The Royals will promote lefty Kris Bubic to make his MLB debut, manager Mike Matheny tells reporters including Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com (via Twitter). He’ll take the ball on Friday.
Bubic, who’ll soon turn 23, was selected with the 40th overall pick of the 2018 draft. He followed Brady Singer in that draft and will now join him in vaulting quickly to the majors.
At the time, the Royals made clear they hoped their slate of incoming college arms would move swiftly through the system and help launch a rapid return to contention. The first prong has come to pass. Now we’ll see what kind of near-term and long-term output the team will get from its promising hurlers.
Bubic, a Stanford product, cracked the Baseball Prospectus top-100 prospect list entering the 2020 season. He earned that placement with an excellent showing at the High-A level in his first full season as a profession, racking up 101 2/3 innings of 2.30 ERA ball with 9.7 K/9 and 2.4 BB/9 over 17 starts.
Impressive though that was, Bubic still hasn’t been exposed even to upper-minors bats. The Royals obviously saw enough from him in camp to make the bold move to bring him up. Though he won’t spend enough time on the active roster to accrue a full year of service, even if he stays up for all of 2020, Bubic now profiles as a potential Super Two player.