{"id":749152,"date":"2026-07-11T19:39:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T19:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/749152\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T19:39:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T19:39:20","slug":"royals-select-zion-rose-6th-overall-in-2026-mlb-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/749152\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals select Zion Rose 6th overall in 2026 MLB Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">SURPRISE, Ariz. (KCTV) &#8211; The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/royals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/royals\">Kansas City Royals<\/a> selected Louisville outfielder Zion Rose with the 6th overall pick in the 2026 MLB Draft. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The team said Rose, a 21-year-old right-handed hitter from the <a href=\"https:\/\/gocards.com\/sports\/baseball\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/gocards.com\/sports\/baseball\">University of Louisville<\/a>, becomes the third player the Royals have taken 6th overall in franchise history. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Rose joins pitcher Zack Greinke (2002) and first baseman Jac Caglianone (2024) in that respect. <\/p>\n<p>By the Numbers <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Royals indicated that Rose put together one of the most complete offensive seasons in college baseball in 2026, slashing .417\/.491\/.646 across 36 games as a junior. In 244 at-bats, he recorded: <\/p>\n<p>60 hits, including 13 doubles, 1 triple and 6 home runs47 RBI24 stolen bases23 multi-hit games<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The team also noted that Rose drew more walks and hit-by-pitches (25) than strikeouts (15) &#8211; a rare display of plate discipline. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"FILE - Zion Rose had the only multi-hit game for the Cards in Sunday's loss, including a home...\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AMV2NSMMIBBRLHMRJP6LISS6KE.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"654\" \/>FILE &#8211; Zion Rose had the only multi-hit game for the Cards in Sunday&#8217;s loss, including a home run for UofL&#8217;s only run.(Derek Brightwell)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Over his final two seasons in Louisville, the Royals said Rose stole 55 bases on 61 attempts. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">As a sophomore in 2025, he posted 32 extra-base hits and 31 stolen bases, making him 1 of just 6 NCAA Division I players to reach both marks in the same season. <\/p>\n<p>Awards &amp; Recognition <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Rose earned back-to-back All-ACC First-Team honors as a sophomore (2025) and junior (2026), following a Freshman All-America First-Team selection by Perfect Game in 2024. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The club noted that Rose\u2019s selection makes him the 11th first-round pick in Louisville program history &#8211; and the first to the Royals. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">He is the highest pick out of Louisville since catcher Henry Davis went No. 1 overall to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2021, and the highest Louisville outfielder drafted since Corey Ray went 5th overall to the Milwaukee Brewers in 2016. <\/p>\n<p>IMG Academy Connection <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Royals said Rose spent his final year of high school at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imgacademy.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.imgacademy.com\/\">IMG Academy<\/a> in Bradenton, Florida &#8211; the same program that produced Royals 2025 first-round pick Sean Gamble. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"FILE - UofL baseball's Zion Rose\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/OD3E7GXCRNGFJONWXV5WW45UAQ.jpg\" width=\"980\" height=\"653\" \/>FILE &#8211; UofL baseball&#8217;s Zion Rose(Derek Brightwell)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Rose helped lead IMG to its first undefeated season in school history, finishing 25-0 in 2023, according to the team. <\/p>\n<p>More Picks Ahead<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Royals still have four selections remaining in Saturday\u2019s draft: the 30th, 56th, 91st and 119th overall picks.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 KCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SURPRISE, Ariz. (KCTV) &#8211; The Kansas City Royals selected Louisville outfielder Zion Rose with the 6th overall pick&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[35744,92880,36031,5,356,9436,36034,176,936,2123,55,2596,2595,36033,4,169,5839,36032,300,1230,252,9428,4116,11341,27089],"class_list":["post-749152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kansas-city-royals","tag-35744","tag-6th","tag-app","tag-baseball","tag-draft","tag-facebook","tag-google","tag-in","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-kansascity","tag-kansascityroyals","tag-meta","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-newsbreak","tag-nextdoor","tag-overall","tag-rose","tag-royals","tag-select","tag-twitter","tag-x","tag-zion"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116903042652200241","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}