This hot-hitting Kansas City Royals prospect is joining Witt, Pratto at Triple-A Omaha
One of the top home run hitters in all of Minor League Baseball will join the Kansas City Royals’ already-loaded Triple-A affiliate this week.
Catcher MJ Melendez, a second-round draft pick out of high school in 2017 (No. 52 overall), had been enjoying outstanding offensive production at Double-A Northwest Arkansas. The left-handed hitter entered this week with the second-highest home run total in the minors: 28.
Melendez, 22, has slashed .285/.372/.628 through 79 games this season. He leads all Double-A players in RBIs (65), OPS (.999), extra-base hits (46) and total bases (187), as well as homers and slugging percentage.
Baseball America ranked Melendez the No. 6 prospect in the Royals’ farm system, their third-ranked position player behind shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and first baseman Nick Pratto. MLBPipeline.com ranked him as the Royals’ 13th-best prospect.
Witt and Pratto also began the season at Double-A, and they were promoted to Triple-A last month.
A South Atlantic League mid-season All-Star in 2018, Melendez hit 19 home runs that season and Baseball America rated him the best defensive catcher in the Royals’ farm system. He also earned the organization’s Defensive Player of the Year award for 2019.
In his last minor-league season, his offensive production fell off badly. He batted .163 with a .260 on-base percentage and a .311 slugging percentage at High-A Wilmington in 2019. But with the help of the Royals’ revamped minor-league hitting-development structure, Melendez has returned to form.
Before the pandemic shutdown in 2020, Melendez spoke with The Star about falling victim to a lack of confidence in 2019 ... and the significant change he made in his batting stance ahead of the 2020 season.
“The first thing, as a hitter, you have to be able to do is see the ball,” Melendez said at the time. “It doesn’t matter how perfect your swing is or how bad your swing is, if you don’t see the ball you’re not going to be able to hit.
“So just being able to see the ball better, put my body in a good position, my head in a good position to where I always had both eyes on the ball is something I fixed this offseason. It has helped me tremendously.”
Melendez has been a non-roster invitee to spring training the past three years, and he was part of the group in KC for Spring Training 2.0 last summer. He spent last summer as one of the players at the club’s alternate training site.