First Annual ItC Royals Awards Show

Here at Inside the Crown, we have a very buttoned up voting process to determine all winners.

In the end, the Royals were pretty much what everyone expected. Outside of some outliers on both sides, the win total was within a few of what made sense. You might have seen some 71s and some 78s, but getting to 74 wins is pretty much what any logical prediction or projection system or gambler was looking at. Of course, tell that to the people who had the under on 73.5 or the over on 74.5 and they won’t agree that 74 was right, but we all know in our hearts that it was.

And as anyone who runs a newsletter about a given team will do when there is no new news to write about (and likely won’t be for awhile), I’m going to give out some awards. I felt like it was fitting after writing about the real awards the stud minor leaguers have gotten this season. So give me a second to roll out the red carpet for the inaugural ItC Season Ending Awards.

MVP

Let’s go ahead and get this out of the way because duh, it’s Carlos Santana. Oh wait, no, it’s Salvador Perez. When Perez hit 11 home runs in 37 games, showing off even more power than before his Tommy John Surgery, I figured it was real, but I didn’t know how it would play over a full season of catching. My thought was that he was well rested from not playing at all in 2019 and from the short season and he wouldn’t be able to maintain a pace of 48 home runs over 162 games.

Turns out I was wrong. We all know now that 48 home runs is exactly what he did and he did it over 161 games. We’ll never know what would have happened if he hadn’t slipped in that dugout during the second-to-last series of the year, but I’m convinced he’d have gotten two more over those final four and a half games and been the first Royals player to 50, but that’s okay because he still has a share of the record. I know that RBIs are not in vogue, but to get to 121 in an offense that only scored 686 all year is very impressive. That’s the third highest total in Royals history and led all of baseball.

Sure he struck out more than ever, but he did legitimate damage to baseballs. More than 16 percent of the balls he hit were barreled. That’s the 10th highest percentage in baseball. His 56.2 percent hard hit rate was second in all of baseball. He hit 255 balls at 95 MPH or harder, which was second only to Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. His 93 MPH average exit velocity ranked 12th in the whole sport. His 28 no-doubter home runs were more than anyone. And he was hurt by his park. His 51.4 xHR were most in the league by six! This, friends, is a tank from early in the season. It’s his longest home run of the year.

He did all this while catching 124 games (starting 120 of them). While he did DH a lot to keep him fresh, it’s not like 124 games is nothing. It was the second most in baseball and his 120 starts were the most. He led the league by catching 44 percent of attempted base stealers and he was forced to block so many pitches. I still think he can get a little lazy on those balls in the dirt, but he was down there so much that it’s hard to blame him. Of the five catchers with 1,000 or more innings caught this year, the one passed ball he allowed is five fewer than the next fewest. Only one catcher who caught 500 or more innings had fewer. That’s very, very impressive. He may not be a good pitch framer, which is important, but the man nails runners and doesn’t let balls get by him that shouldn’t. Just look at this cannon.

And for all of these reasons that I guarantee you I didn’t need to get into, Salvy is the team MVP.

Non-Salvy MVP

Okay, so the Perez thing is pretty obvious and almost unfair to the rest of the team, so I wanted to talk about a guy who deserves some recognition. Maybe this can be the ItC Special Achievement Award or something, but Nicky Lopez was just something special this season. Part of it is the story, right? Everyone was clamoring for him in 2019 and he was called up and disappointed. Then he came out last season after talking about bulking up to add more power and he was even worse. Then he comes to spring training as the presumptive second baseman but is so bad that he was sent to Omaha. And then an injury to Adalberto Mondesi opened the door for him.

He started the season well, hitting .304/.353/.391 in his first 16 games with just six strikeouts in 52 plate appearances, but after that, he cratered. He was so bad in his next 15 games that his season numbers fell to .200/.310/.271. Even that early, it’s hard to drop that fast. He continued to sort of tread water and then Mondesi came back and it seemed like he was back to being a utility guy and maybe a bit of a disappointment. But when the Royals started their road trip to Anaheim in early June, he started on the road back. He started hitting and with Mondesi out again, he was back at shortstop. He was up to .265/.350/.326 by the break.

He hit .286/.323/.374 in his first 99 plate appearances after the breaking, mostly hitting ninth and that’s when he moved up to the two spot for good. He hit .352/.407/.449 the rest of the season, becoming the first Royals shortstop to hit .300 in a full season. No, the power wasn’t there, but it probably never will be (though my theory is that now is the time for him to add some muscle). He worked counts, didn’t strike out, walked, got big hits and just generally came through almost every time the Royals needed him. Is the offense sustainable? That’s a good question. If he sports a high, but not as high, BABIP next season, his numbers will drop back down to utility level. So there’s a chance he can’t repeat this.

But even if he doesn’t, the defense is real and sustainable. When the season started with him at shortstop, I figured he’d make all the routine plays and the occasional good play, but we’d be missing what Mondesi can do. When Mondesi came back, he made a play on a ball coming in that I didn’t think Lopez could make. I was wrong. According to Baseball Savant, nobody made more outs above average than him. He was five ahead of second! He made 10 outs above average just coming in, probably to prove me wrong.

I still think this was his play of the year, from that same game:

He’s carved himself out a spot on the team beyond this season and just six months ago, that was certainly not a given.

Cy Young

Do we have to give this one out? Four pitchers exceeded 100 innings with Mike Minor topping them all at 158.2. So that means no Royals pitcher qualified for any league lead total this season, which really is fine, because I don’t think any of them were league leaders in much of anything but first inning runs. I guess let’s take a look at the “candidates.”

As far as starters go, Minor throwing 25 more innings than anyone gives him at least some argument. He wasn’t especially good, but he generally did the job he was signed to do until he got hurt. Kris Bubic was third on the team in innings pitched and had the best ERA of the 100+ inning bunch. He got there with his strong finish. Brady Singer was fourth in innings and among Royals who started even a single game, he had the third best strikeout rate. He also had the third best game score in any start in 2021, so that’s something, I guess. I’d love to give it to Danny Duffy, but that seems weird.

In the bullpen, the candidates are much better. Scott Barlow led the Royals in saves and had a 2.41 ERA with a higher strikeout rate than anyone but Ronald Bolaños. Josh Staumont had a very good year as well with a 2.88 ERA and the lowest walk rate of his career. And there’s one pitcher who pitched out of the bullpen and the rotation and that’s Carlos Hernandez, who was just so impressive to me throughout the season. He wore down in September without a doubt, but what he did for the seven or so weeks from the break on was very impressive

It’s a tough call, but I think the winner here is Barlow. I want to give it to Hernandez, but he only ended up throwing about 11 innings more than Barlow and the numbers weren’t quite as good. I’m far more excited for Hernandez’s future, but I think Barlow deserves this. It’s an indictment on the pitching staff that a reliever who had a very good, but not otherworldly year is the best pitcher they had, but that’s the life of a Royals fan in most seasons. And at least he did have that very good season instead of just being fine and getting a lot of saves.

I really liked the Barlow deal when the Royals signed him away from the Dodgers a few years ago and thought he could make it as a starter, but with his breaking stuff, he’s been a heck of a bullpen weapon. This slider is just pure filth.

And he did that all season long. The curve was pretty good too.

I’ve said it a few times, but I still think the Royals would be better off with Barlow not in the ninth inning. It’s funny because I feel like I find myself defending him a lot and yet it felt like he was in some trouble every time I was defending him. Still, the numbers were there and he did the job for them at the back end. If they can go get someone to handle the ninth in a big way, he and the rest of the crew have a chance to be a very good bullpen in 2022.

Rookie of the Year

This one actually has some competition as the Royals employed 16 players who still had rookie eligibility in 2021. Some of them only had a handful of appearances, but that’s 16 out of 48 total players. Since you’re curious, I’ll give you the whole list:

Scott Blewett
Ronald Bolaños
Jake Brentz
Dylan Coleman
Kelvin Gutierrez
Jon Heasley
Carlos Hernandez
Kyle Isbel
Jackson Kowar
Daniel Lynch
Joel Payamps
Emmanuel Rivera
Sebastian Rivero
Gabe Speier
Domingo Tapia
Angel Zerpa

Of those, you can cross off Blewett, Bolaños, Coleman, Gutierrez, Heasley, Isbel Kowar, Payamps, Rivera, Rivero, Speier, Tapia and Zerpa. Some for lack of innings/plate appearances and others for lack of results.

So that leaves Brentz, Hernandez and Lynch.

Brentz was good. He struck out a lot of guys and worked his way up the bullpen ladder to the point that some people thought he should have been closing games during the middle of the year. I love his arm and think he’s a really nice piece moving forward, but I’m eliminating him from consideration.

I included Lynch because he was the first one up and because he probably had the best stretch. The end results were obviously not enough to have him win this award, but he deserves some recognition for being mostly pretty solid the second time around. He made 12 starts, went 60 innings and had a 4.35 ERA. He didn’t strike out enough and walked too many, but in his first seven starts back, he showed what he was capable of and that’s what the Royals will be banking on for 2022.

So all that’s left is your ItC Rookie of the year, Carlos Hernandez. Like Lynch, he struggled some down the stretch, but unlike Lynch, he showed that he was able to get guys out without his very best stuff. In his last 20 appearances that included 11 starts and one relief appearance that was as long as a start, this was his line:

78 IP
59 H
29 R
28 ER
63 K
33 BB
3.23 ERA

After the break, he did his best work before he started to wear down in September. He had eight appearances and seven starts, but the one relief appearance was the one that was basically a start in length. These are the numbers for those eight games:

43 IP
29 H
15 R
14 ER
36 K
13 BB
2.93 ERA

Yes, there are things to work on. He throws 98-100, but still doesn’t get as many strikeouts as you’d like. But he showed that he has a four-pitch mix that allows him to find what’s working and go with it. He’s shown the ability to scrap one pitch for another if he doesn’t think one is working. It was a very impressive rookie season for Hernandez and one that I think will earn him a spot in the Opening Day rotation.

He threw 30 pitches 100 MPH or harder this past season and another 232 between 98 MPH and 100 MPH. The guy has legitimate gas and isn’t afraid to use it.

The curve is pretty nasty too.

Oh and there’s the slider also.

The talk was that Ervin Santana played a huge role in his development. If that’s the case, then having Erv on the roster the entire season was worth every penny. It looks like the Royals have a good one. Yes, he has some work to do to continue to get better, but they have themselves a piece for the rotation moving forward that they maybe weren’t counting on.

So those are my major awards. I decided to forego the explanation of Mike Matheny as Royals manager of the year, but he won that award as part of a crowded field. Let me know who your award winners are in the comments!