Crown Jewels: A Forgotten Player, New Pitches and Some Arbitration Thoughts

BASEBALL IS PLAYED TODAY!

Guys, this is not a drill. The Royals play a game today! Heck, if you’re reading this like 12 hours after it was sent out, the Royals played a game today. Did it matter? Of course not, it’s spring training. But did we deserve this after a long winter? Absolutely. Spring training is funny to me (and maybe this is just me but I don’t think so) because I get so excited for the first few days and then I think it gets to be a touch too long. And the Royals, of course, find themselves hot as blazes until those last few days and you wonder a little why they couldn’t just start the season in mid-March in Arizona. But hey, for now, spring games are fun and I can’t wait to listen in later today.

I will go through this again before the end of spring I’m sure. And some of this is for my own benefit, but it’s just a reminder that spring training stats don’t tell the whole story for so many reasons. One, it’s a small sample. That might be the best reason. A pitcher throwing 18 innings or a batter getting 60 plate appearances may seem like a lot after a long winter of nothingness, but anything can happen in a sample that small. Two, the competition is, let’s say, varied. A player hitting .430 in 50 plate appearances that all come from the sixth inning on against minor league competition has less value than 50 plate appearances against big leaguers early in the games. Three, the air is light and bright and the fields are bad.

There will be fly balls missed in that Arizona sky because the sun is insane. Some of those fly balls will leave the yard that wouldn’t anywhere else outside of a couple of parks. Sometimes, you’ll see a chopper just rocket over an infielder’s head. Let’s say a batter hits a popup that drops untouched. Then the next guy hits a chopper for a single that bounces over an infielder’s head. Then the third guy hits a three-run homer that would never be out anywhere else. That’s three earned runs without an out for your favorite pitcher that would likely be a 1-2-3 inning in Kauffman Stadium. The point here is just to be careful to not stat scout in the spring.

Forgetting About Nate Eaton

When Drew Waters went down with his oblique injury for six weeks, the first thought was that Kyle Isbel is now almost guaranteed to be the center fielder to start the season. But before the injury, the general thought was that Isbel and Waters would play center and right in either order. Others would have opportunities, sure, but they were the favorites and would have to play their way out of the role. Now, I think Nate Eaton not only is on the Opening Day roster, but plays an even bigger role than I expected. I had him on my most recent projection, so it’s not that I forgot he existed, but I may be sleeping a bit on what he can be for this team.

First of all, the lack of Waters means the defensive options to join Melendez and Isbel are generally…rough. Edward Olivares is just not a good defender. Franmil Reyes is a DH. Hunter Dozier is, well, Hunter Dozier. Matt Beaty is an infielder. So is Nick Pratto. Diego Hernandez can really go get it, but his bat isn’t big league ready. They have Dairon Blanco in camp, so I guess he’s a possibility and John Rave is there too, but Eaton showed he is an elite defender in the outfield, so I would guess he plays a big role, at least until Waters is back and maybe beyond that.

I’ve kind of slept on the offensive performance from him that we saw in his debut last season. It was a small sample with just 122 plate appearances, but he hit .264/.331/.387. The walk rate was reasonable at 8.2 percent and he struck out a little more than you’d like at 24.6 percent, but he had a breakout game in early September and from that game forward, he hit .323/.386/.436 with a much more manageable 18.3 percent strikeout rate and five extra base hits in 71 plate appearances. Can he be a nice piece on a championship roster? I think he showed that it’s certainly possible. Plus, with the decreased distance between the bases, his speed (29.7 ft/s, near elite) can be a huge weapon for this club. And he mashed lefties, which fits really well with Isbel, who struggled against them.

But again, Eaton displayed truly elite outfield defense in a very small sample. In just 182 outfield innings, he accumulated seven defensive runs saved. That’s seriously crazy. It’s a counting stat. Michael A. Taylor and Daulton Varsho tied for the most DRS last year with 19 each. Taylor did it in 1,010 innings and Varsho in 920.1 innings. Give Eaton the 1,010 innings from Taylor and he was on pace for 39! That’s insane. That’s on par with and even a little better than Kevin Kiermaier’s 2015 when he had 38 DRS in 1,188.2 innings. He got there with speed, great range and one of the best arms we’ve seen in the outfield in a long time.

So while I have some questions about if he can sustain the offense because the batted ball data is somewhat iffy, I don’t have any questions about the glove and think that he can win the team a game or two with that alone. The injury to Waters might give him the opportunity and I think I’m really excited to see him play outfield every day if he gets that chance.

Keller Curve (and Sweeper)

Spring training is notorious for getting people excited about things, but maybe nothing gets people worked up more than a new pitch. And Brad Keller has one, a curve that he worked on during the offseason with Driveline Baseball, one of the most well-known training centers in the sport. According to Anne Rogers with mlb.com (so glad someone is in Arizona and writing about the team), Driveline reached out to him and Keller reciprocated that interest. There are a couple of things I found interesting from the article.

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The first is obviously the new pitch. Nicky Lopez talked about the pitch and how it throws timing off and creates a different look for Keller. I think that a guy who was largely fastball/slider with the occasional changeup could use something else, especially when the fastball(s) got hit. So to add that curve is a different look for a guy who throws everything hard. I think that’ll help him quite a bit.

The second is the response from the coaching staff. I know I’ve talked a million times about what these new coaches represent for the team and how we also don’t know how it’s going to work out, but their support for different sort of training is huge to me. And it aligned with what Brian Sweeney was wanting from Keller after he got hired.

“As a group, we talked about what it would look like if he got something in the low 80s paired with his mid-90s fastball and everything in between,” Sweeney said. “So that was a focus of this offseason, find some sort of spin that would help with speed differential. He came in with some really impressive pitches.”

I thought this quote from Keller was especially interesting (and damning to the previous regime):

“What [Driveline] taught me is what they’re talking about here [in camp],” Keller said. “It’s been good to have that similar way of thinking. I really liked it. I’ve never been really big on analytics, probably just because of knowledge. I just didn’t know much about it. Talking to all these guys here, they’re big into all the analytical stuff.

He just didn’t know much about it. Huh, I wonder why he was never taught, Cal. But I digress. I’m planning to reach out to some people once they get a chance to see Keller’s curve in action to get reactions from people much smarter than me, but a couple of people around the game told me that they’re really impressed with everything they’ve heard about the way Keller has gone about his work. One even noted, with only slight sarcasm, that seeing video of Keller has made him believe Keller might be in the…best shape of his life. I would agree that the pictures do seem like he’s lost some weight.

He’s also working on a sweeper, which is the pitch that’s all the rage right now and there’s a great thread from yesterday on Twitter about it.

Chris Langin @LanginTots13

Super Excited for Brad Keller! Here's a look at those new breaking balls at moderate intensity... Both pitches project as plus-offerings at in-game velocity... CB ⬇️= Vertical offering for lefties. Sweeper🧹⬅️ = Geared towards hunting righties. 🧵

Anne Rogers @anne__rogers

"Something’s got to change. I needed to venture out of my comfort zone, figure out what’s going on, what’s going to allow me to get better." --#Royals pitcher Brad Keller on his offseason, which included a trip to Driveline and an emphasis on his curveball https://t.co/0vVxeHIVEv

The point of both these new pitches is to help him get swings and misses. His swinging strike percentage of 9.8 percent last year was his career high. That was 94th out of 140 pitchers with 100 or more innings. And that was the best he’s ever done. He needs more whiffs.

He’s such an interesting pitcher to me because he was legitimately good in the first three years of his career. He had a 3.50 ERA (131 ERA+) and a 3.90 FIP in 360.1 innings. That absolutely works. And then the wheels started to fall off. The timing isn’t great. He’s set to become a free agent after the season so the Royals are kind of in no-man’s land with him, but he could be a nice trade piece if he can get back to those levels of success. He’s still just 27 years old, so in a time of hope, I think it’s fun to be hoping on him to figure things out. Do I really believe he’ll be an asset or bring back something worthwhile at the deadline? Eh, I don’t know, but a good start to get there is to make a change like adding a pitch or two that is unlike anything else he throws.

Arbitration Ruminations

This is more of a baseball issue than a Royals issue, though it did impact the Royals this year. I’m not sure if it’s just that I don’t remember it as well, but it seems like arbitration for players who are at that stage of their careers has been more publicized and criticized this year than ever before. I think some of it is that last season, arbitration was going on throughout the season and not in a concentrated time period like it is this year and is normally. And I think some of it is a lot of teams have become “file and trial” teams where if they don’t reach a deal before the deadline, they’re heading to arbitration no matter what. Either way, it’s been talked about quite a bit.

There’s a really interesting Twitter thread from Ryan Thompson who lost his arbitration case to the Rays that made me think about what needs to change here.

Ryan Thompson @R_Thompson15

My thoughts concerning arbitration: (THREAD) I want to make clear that although I lost my case, there is absolutely no ill-will towards the Rays as they were as professional and respectful as possible considering the circumstances. This is merely a review of the process.

First off, what in the actual hell? The Rays argued against him because he wasn’t used enough against lefties, but last I checked, Thompson doesn’t get to choose when he enters a game and he held lefties to a .196/.255/.294 line in 2022 with a .214/.290/.320 line in his career, so it’s not even a matter of the Rays thinking he can’t do it. He also mentioned that those on the panel did not really understand basic baseball statistics. I personally don’t think it’s that big of a deal that the panel had phones out and all of that, but I do think some big changes need to be made.

The players believe in arbitration and I think it’s an important process. I have no issue with it existing. It’s how players can work for higher salaries before reaching free agency. But the idea that one team can offer $1 million and the player is asking for $1.2 million and it takes them to a hearing where the team works to discredit the player is a mess. We saw what kind of a toll it can take on a player with the comments of Corbin Burnes this year. One thing I’d really like to see is to pick a percentage difference and if the offerings are under that, go to mediation. Don’t let something go to a hearing over a small amount of money. The Burnes situation is ridiculous that the Brewers would upset him over less than $750k out of a $10 million + salary.

But if it has to go to a hearing, they have to put people who actually understand the process on the panel. You can’t have people not able to push back on an assertion that a pitcher isn’t used enough against lefties, for example. I also think the arguments should be made by third parties. The team doesn’t argue for the team, someone else does. The player doesn’t argue for the player, the MLBPA does. It takes the drama out of it that can be caused and reduces animosity. I also don’t think it should be either/or. If the panel determines that a player should actually be in the middle of the two numbers, that’s what they get. It can’t go higher or lower but it can be in that range. I don’t know if it’s perfect, but I know the current structure is a problem.

I absolutely believe going to arbitration over small numbers is short-sighted, but teams are going to fight for every dollar they can, just like players will. As I noted so many times during the lockout, if given the choice between millionaires (and many are actually hundreds of thousandaires) or billionaires, I’m going to choose the former. But I understand the reality, and the system needs to change to be about finding a fair middle ground, which it isn’t right now but very easily could.