Kyle Zimmer, Royals First Round Pick

Posted on June 4, 2012

The Royals have selected Kyle Zimmer, a right-handed pitcher from the University of San Francisco. The Royals selected Zimmer with the fifth overall pick of the Free Agent Draft. The selection was made even harder because Mark Appel, pitcher from Stanford projected to go No. 1. When Appel slid to the fifth pick the Royals had an extremely hard decision to make and obviously, Dayton Moore and his scouting squad were extremely high on Zimmer. Appel fell all the way down to the Pirates at No. 8.

 Zimmer, only 20-years-old, went 5-3 with a 2.85 ERA in 13 starts, including three complete games, for the Dons in 2012.  In 88.1 innings, he allowed 76 hits, 28 earned runs and only 17 walks. He also managed to wave 104 bats. His command is incredible as demonstrated with his college numbers.  He led the his conference, the West Coast Conference in shutouts, in which he recorded 2. Also, he led the WCC in strikeouts and strikeouts per nine innings (10.6). Zimmer has the best fastball among all collegiate prospects and his curveball is not far behind being ranked in the top 5 in the collegiate ranks.  His fastball can reach up to 99 MPH. He was named a preseason second-team All-American by Baseball America entering 2012 and to the 2012 Midseason USA Baseball Golden Spikes Award Watch List last May.  Zimmer is not all jock, he also puts hard work into his studies where he managed to have a 3.72 GPA.

Zimmer, a stud athlete at La Jolla (Calif.) High School in the San Diego area where he played third base for his varsity baseball for four years.  Serving mostly as a position player, he pitched a total of 21.1 innings during his high school career.  Zimmer converted to pitcher his freshman season at USF. He only made five appearances in his freshman year.  He then posted a 6-5 record with a 3.73 ERA last season. The most impressive outing he had was competing against 2011 first-overall selection Gerrit Cole and the UCLA Bruins, 3-0 He dominated the game with a four-hit complete-game shutout with 11 strikeouts in a NCAA regional game in June. Zimmer draws extreme comparisons to Roy Oswalt. If Zimmer can develop a dominate change-up to go along with his fastball, he has a great chance to be an ace for the Royals. While the Royals will not rush him, fans will be calling for his major league debut because of the lack of starting pitching the team has.

Spencer Montgomery