One Weekend Down

The Royals started their Cactus League with something familiar - a winning weekend.

After three days of Cactus League play, the Royals find themselves in a familiar spot, near the top of the Cactus League standings. None of it matters, of course, but their spring success is always at least interesting to discuss. I’m sure players on the bubble would argue with this, but from a whole team perspective, I don’t think anything matters more than health. And after three games out of 31 (32 if you count the exhibition against Northwest Arkansas at the end of spring), the Royals are generally healthy with two exceptions I’ll get to shortly. So that’s a good thing, but another good thing was two innings from Cole Ragans yesterday against the Angels.

Results generally matter very little, but it’s always fun to see a line of two innings with five strikeouts and no walks. Ragans did give up three singles in his two innings of work, but was generally in the zone and struck out Aaron Hicks, Anthony Rendon, Brandon Drury, Willie Calhoun and Zach Neto. Four of those five are expected to play many nights for the Angels. The fifth, Calhoun, hasn’t ever stuck as a big leaguer, but has done one thing well consistently when he has played in the big leagues and that’s limited strikeouts. So as far as spring results go, I’d say these were at least a little closer to something you can actually use.

But in a quote tweet to Ragans getting the Pitching Ninja treatment, Lance Brozdowski, who knows pitching, had a fun comment:

Yeesh indeed, Lance.

That’s absurd movement on a fastball. As is noted in the post, Ragans was somewhat close to that on a pitch last season, but not quite there, and when he reached yesterday’s velocity, the break wasn’t there. Now, there are a whole slew of issues with pitch data in spring training and I’m not entirely sure where the numbers are coming from in this post, so maybe we need to take them with a slight grain of salt, but Ragans certainly looked the part in his two innings of work.

Pitchers are absolutely ahead of hitters this early in the spring, but the Angels looked totally lost against him. Here’s Rendon, noted lover of baseball, striking out and looking…interesting doing it.

Again, I know it’s spring, but those types of swings don’t often happen, even when the stakes are as low as they are and the hitter cares as little as he does about being there.

I did see some concern over Ragans throwing so hard, so early in camp. I agree it doesn’t feel like the best idea, especially for a pitcher who has had multiple Tommy John surgeries, but anyone who believes they can tell you that this is going to be the start of another elbow issue for him is lying. Sure, the odds seem to suggest they’ll be right simply because it happens so often, but we can’t know for sure.

The Royals have their sights set on winning a division in 2024. And while I don’t think that’s the most realistic outcome from this upcoming season, if they’re going to have a chance to do that, they need Ragans to look like he did for two innings in his spring opener about 30 more times during the regular season, but for six to seven innings a pop. If he can do that and if Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo can be steadying factors and if Brady Singer can bounce back, well, there’s a chance that they can be better than I expect.

I have a lot of faith in Ragans to be at least very good in 2024 and maybe way better than that. I’d be lying if I said that what we saw yesterday didn’t make me a little more confident that he’ll be even better than very good, but I’d also be lying if I said I wasn’t admonishing myself for getting wrapped up in two spring innings. Either way, it’s better to be good than bad even if being good doesn’t mean all that much. And it’s certainly better to be filthy dominant than simply good. But again, it’s all about health.

So far, almost so good for the team on the health front. There are two concerns. The first is Carlos Hernandez. Anne Rogers reported that JJ Picollo indicated there was some shoulder soreness for him and that he hasn’t thrown off a mound in two weeks. The report is that Hernandez is close to throwing his first bullpen and likely only needs six or seven live outings to be ready to throw an inning at a time, but shoulder issues can be a problem. He hasn’t always stayed the healthiest either, so until he’s on a mound, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to consider him a legitimate option to make the team. Once he is, he’s back, but these things have a way of lingering.

The other issue is Christian Chamberlain, who is an interesting left-handed relief prospect. Chamberlain struck out 49 in 31.2 innings in AA with a 1.99 ERA (he also walked 22, so…) and then got hit pretty hard in his time in AAA. But he got an invite to camp as a lefty with a big arm and got into his first spring game over the weekend. He faced three batters. He hit one, walked one and struck one out before leaving with elbow tightness. You just never want to see that. We’ll see what the update is on him today, but Jaylon Thompson reported that he was still sore yesterday morning and they’re waiting on testing to see the extent of the injury.

The nice thing about the Royals offseason is that neither of these two are guys they’re counting on heavily. Hernandez could have been had he finished strong, but he didn’t, so he’s now probably sixth or seventh on the bullpen depth chart. Chamberlain feels like a pitcher in recent years who could have made the team with a lights out spring, but I’m not even sure that he had any chance this year anyway without four or five injuries. But still, you never want to see depth depleted on the first weekend of games, so hopefully the news is good for both of these two.

The other big news of the weekend was that the Cubs signed Cody Bellinger to an interesting deal. It’s three years and $80 million with the first year at $30 million, the second year at $30 million and third year at $20 million. The caveat is that, like most of the Royals contracts this winter, there are opt-outs. Bellinger can opt-out following either of the first two years of the deal. There’s some big risk on the Cubs, but if they believe he’s the .307/.356/.525 hitter they had last season and not the .193/.256/.355 hitter he was in 2021 and 2022 combined that led to him getting non-tendered.

The risk is what the risk is, but it led a lot of people from a lot of fanbases to wonder why their team couldn’t have done it. Since I write about the Royals, I don’t care as much about them, but a lot of this applies for most of them. For one thing, it seems like Bellinger had a comfort level in Chicago that led him to do this deal. So that part of it makes it somewhat unlikely that any other team could have gotten by with this deal. That’s not to say that if the Royals offered a similar deal but with $20 million more total that he wouldn’t have taken it, but that’s to be factored in.

The big thing for me, from a Royals perspective specifically, is that this deal wouldn’t have made sense for them. Bellinger was given a qualifying offer. That means if the Royals signed him, they’d have given up their third-highest pick (other teams give up more because they pay into revenue sharing, but remember, Royals site here). As of right now, that’s the 41st pick in the draft. That can change a bit with a couple other qualifying free agent signings, but the 41st pick in the draft held a slot value of just under $2.1 million in 2023. Let’s say the Royals gave Bellinger three years and $100 million and it was $35 million for the first two years and $30 million for the third. Is that something you’re comfortable giving up that much draft capital for?

Think about this. If Bellinger is good, he leaves after the season to go sign for like $300 million over nine years or something absurd like that. If he’s not good, the Royals are on the hook for $65 million over two years for him. And this is where the Royals particular station as a team matters. Yes, their goal is to win a division. But if they’re being honest with themselves, are they more of a mid-70s win team or a mid-80s win team. They could win 85 to 88 for sure. I see a lot of paths toward that. But I’m not sure I’d give up on that much slot money and that draft position with a new scouting director for a player who might make them three or four wins better. If they’re a 75-win team, does 79 wins make them a division winner? The answer is no. If there was no QO, absolutely, get better, but signing someone like Bellinger (or Matt Chapman) to a short-term deal wouldn’t be worth it to me.

Now, if the Royals said they want to get into the Jordan Montgomery game and give him a similar short-term deal, that I wouldn’t be too upset about. He doesn’t have any draft pick compensation attached to him, so it makes a lot more sense. I know this isn’t a huge deal, but it was something I saw discussed and I wanted to get into it a bit more here.

Looking ahead to today’s action, the Royals will take on the Cubs in Surprise and we’ll get the first chance to see Seth Lugo in Royals blue.

We’re a little too early to be doing rotation math, but if Michael Wacha goes tomorrow, he’ll be in rotation for the Opening Day start. I’m still hoping for Ragans to get the nod, but that’s one of the fun parts of spring too.