What Royals prospect were you dead wrong about?

Prospects are fun because you can dream big on them, but oftentimes they’ll break your heart. The bust rate is high because (1) it’s very difficult to project how an 18-year-old kid will play when he’s 24 years old; and (2) playing in the big leagues is very, very difficult!

A lot of fans try to play amateur scout at home, and sometimes we can do a decent job of finding that diamond in the rough. But other times we are just as wrong as the pros, many times even more off in our evaluations.

I love a good curve, and Dan Reichert had one of the prettiest curves I’ve ever seen. He came up for the Royals in 1999 at a time in which they were no longer producing good pitching talent and were starved for an arm that could help them prevent runs. I thought he was the next Bret Saberhagen. Reichert showed flashes of brilliance, but he had trouble throwing strikes and trouble keeping his body in shape, and lasted just five seasons in the big leagues with a career 5.55 ERA.

On the flip side, I had a lot of doubts about the 2019 draft. The Royals had the #2 pick, and while I knew scouts were raving about this skinny shortstop from a Texas high school, I really liked Cal slugger Andrew Vaughn. And if the Royals were going to go for a high-upside high school shortstop, why not Georgia prep infielder CJ Abrams? The Royals took that Texas kid – Bobby Witt Jr. – and the rest is history. I guess the scouts knew what they were talking about.

What prospects were you dead wrong about? Someone you thought would be a star that failed to live up to expectations? Or someone you thought would never be much more than a bench player who turned into a stud?