Kansas City Royals take Arkansas third baseman Cayden Wallace with No. 49 pick

The Kansas City Royals wrapped up the first night of the MLB Draft with the selection of University of Arkansas third baseman Cayden Wallace with their second-round pick.

They selected Wallace 49th overall after taking Virginia Tech outfielder Gavin Cross with their first-round pick earlier Sunday night.

“First of all, the makeup on both these players is exceptional,” Royals director of scouting Danny Ontiveros said. “They’re winners. They’re athletes. Analytically, they check out. They just checked a lot of boxes for us, and they’re two players that we scouted a lot.

“There’s a comfort level all the way through with our whole process. We think they’re both going to be potential middle-of-the-order bat guys.”

The Royals did not have a competitive balance-round pick because they traded their pick (No. 35) to the Atlanta Braves in exchange for three minor-league players. The Braves selected high school pitcher JR Ritchie from Washington with that pick.

The Royals’ two first-day picks came at No. 9 overall and No. 49.

“One of the bonuses was the trade happened early enough that it gave us time to regroup and kind of hone in on what we really thought would be there,” Royals vice president of player personnel Lonnie Goldberg said. “On the other side, it made us really focus in on what we wanted to get out of today.

“It was really, really important that we walked out of today with baseball players that were versatile, that could do a lot of what you saw in the major-league team now and what went on in Toronto. We have a lot of versatile players that can play multiple positions and do a lot of things on the field.”

Goldberg said they also looked at the three players acquired in the deal with Atlanta ⁠— center fielder Drew Waters, right-handed pitcher Andrew Hoffman and infielder C.J. Alexander — as part of their draft.

The Royals also knew, despite the large gap between their picks, that they’d likely come away with two college-level hitters on Day 1 of the draft.

In a rare occurrence, all of the Royals’ cross-checkers and executives present for the draft had seen both of the top picks in person, making for widespread discussion and input in the draft room.

“I think there was a little bit of an emphasis on it, being as that was the strength of the draft,” Ontiveros said of the college hitters. “You always want to attack the strength of the draft. I think midway through the spring we sat down as a group and went over where we saw the strength. That’s when you kind of identify guys you’re going to send extra scouts in and cross-checkers in to get looks at. … When it kind of falls in place, it’s a good feeling.”

Goldberg made it a point to single out Ontiveros’ work studying hitters specifically in preparation for the draft, which prompted “major emphasis” on breaking down all the hitters: “When you have as much work as he put into it and basically targeting a certain group of hitters and then knowing you can get those on the first day, that’s pretty successful.”

Wallace, ranked the No. 31 draft prospect by MLB.com and the No. 59 draft prospect by Baseball America, is the younger brother of former Wichita State infielder Paxton Wallace.

At Arkansas, the 6-foot-1, 250-pound, right-handed hitter slashed .298/.387/.553 with 16 home runs, 20 doubles and 60 RBIs in 67 games. In 2021, he tied the Arkansas freshman record with 14 home runs.

Wallace, 20, was teammates with former Shawnee Mission East standout Robert Moore, the son of Royals president of baseball operation Dayton Moore. The Milwaukee Brewers selected the younger Moore in Sunday evening’s competitive balance round B, between Rounds 2 and 3.

While Ontiveros mentioned that both players the Royals drafted Sunday — Cross and Wallace — had the potential to be middle-of-the-order hitters, power wasn’t the only consideration in drafting either of them. Athleticism ranked high on the list of attributes the Royals targeted.

“When you’ve got these guys that power and speed and can do a lot of things on the field, and are athletes, and you couple that with all the other intangibles they bring to the table, to me it’s a no-brainer,” Ontiveros said. “It’s the direction we’re going to go. These types of players tend to get better when you get them, and they’re already good. It just kind of fits the way we play.”

Honoring Art

The Royals’ scouting and front-office staffers wore powder-blue blazers for the draft in memory of longtime scout and executive Art Stewart, the longest-tenured associate in the organization and the only scout inducted into the Royals Hall of Fame.

Stewart died last November.

“From a scouting perspective, it’s really hard to sum up what Art Stewart means to all of us — to the industry, but to everybody here,” Goldberg said. “I think we all take a lot of pride in trying to live out every day a little bit like he would.”