One Weekend of Royals Spring Training Baseball
Three games isn’t even close to enough to evaluate, but the Royals played actual baseball games and we can look at what happened.
What can you learn from three spring training games? The answer is very little. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things beginning to happen that we can break down as we get closer and closer to Opening Day 2025 in just 31 days. And on a roster that has as few competitions for spots as this one, it doesn’t take much to lose the edge while a great performance could keep you in the conversation for a little while longer. I generally believe that pitching performances are more impactful than small samples with hitters, and I think this coaching staff does as well, at least based on last season.
The moment I knew things were different was when the Royals went with Alec Marsh as the fifth starter out of spring. The decision was made because he earned the job. He was pretty obviously at least the third choice coming out of spring, behind Jordan Lyles and Daniel Lynch IV, but they chose him over the guy they were paying $8.5 million and a one-time first round pick. But at the same time, they also didn’t buy into Arizona hype with a guy like Nick Pratto who absolutely tore up the Cactus League last year. If you go by performance, he earned a roster spot over Nelson Velazquez but didn’t break camp with the team and his AAA performance at least corroborated their viewpoint.
So things will become clearer and clearer with a little more time. I’m going to wait until next week to put out my second roster projection with hitters a week from today and pitchers a week from tomorrow. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t learn a little something over the first three games of spring training. I do think it’s important to remember that spring is a time when a bad performance means a guy is just working on things while a good performance is incredibly meaningful. I joke, of course, but we all know that at some point we’re going to try to justify a thought process that way. The good news is that we have so much more statcast this spring, so even with games not televised, we can learn a little something. Let’s look at some of that knowledge we gained over the weekend.
The Fifth Starter Battle
All three of the principles for this roster spot pitched over the weekend. Lynch started the opener on Friday and Noah Cameron relieved him while Kris Bubic got the start yesterday against the White Sox. Marsh will join this competition at some point, but he’s a bit behind due to a shoulder injury. It doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a big issue, but shoulders are always scary, so until he gets on the mound, I’m going to assume he’s going to be a bit late to start his season. And then there’s Kyle Wright, who probably wasn’t going to be ready anyway but then had a hamstring issue, so he’s definitely out of the mix for now.