SURPRISE, Ariz. -- On Friday, the entire Royals organization packed into the batting cages at their complex in Surprise, Ariz., preparing for the annual organizational awards. The Minor Leaguers sat up front in seats, while the Major Leaguers filled in the back.
It’s a day the Royals’ Minor League players, coaches and support staff are recognized by the entire organization for what they accomplished on and off the field from the previous year. This year, it was held a little earlier to account for the players who are leaving for the World Baseball Classic this weekend; the Royals wanted to make sure everyone could be in attendance Friday.
“It’s just a reminder of how strong our culture is, which we take a lot of pride in,” president of baseball operations and general manager J.J. Picollo said. “We want to celebrate accomplishments and celebrate our team, but there are times when we need to celebrate individual accomplishments, and this day is one of them.”
The Royals hold Futures Night every September to recognize their overall organization award winners, but Friday was about recognizing each affiliate and player development staff that made an impact in 2025.
“The thing that’s great about this event is that it brings together our past, our present and our future,” Royals CEO/chairman John Sherman said. “We talked about Mike Sweeney and George Brett and Reggie Sanders, and our guests this week, Joe Randa and Jermaine Dye. … When I think about the future, I’m kind of staring at it here. An army of baseball players, all aspiring to be big leaguers. In the present, our Major League team is here.”
Here are the players and pitchers of the year for each Minor League affiliate recognized Friday:
• Triple-A Omaha: Carter Jensen, Luinder Avila
• Double-A Northwest Arkansas: Jac Caglianone, Ben Kudrna
• High-A Quad Cities: Sam Kulasingam, Felix Arronde
• Single-A Columbia: Ramon Ramirez, David Shields
• ACL Royals: Yandel Ricardo, Darwin Rodriguez
• DSL Royals: Ramcell Medina, Kendry Chourio
In addition, the Royals recognized three other award winners:
• Matt Minker Award, recognizing an outstanding Minor League affiliate employee: Massiel Rodriguez, who is the manager of Dominican Republic Operations.
• Dick Howser Award, recognizing a player development employee for contributions to the organization: Jesús Delgado, the pitching coach for the ACL Royals
• Carlos Fortuna Award, recognizing a player dedicated to improving his English and who exemplifies leadership, great work ethic, discipline and dedication: Juan Martínez
Also, six players graduated from the Royals’ language program, including four from the English program in Ricardo (Cuba), Gabriel Silva (Venezuela), Victor Peña (Dominican Republic) and Jesus Rios (Mexico).
And for the first time ever, the Royals had two international players graduate from the Spanish program as well in Brandon Herbold (Netherlands) and Hyungchan Um (Korea). Um graduated from both the English and Spanish programs, the first player to do that, as well.
Recognizing the English and Spanish graduates is widely considered one of the best parts of the organizational awards ceremony because of how hard it is for those players to not only get acclimated to life in the United States for the first time, but also learn a new language while playing baseball. Monica Ramirez, the Royals’ education/ESL and Latin American initiatives coordinator, presents each of the graduates with a language certificate when they walk up to a rousing round of applause.
“One of my favorite things about this event is when we celebrate our English language learners,” Sherman said. “Think about how hard it is to become a Major League Baseball player. The skills, the work, how long it takes to knock on the door to being a Major League Baseball player. Now think about doing that learning a new language and assimilating into a new culture. But it’s much more than that: You bring your culture to us, too, and we’re all better for it.”