Hometown kid Carter Jensen is living a dream with the Royals. So is his family
Like many parents of a child who plays sports, the Jensen family turned travel ball tournaments into a family vacation.
One trip stands out from a decade ago.
Their son Carter, who was 12 at the time, had baseball games scheduled in Phoenix, so his parents Jim and Kim brought their three other sons on the journey from Parkville. In addition to the youth ball games, the family visited some spring-training ballparks, including the one in Surprise, Arizona, where the Royals train.
“Little did we know,” Kim Jensen said, “it would be a window to our future of more spring baseball in Arizona.”
The family still makes trips to Surprise, but they don’t include Carter — because he’s already there with the Royals. After a smashing big-league debut last September, Jensen is one of the hottest names in baseball this spring.
Multiple national writers see Jensen as the favorite to win the American League Rookie of the Year award. And one went so far as to say the Royals should bench captain Salvador Perez to make room for Jensen in the lineup.
Jensen made quite an impression in September after the Royals promoted him from Triple-A Omaha. In 20 games, Jensen batted .300 with six doubles, three home runs and a .941 OPS.
No Royals batter had a better hard-hit percentage (58.3%) than Jensen, per FanGraphs, and it was nearly 10 percentage points better than shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., who was second on the list. Jensen’s barrel rate (20.8%) was also No. 1 on the team.
However, neither Jensen nor the Royals were content with what they’d seen at that point. It was a great start to Jensen’s career, but after the season the Royals sent Jensen to the Dominican Republic to play with Águilas Cibaeñas, one of that nation’s most popular teams.
The decision was twofold. Get Jensen more plate appearances and prepare him for the rigors of a full season and then some.
“When I went down to play in the Dominican for a month after the season, I was able to play into what would be past the World Series,” Jensen said. “So kind of getting my body used to playing deep in the playoffs and stuff like that because, obviously, that’s what we’re striving for. Then just continue to work on all parts of the game: catching, hitting.
“It was good. I learned a lot about myself, for sure. It was difficult at first, just kind of learning how to navigate being in a different country and stuff like that. But it was definitely different. Learned a lot about myself, how to prepare myself, take care of my body when I’m outside of my comfort zone. So I took a lot of things from it.”
His dream of playing for the Royals
Following a standout career at Park Hill High School, Jensen was picked by the Royals in the third round of the 2021 Major League Baseball draft.
As a kid, Jensen would slip on an Eric Hosmer, Alex Gordon or Billy Butler jersey and envision that one day maybe he’d play for the Royals.
“That was a dream, not only for him, but for all of us,” Kim Jensen said. “We would talk about how one day that you might be out there. Just continuing to support him and never tell him that it’s not possible or anything like that. It was always just making sure that he knew that he can do anything that he set his mind to.”
After returning from the Dominican last fall, Jensen continued his offseason work, only he had the luxury of doing it at Kauffman Stadium.
It wasn’t all work. Jensen also found time to check in with his parents and, like any 22-year-old, raid the fridge.
“I’m living somewhere else, but I (was) there all the time,” Jensen said of his parents’ Parkville home, where he was raised. “My mom’s a better cook than I am, so getting a meal or something. It’s been good. I’m not the best interior designer, so I’m trying to put together my new place the best I can.”
While his mother lent a hand with making Carter’s new place feel like home, she loved having him pop by the house. What mother wouldn’t?
“He would come for dinners, whether I cooked or we got pizza or something else from a restaurant, or we would have meals together often, which was nice,” Kim Jensen said. “It’s definitely good to have him back in town.”
Jensen is the rare professional athlete who is working in the city in which he grew up, and he took full advantage during the offseason. He watched his brother, Noah, play basketball at Park University, and hung out with younger brothers, Nash and Chance.
The offseason is a time for players to rest and spend time with their families. But Jensen’s family won’t have to make long trips to see him play with a minor-league affiliate as they had done in the past.
However, the entire Jensen family will be in Atlanta later this month for the Royals’ opener against the Braves. Then it’ll be back to Kauffman Stadium for their first-ever home opener. Jensen is sure to have his own cheering section.
“My friends love it. They think it’s super cool. Family obviously loves it and thinks it’s cool,” Jensen said. “They’re glad that I’m back home. They don’t have to drive super far to see me. So yeah, it’s been awesome being back and being able to see a lot of friends a lot more often, seeing the family all the time.
“So definitely a lot more comfortable when it comes to that, because friends would pick a weekend, and I would get to see them for a couple days. Same thing with the family. So it’s nice being back here and having people already in the area to lean on.”
It’s cool for Jensen, too. He is living every little kid’s dream by playing for his hometown team. Jensen traded those replica jerseys for an official Royals uniform with his name on it.
The excitement hasn’t waned, even if it sometimes does seem too good to be true.
“I remember during my debut, there’s some pictures, they caught me looking down on my jersey, and I was like, ‘Man, this is real.’ I still love it, putting on the jersey,” Jensen said. “The jerseys that I put on with Salvy, Eric Hosmer, Alex Gordon, I put their jerseys on before mine. So now it’s pretty cool to have my own.”
Salvy is now a teammate, another dream scenario for any Kansas City-area kid who watched the Royals advance to the World Series twice and win it in 2015.
Jensen’s parents think it’s surreal, too.
“It’s kind of funny, because my husband would always say, ‘OK, we’re going to Carter’s game,’ just like we always have since he was 3. But this time, now it’s like, ‘We’re going to Kauffman Stadium,’” Kim Jensen said. “So it’s a little bit bigger stage there, obviously. But it’s so funny, because at every level, you cheer on all the guys, and they’re just your son’s teammates, like he had when he was little. And now, I mean, gosh, Salvy, Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie, Jac (Caglianone), they’re all still his teammates, and so we still cheer for them. But oh my gosh, they’re, like, famous guys. It’s kind of crazy.
“But we’re just there to cheer on our son and his team, and then it just happens to be our hometown team.”
This story was originally published March 10, 2026 at 6:30 AM.
