<table> </table> NEW YORK | Julio Pimentel, for now representing Royals hope, sits in front of his locker at Yankee Stadium. He is fooling around with his new iPhone, texting, surfing, feeling more like a big-leaguer than ever before in his life.</p><p>Pimentel is not the Royals&#8217; top prospect, not close, but he is their representative in the Futures Game, and that means he&#8217;s reached significant stature in the baseball world.</p><p>&#8220;Wow,&#8221; he says, &#8220;it&#8217;s like a dream. So exciting to be here, to play in front of a lot of people. Everybody knows about this game. It&#8217;s like a dream, you know?&#8221;</p><p>One baseball man ranks Pimentel as the fifth-best prospect in the Royals&#8217; system, behind Dan Cortes, Mike Moustakas, Carlos Rosa and Blake Wood. That Pimentel isn&#8217;t higher is finally more a reflection of the Royals having other promising young players rather than his own deficiencies &#8212; though he&#8217;s struggled so far this season with Class AA Northwest Arkansas.</p><p>Pimentel pitched one scoreless inning in the prospect showcase game Sunday at Yankee Stadium, inducing five swings and misses, including at least one on each of his pitches &#8212; a mid-90s fastball, a solid change-up and a curveball that can be terrific.</p><p>He is emblematic of a Royals&#8217; farm system that one National League executive called &#8220;better than a few years ago, but still not among the best&#8221; in baseball.</p><p>It&#8217;s been primarily pitching and high school players so far, and the organization may be ready to take longer looks at hitters &#8212; there&#8217;s a particular need at catcher &#8212; and college players.</p><p>J.J. Picollo was recently promoted to assistant general manager for scouting and player development, making him the front office&#8217;s clear No. 2 to general manager Dayton Moore, and is helping lead that transition.</p><p>&#8220;Just be more aware of the ages of where our strengths are,&#8221; Picollo says. &#8220;If there&#8217;s the right college player out there we need, it needs to be a focal point for us. That player may fit for us now, where the first few years we were very, very aggressive with the high school player.&#8221;</p><p>So far, the improvement in the system has come largely from first-round picks (Billy Butler, Alex Gordon, Luke Hochevar and Moustakas) and trades (Cortes, Pimentel, and Blake Johnson).</p><p>Prominent among the team&#8217;s remaining unsigned draft picks are overall No. 3 selection Eric Hosmer and fourth-rounder Tim Melville. Hosmer is a high school first baseman and may command the biggest bonus in team history. Melville is considered by many a first-round talent who slid in part because of signability issues.</p><p>In a change from the procedure that allowed the farm system to lag behind in the last decade or so, the Royals selected and are expected to sign both players. They&#8217;ll join an improving group of Royals prospects already in the system.</p><p>Cortes has grown to 6-5 and 225 pounds since coming over as the secondary prospect behind Tyler Lumsden in the Mike MacDougal trade two years ago. His fastball touches 96 mph, and he&#8217;s developed a hammer curveball that makes scouts believe he can be a frontline starting pitcher in the big leagues.</p><p>Moustakas, the No. 2 overall selection last year, hasn&#8217;t played since July 6 because of a strained oblique and won&#8217;t return to the lineup until he&#8217;s 100 percent.</p><p>Even with modest numbers so far at Class A Burlington &#8212; .244 average, 12 homers and 42 RBIs in 84 games &#8212; an American League scouting director said he would&#8217;ve used the top pick in this year&#8217;s draft on Moustakas if he were eligible.