Crown Jewels: Starter Innings, Non-Tender Deadline and More

A new announcer in the fold seems like something we'll enjoy. Plus, a look at Michael A. Taylor's next home.

It feels like it’s been a busy week for Royals news, but then you remember that they’ve only added three players to their 40-man roster, removed three others and signed a player who was already on the roster for less than double the league minimum. We can say the stadium talk is new news, but come on, let’s be real. All that ended up being was put into writing what we already knew was in the works. I have plenty of questions about the dollar amounts and all that with the stadium, but the reality is that I don’t think anything is different on that front today than it was a month ago, a year ago or three years ago. It’s something that is happening.

No matter where the team plays, I’ll be writing about them, so I’ve got that going for me and you have that going against you. I’ve been a little surprised by the way the offseason has gone. Of the 10 players who had signed as of yesterday morning, eight of them remained with their most recent team. Of course, two were on the qualifying offer, but the only moves were Tyler Anderson, and all he did was go to the Angels from the Dodgers, and Nick Anderson who signed with the Braves from the Rays. So all the non-Anderson free agents have stayed put. I imagine that’ll change soon, but I thought that was kind of interesting. I’ll get into the market in a little bit here in this week’s notes.

Innings Still Matter

I actually was set to write a whole article about this, but decided it probably didn’t require that much digital ink. We know that pitchers get worse as the game goes on. The league OPS goes from .687 the first time through to .719 the second time through an order to .770 the third time. So naturally, the solution is to pull pitchers earlier. It makes perfect sense on a game-by-game basis. I do begrudgingly admit that some of the increase comes from pitchers being allowed to start the third time but not finish it. The average starter faced 22 batters per game in 2022. So naturally, when your third time through the order only includes the top four hitters, you’re likely to fare worse than if you had faced 27 and gotten to face the bottom five as well. Still, pitchers get worse the more they see a lineup. Nobody is arguing that. But I think teams need to fight through that more often. Take a look at this chart that shows the rankings of the final four teams in every playoff year outside of 2020 for the last 10 full seasons:

I thought about dumping 2021 too because of how weird a year it was, but I didn’t, so it’s here. Eight of 10 World Series winners are top-10 innings. Eight of 10 World Series losers are top-10 innings. Seve of 10 ALCS losers are top-10 and then the NLCS shows a different story. But part of why that happens is because their bullpens are generally more rested. That’s not a secret. It’s a little harder to gauge with openers so prevalent, but teams that throw fewer relief innings tend to get better performances throughout the season. You can combat a bullpen wearing down in one of two ways. You can either build so much depth that no one reliever is getting thrown to the wolves too often or you can coax more out of your rotation. My opinion is that it’s easier to get an extra two or three outs from a starter sometimes than it is to find six more good relievers. Some teams have absolutely done the latter, so it’s possible, but I’d like to see more out of Royals starters, and I’m honestly okay with seeing them have issues in 2023 if it means they can go deeper in 2024.

Questions for the Non-Tender Deadline

I’m a little surprised that we haven’t seen an announcement on who will be the pitching coach for this team yet because as we get to the non-tender deadline this afternoon, I would think they’d want to have someone in place who could say yay or nay to any of the potential arms. And that’s because I think the biggest question about what the Royals do with some of their arbitration-eligible players fall on the pitching side. The biggest one is, of course, Brad Keller. He looked poised for a decent extension after the 2020 season but has had two straight subpar years.

While the Royals spent years touting how uniquely qualified Cal Eldred was to work with him, I think we can all see the stuff of a pitcher who could be unlocked with a better pitching coach. But without knowing who that coach is, it’s hard to know what someone might think of Keller. Of course, they could have any of a handful of candidates and have asked about Keller in the interview process, so they might still know, but it would be nice to have one in place by now. What I’ve heard is that teams are interested in Keller. Are they interested at an arbitration cost or a non-tender, free agent signing cost? That I don’t know, but I wonder if the Royals do tender him a contract (no deal has to be struck, just knowing that it will be) and look to move him.

Most of the others are more straightforward. Scott Barlow gets tendered. Brady Singer gets tendered. Taylor Clarke gets tendered, especially for the relatively low number on the estimate ($1.5 million). Josh Staumont at $1 million is the same story. On the pitching side, I wonder a little bit about both Amir Garrett and Kris Bubic. Let me start with Bubic. He’s getting tendered, but I wonder if a pitching coach might say, ‘nah, pass’ and say it’s not worth the trouble. I’d be surprised, but it’s not impossible. On Garrett, the Royals have Richard Lovelady returning and Anthony Misiewicz was surprisingly good for them. Could they try to save some money? I don’t know, maybe?

Position-player wise, we know they’ve already given Ryan O’Hearn a deal, so that leaves Nicky Lopez and Adalberto Mondesi. I think there is theoretically room for both. But I also think they’re redundant. Both can play shortstop and both have played second and third as well. Mondesi is far more dynamic while Lopez is far more dependable. If you believe in Michael Massey, I’m not sure I actually do see a spot for both. If I’m picking between the two, I think I might actually choose Mondesi. He provides a bat from either side to pinch hit (which is useful when your bench is shaping up to include Freddy Fermin and O’Hearn) and much higher upside. He hasn’t shown much, but Mondesi has a higher wRC+ since Lopez debuted. I think with Maikel Garcia in the minors, I might opt for the upside play here and keep Mondesi over Lopez. I suspect the Royals will either keep both or only Lopez.

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New Voice, Literally

The Royals announced yesterday that Steve Physioc would be retiring as one of the play-by-play and color commentary voices on both radio and television and he’ll be replaced by Jake Eisenberg. I don’t think it’s any secret to most who have followed me on Twitter or read my work that I was not a fan of Physioc as a broadcaster. I thought he lacked a feel for the game and often tried to figure out exactly what the issue is. Much of the time, I came to the conclusion that he was enjoying the game because he’s a fan of the Royals and found himself having to catch up because he realized he was actually broadcasting the game. I’m here to give honest commentary and my belief is that he made the game more difficult to follow. But I will say that in my limited interactions with him that he was always kind to me and the public anecdotes after the announcement would corroborate that for others. So, because of that, I wish him nothing but the most success in what I assume will be a continued career as an author.

The good news for Royals fans is the team named a replacement and they didn’t make the same mistake they made back a decade ago when they let Robert Ford leave Kansas City. Instead, they hired Eisenberg who has been Omaha’s announcer sort of since 2020. I say sort of because they didn’t play any games. But he announced in 2021 and this past year, he was a part-timer on Mets broadcasts and filled in a bit for the Royals when they were down to like no announcers due to an illness. He’s outstanding at the job. If you listened for the couple of games he worked with Mike Sweeney back when Bobby Witt Jr. hit his first home run and MJ Melendez debuted, I’m sure you’ll agree. Or maybe you caught some Storm Chasers games or even some of his Mets work. My totally uninformed thought here is that the Royals are hopeful they have their radio and television play-by-play voices for the foreseeable future in place with Eisenberg and Ryan Lefebvre as you’re always wondering when Denny Matthews might decide to retire. Still, this is a big-time upgrade for Royals broadcasts, in my opinion, and I’m very excited about it.

Finding Michael A. Taylor’s Next Home

I feel like everything I assumed about the offseason has already been turned on its head with the O’Hearn extension, but even so, I still believe Taylor gets moved sometime this winter. The question is if it’ll be before any center fielders sign or after. But on the bright side of that, the options on the free agent market aren’t exactly amazing. If you see Aaron Judge as a center fielder, he’s the prize. If you don’t, Brandon Nimmo is. After that, the next best is, I don’t know, Tyler Naquin? Generally, it’s a bunch of players with either questionable bats or questionable gloves. Taylor falls into the questionable bat side, but he did post a career-high walk rate and a career-low strikeout rate in 2022 with a wRC+ of 90. I don’t think anyone is going to sign him to hit third, but for $4.5 million, he’s definitely still tradeable.

Of the contenders or teams who might try to become contenders in 2023, a few struggled defensively, at least by DRS. The Cubs (-18), Red Sox (-12), Giants (-9), Phillies (-7), Yankees (-5), Blue Jays (-4), White Sox (-3), Rays (-3) and Mets (-1) were all negative. Only the Cubs were negative in OAA, but many of those teams were in the bottom half by that metric. So many could be in play for Taylor. A team like the Red Sox would make some sense provided that they pick up enough offense throughout the winter to support Taylor’s bat. His stock may have risen too much, but getting Franklin German back for him would be pretty fun. Blake Rivera or Cole Waites could be interesting from San Francisco. If the White Sox decide they want to put Luis Robert in a less demanding corner and went after Taylor, I’d ask for Emilio Vargas and accept Theo Denlinger. He’s not going to bring back much, but I do believe there’s a market.