Between first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino being Team Italy's captain in the World Baseball Classic (WBC), catcher Salvador Perez doing the same for Team Venezuela, and shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. making highlight defensive plays for Team USA, there are plenty of headlines about Kansas City Royals players right now. Conversely, pitching prospect Dennis Colleran has flown under the radar nationally, but that could change over the next couple of years if he continues his current trajectory.

Royals manager Matt Quatraro shared kind words about the 2024 seventh-round pick on Monday, per The Athletic's Jim Bowden.

“Dennis has been absolutely electric. He has an upper-90s fastball coming out of a low arm slot with an emerging slider," he said. "Hitters have really had uncomfortable at-bats against him.”

Colleran has tossed four scoreless innings with three strikeouts, no walks, one hit allowed, and one save for Kansas City in spring training thus far. The 22-year-old also notched a 2.85 ERA over 44 minor-league appearances last season. He started the campaign in A-ball before getting promoted to High-A, and he logged one Double-A appearance.

Colleran is the Royals' No. 25-ranked prospect, per MLB Pipeline. The site projects his big-league debut to be in 2027, but he could make his mark in Double-A and Triple-A this season.

It's hard not to like Kansas City's outlook both short and long-term. In addition to core pieces like Witt, Pasquantino, Garcia, and Perez, it has promising young big-leaguers like outfielders Jac Caglianone and Isaac Collins. On top of that, catchers Carter Jensen and Blake Mitchell are MLP Pipeline's No. 18 and No. 75-ranked prospects, respectively.

If Caglianone, Collins, and Jensen all play well for the Royals this season, the team will have one of the deepest lineups in baseball. Plus, all of the aforementioned players are under 30 and have multiple years of team control left, other than Perez.

Pitching-wise, Colleran is part of a deep group of prospects including right-handers Luinder Avila (No. 9 on the Royals' Top 30), Ben Kudrna (No. 10), Steven Zobac (No. 13) and Shane Panzini (No. 21). Avila made 13 big-league appearances last season and is pitching for Team Venezuela, while the latter three hurlers are all projected to get called up this year. Kansas City will get to evaluate who it wants to keep long-term among that group over the next couple of campaigns.

Up next for Royals players who aren't in the WBC is a spring training matchup with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday.