Kansas City Power & Lynch

Two homers, Daniel Lynch and some good defense got the series with the White Sox off to a good start.

When the Royals were building the 2022 version of the team, I have a feeling that the game from last night against the White Sox was probably pretty close to the blueprint they were looking at. They absolutely thought there would be more runs scored, but the idea was timely hits, a little power, a solid start, good work from the bullpen and good defense to get it done. And that’s exactly what we saw last night. The Royals hit two big home runs to back up a very nice start from Daniel Lynch, fresh off the IL and some quality work out of the bullpen.

As far as the future is concerned, and nothing else really matters with this team anymore, the biggest story was Lynch and how good he looked. He started things off with a 10-pitch battle that ended with a strikeout, but ultimately went 5.1 shutout innings where he struck out seven and didn’t walk anyone. It was just the fourth start of his career where he didn’t walk a batter but he struck out exactly four in all of the previous three. And one of those three was a 2.2 inning start that ultimately ended up with him demoted to AAA last season. It was also just the fifth start of his career where he didn’t allow a run with four of them coming this season.

How did he do it? For starters, I thought he used his fastball extremely well. He threw it 56 percent of the time and only got three swings and misses, but he gave up a lot of weak contact on it and held his velocity all the way to his 87th and final pitch that he threw at 94.2 MPH. That’s been an issue for him in his career. From the sixth inning on, he’s averaged 92.8 MPH with his fastball, compared with 94 MPH from the first through the fifth. So to see him throwing that hard toward the end of his outing is encouraging. You might remember earlier in the season how he was getting more extension and focusing on the high fastball. He executed it last night.

There are still concerns. He gave up a lot of foul balls with that fastball, 14 to be exact, but it helped to set up a very good slider and a very good changeup.

I thought the White Sox did a nice job of laying off his slider, especially early and he threw just nine of 19 for strikes. Even though he got four whiffs on seven swings on the slider, he ended up going away from it a bit more in favor of the fastball. And I think that fastball made the changeup work. He got hit hard on it when he got hit, but he had four whiffs on that pitch as well and I thought the good changeups were some of the best he’s thrown this season.

It’s easy to have lost track a bit of what Lynch has been doing because this was just his third start since June 22, but if you go back six starts now, he’s got 37 strikeouts and 11 walks in his last 28 innings. That’s a strikeout rate of 29.1 percent and a walk rate of 8.7 percent with an ERA of 3.54. The elephant in the room is the innings, but I think the big takeaway is that he’s developing the ability to finish hitters. There are still too many foul balls, but those strikeout and walk rates are very impressive. We feel good about Brady Singer and pretty good about Kris Bubic. Getting to feel good about Lynch the rest of the year would be a great start to 2023.

While it would still be a nice story to talk about Lynch, it wouldn’t be as happy if he had suffered the same fate as Singer did on Thursday night in New York when the offense didn’t support his excellent effort. Ultimately, the Royals only needed two hits and they were the sort of fun story in a look back at the past for this team. The first big hit came in the fourth inning. Michael Kopech was cruising. He gave up a double to Vinnie Pasquantino in the second and that was it. Then Salvador Perez came up.

Okay, first of all, I suppose I believe the distance listed, but if you told me that was 100 feet farther, I wouldn’t have even considered doubting it. That is some absolutely absurd power. He now has three home runs in his four games back from the IL and all are to center field. Given that the center field bombs usually mean he’s locked in, I’m a little surprised that those are his only three hits since his return.

And then with the narrowest of leads, Whit Merrifield came up with one out in the sixth and hit a home run that was sort of like one I talked about yesterday.

Yes, that’s right. I mentioned how unlikely DJ LeMahieu’s home run was yesterday and then Merrifield went and hit one of his own. I joked that it was a nice goodbye message to the Royals and fans, but he had one more trick up his sleeve with the game on the line in the bottom of the seventh inning. The White Sox had started the inning with a dribbler up the first base line and a bloop (isn’t it always a dribbler and a bloop?) and had runners on first and second with two outs when Andrew Vaughn chopped one to the right side.

There is so much going on here. First, for Merrifield to get there, that’s pretty nuts. He said in the postgame interview with Joel Goldberg that he inched over when he heard the pitch was going to be a fastball, so that helped, but to get there, spin and throw accurately is very impressive. Then, Nick Pratto took over and made a very smart play by turning and firing home because Seby Zavala just kept running. Pratto made a brilliant throw, as you can see, but it was so smart because if the White Sox had challenged the play at first and won the challenge, the Royals had to complete the play to get the runner at the plate. Pratto’s heads up play allowed for a challenge to be a waste of time because the inning was ending either way.

After that, it was the Scott Barlow show, getting the two-out save. He looked great. My first thought was they were using him like they didn’t care too much about his arm long-term. He threw 27 pitches. But then my second thought is they weren’t going to risk the arm of a guy who they were going to trade in the next 18 hours. So I honestly have no idea where my head is on that, but it’s something to think about.

Deadline Happenings

Anthony Misiewicz for Cash Considerations

The first move of the day was less of a deadline deal and more of just making a deal to pick up a DFA’d player before he hit the market and could sign with anyone, but they traded cash considerations for Anthony Misiewicz. There isn’t a ton to this move other than finding some organizational depth, perhaps for big league use if another deal or two is consummated today. So this isn’t much, but he could be a contributor. Misiewicz last pitched as a starter in AA in 2019, so I think it’s safe to say he’s a full-on reliever these days.

He works with a three-pitch mix consisting of a curveball, cutter and four-seam fastball. This season he’s thrown them in that order with his fastball velocity down, but in 2021, he threw all three pitches about equally with the fastball averaging around 94 MPH with a solid whiff rate and decent results. His cutter was a bit of a problem, but his curve was great. This season, he’s thrown his curve and cutter equally but backed off his fastball, which might be because his velocity is down a bit. I don’t know what’s going on this season, but his control has slipped too. If he can get back to the levels from 2020 and 2021, he could be a useful middle relief piece.

Luke Weaver for Emmanuel Rivera

This was the “big” trade of the day for the Royals. They traded Emmanuel Rivera, who had served as the starting third baseman quite a bit for the big club for Luke Weaver, who has had his moments as a starter and this year as a reliever. My first reaction was to dislike this quite a bit because Weaver both isn’t especially good and he’s only under team control through next season. But as always, after a trade simmers for a bit, you get closer to your final reaction. And I can tell you that my current thoughts and likely my future thoughts are as follows: meh.

The Royals had pretty clearly decided Rivera wasn’t going to be a part of their future plans. He’d shown some flashes, hitting well in July and for some power throughout the year, but ultimately, he’s a career .243/.294/.378 hitter and he’s 26-years old. His AAA numbers are significantly better and his age doesn’t preclude him from becoming a productive hitter, but to this point, he’s been below average by a fair amount. The defensive metrics are split on him with DRS rating him as an above-average defender and OAA as a below-average third baseman.

In Weaver, I think they are getting an interesting arm, regardless of the lack of team control. He’s worked mainly as a starter throughout his career but has been almost exclusively out of the bullpen this season. It’s helped his fastball tick up a bit, but even with that velocity, it’s been hit hard. His changeup, though, has a 40.5 percent whiff rate and his four-seamer has been a useful pitch in the past. He did have a 7.71 ERA with the Diamondbacks this year, but a lot of that came from his one disastrous start. In 11 games as a reliever, he has a 3.55 ERA with a 24.6 percent strikeout rate and seven percent walk rate.

That’s where he’ll work for the Royals for the rest of this season before they evaluate what to do with him next season. I find that interesting because of their situation with Brad Keller. And if you’re wondering what that situation is, I have some questions about them moving his start to tonight after he was scheduled to go last night originally. I posited on Twitter that Keller moving from his scheduled Monday start would be a sign they were at least talking to teams about him. He may not go before his start tonight, but if he does, the Royals could look to Weaver to fill that spot in the rotation next season as a veteran.

Ultimately, I think this trade would have been better received if they didn’t trade Rivera while continuing to roster Ryan O’Hearn and others of his ilk. But in the end, I think both Rivera and Weaver end up as names listed when people play the game of naming former random Royals in about a decade.

Rumors and Rumblings

Yesterday was one of the craziest days before the deadline I can remember. The Royals didn’t do much, but by all indications, they aren’t just ready to move to play tonight with their roster in tact. That doesn’t mean they will definitely make another couple of moves, but I still believe Merrifield will go and I think there’s still a chance for Keller. One move that I’m intrigued by is something like Michael A. Taylor to the Astros as they are still on the hunt for a center fielder. He’d make an awful lot of sense there.

It’s fun on social media because the last 12-18 hours has been a lot of people saying things like “the Royals aren’t going to make any moves, are they?” Look, they come by it honestly. It’s like sitting around at 2:45 and saying to nobody in particular, “we won’t be eating dinner tonight, will we?” Sure, the Royals typically don’t cook, but they also play things very close to the best. I won’t assume there isn’t going to be a meal waiting for us until we’re hungry at 9:30.