\/3 innings with the Omaha Storm Chasers \u2014 while posting mixed results.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s likely Kudrna will continue in Omaha to begin the 2026 campaign. The Royals like his pitching arsenal<\/a> as he was named the organization\u2019s pitcher of the year in 2022. He also was selected for the SiriusXM Futures Game in 2024.<\/p>\n

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The Royals have a surplus of starting pitching depth. It\u2019s likely Kudrna will continue to develop in Triple-A for the foreseeable future. However, Kudrna is now poised to be an available option \u2014 should the Royals deal from their starting depth or have a string of injuries.<\/p>\n

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Kudrna could be the next homegrown Royals pitcher<\/a> to debut. He is a Shawnee Mission native and was drafted in 2021 out of Blue Valley Southwest High School.<\/p>\n

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Zobac, 25, is also a top Royals prospect. He posted a 7.25 ERA in 14 minor-league starts.<\/p>\n

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The Royals like Zobac\u2019s overall makeup. He throws strikes and has elevated through the system.<\/p>\n

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In 2024, Zobac was terrific with a 3.64 ERA \u2014 which landed him the Royals\u2019 pitcher of the year award.<\/p>\n

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While injuries derailed his 2025 campaign, Zobac is someone to watch as the Royals move forward next season. The Royals now have 39 players on their 40-man roster.<\/p>\n

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Related Stories from Kansas City Star<\/h5>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n
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Jaylon Thompson<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Kansas City Star<\/span><\/p>\n

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Jaylon Thompson covers the Royals for The Kansas City Star. He previously covered the 2021 World Series and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Jaylon is a proud alumnus of the University of Georgia.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.kansascity.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Kansas City Royals added two players to their 40-man roster just ahead of the Rule 5 Draft deadline on Tuesday. The Royals protected minor-league pitchers Ben Kudrna and Steven Zobac. Both pitchers were eligible for the Rule 5 Draft if not added to the major league reserve list. Kudrna, 22, is among the Royals\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2140291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[348875,43627,25866,415850,415785],"class_list":["post-2165825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-ben-kudrna","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-mlb","tag-rule-5-draft","tag-steven-zobac"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/KC-Royals-hire-Cullen-Maxey-in-revamped-front-office-role.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2165825"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2165826,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165825\/revisions\/2165826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2140291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2165825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2165825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2165825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}