MLB.com puts five Royals in their Top 100 list

It is baseball season. Whether or not you are a fan of college basketball, professional basketball, professional hockey, or whether you keep track of how the New Zealand All-Black team is doing in cricket (Very well. They beat Pakistan by 119 runs yesterday), in the bicameral, bipartisan divide that defines American ethos, we are a two-sport nation. There's baseball, then football, then everything else. You may not like it. I certainly don't. The only way to get cricket in this country is to stream test matches and ODIs off the internet, for God's sake.

And since it is baseball season, everyone is getting around to releasing their preseason prospect rankings. Keith Law at ESPN released his team list a few days ago, and recently MLB.com got around to releasing their top 100.

What the Royals lack in quality, they made up for in quantity. And a big hint as to how the 2014 season went for the Royals farm system is indicated by MLB.com's rankings:

40.  Raul Adalberto Mondesi
56.  Sean Manaea
58.  Kyle Zimmer
75.  Brandon Finnegan
84.  Miguel Almonte

Youth that's too far to really judge, injury concerns, and questions about whether or not they will end up as a starter or a reliever punctuate the five players that the Royals have on the list. And while I would hold in reservation the idea that I think the tools and talent of the players on the list outstrip their production last year, the hard fact is, outside of Manaea's last two months and Finnegan's handful of relief innings, it was a tough year all-around.

The talent is there, though. Just needs some more time.