Every draft class has a guy who could've gone either way, and this year that's Jack Slightom. The Kansas City Royals took the Lyons Township High School righty with the No. 56 overall pick, and instead of letting him wander off to Cincinnati to play quarterback, they just wrote him a check that makes the decision easy.
2nd-rder Jack Slightom signs w/@Royals for $3 million (slot 56 = $1,721,700). Illinois prep RHP, talented QB, very athletic, fastball up to 98 mph w/carry & run, slider & changeup show promise as well. @GoBearcatsBASE recruit. @MLBDraft
According to Jim Callis, Slightom signed for $3 million against a slot value of just $1,721,700 — a bonus pool number usually reserved for a first-rounder, not the guy picked 56th overall. That's the kind of overslot deal that only happens when a team is genuinely scared a player walks away from pro ball entirely, and in this case the fear was real: Slightom was a Cincinnati Bearcats commit and the starting quarterback at Lyons Township, where he led the team to an 8-3 record and a trip to the second round of the Class 8A playoffs this past fall.
Baseball wasn't even his primary sport until recently. Slightom didn't get serious about pitching full-time until his senior season, and he made it count — a 7-0 record with a 0.38 ERA, reportedly the best mark of any high school pitcher in Illinois. Add in a fastball that's touched 97-98 mph with carry and run, plus a slider and changeup scouts already like, and you've got a 6-foot-4, 200-pound prep arm who looks more like a finished product than a projection.
That combination of size, arm strength and multi-sport athleticism is exactly the profile teams pay up for on draft day, because it means there's real risk somebody else — in this case a Big 12 football program — walks away with him instead. The Royals clearly weren't willing to find out. Kansas City has leaned into raw arm strength and physical upside with its recent prep pitching hauls, and Slightom fits that mold about as well as anyone in this class.
For a Royals org that's been trying to rebuild pitching depth from the ground up, landing a 98 mph arm this far outside the first round — even at first-round money — is a low-key coup. The bigger bet is on projection: Slightom has thrown fewer competitive innings than most of his draft peers simply because he split his falls with football. If the arm keeps developing the way the fastball suggests, the extra $1.3 million over slot will look like nothing.