How A Royals Prospect One-Upped Aaron Judge And Shohei Ohtani In August
The Kansas City Royals are a team low on left-handed power bats.
In the wake of losing first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino to a broken thumb, the Royals have no healthy lefties on their active big-league roster with more than 17 home runs this season. Kauffman Stadium is a tough place for lefties to hit homers, but that's still a noticeable deficiency.
However, the Royals may be growing a future lefty power-hitter down on the farm. And that lefty just made a name for himself with a historic month of August.
Royals prospect Spencer Nivens, the team's fifth-round pick in 2023, clubbed 13 home runs for High-A Quad Cities in August. It was a remarkable display of power for the 5-foot-10, 185-pound left fielder, who had only six home runs for the season beforehand.
According to Anne Rogers of MLB.com, no other player in affiliated baseball, majors or minors, had 13 home runs in August. Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees, the favorites for National League and American League Most Valuable Player, each had 12.
Any time you can one-up Ohtani and Judge, you're doing something right, even if those two were facing slightly better pitching. And more importantly, Nivens may have found the power stroke that could take his career to the next level.
In parts of two seasons in the minors, Nivens had just eight home runs in his first 100 games. Hitting 13 in 21 games in August, to go with a ridiculous .806 slugging percentage, is a potential signal that the former fifth-rounder has unlocked some power he hadn't accessed previously.
Nivens was not included as a top-30 prospect in the Royals' system in MLB Pipeline's midseason update, but if he continues swinging the bat like this, he'll surely make lists like that one in the future.
And who knows, perhaps the Missouri State product will find himself hitting home runs in Kauffman sometime in the next few seasons.
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Jackson Roberts is a former Division III All-Region DH who now writes and talks about sports for a living. A Bay Area native and a graduate of Swarthmore College and the Newhouse School at Syracuse University, Jackson makes his home in North Jersey. He grew up rooting for the Red Sox, Patriots, and Warriors, and he recently added the Devils to his sports fandom mosaic. For all business/marketing inquiries regarding "Kansas City Royals On SI," please reach out to Scott Neville: scott@wtfsports.org