Prospects with Plenty to Prove

We never got the chance to see what the new Royals hitting development could do to help three once big-time prospects.

There aren’t too many more ways to talk about how the 2020 season was one that impacted so much within the game. From milestones being harder to reach because of 102 fewer possible games in a career to players simply not having the time they typically do to correct from a slump, it was just the sort of year that we’ll never forget. One other area that has been discussed plenty, but I think made a huge impact on the Royals is the inability for some prospects to improve their stock or, in the cases of a few, bounce back from some tough runs in 2019. 

Following the 2019 season, the Royals changed their hitting development, which is something they absolutely had to do because their hitting development was brutal. I won’t get into all the details of the new program because Alec Lewis did an amazing job in The Athletic in October of 2019 talking about all of it, but the gist of it is that they brought in some proven instructors to help out, they put some of their top people with the hitters rather than in an office and they continued their march toward far more use of analytics. 

And again, they had to do this. In 2018, when the team drafted all those pitchers, they felt they had an offensive core emerging in the low minors. Seuly Matias was clearly a work in progress, but he hit 31 home runs in 2018 with a .319 ISO. MJ Melendez hit .251/.322/.492 as a catcher, which is pretty darn good. And while the power lagged for Nick Pratto, he still hit .280/.343/.443 and, maybe more importantly, finished the season hitting .327/.403/.535 from June 30th on. There were others, but these three were the most talked about as the next wave of Royals bats that would pair with guys like Brady Singer, Jackson Kowar, Daniel Lynch, Kris Bubic and Jonathan Bowlan. 

Take a look at the trio in 2018 in Lexington in an easy to see format:

There were certainly warning signs with those strikeout rates, but those are some solid offensive seasons for teenagers.

Fast forward to 2019. Matias slumped to .148/.259/.307 and had his season cut short with injuries after being hit by pitches. Pratto hit just .191/.278/.310. Melendez was down to .163/.260/.311. And they were all striking out at alarming rates. Sure Wilmington is a tough place to hit, but not like this. So a change was made. And even Kyle Isbel, who was someone drafted with all those pitchers in 2018 to join this group of three, struggled mightily. A lot of it was due to injuries, but the struggles still existed. 

Here’s that group in 2019 with Isbel included:

They did walk some more, but they also struck out way more and the numbers got incredibly ugly.

So then the change happened. 2020 was going to be a season that I expected to be very enlightening one way or another. The Royals needed answers on some of their young players, even if the answer was one they didn’t want to get. And the reviews were great in the off-season. Mike Tosar is one of the coaches brought in to help with the development and he’s a name I mention quite a bit. He worked with Jorge Soler, Maikel Franco and Salvador Perez, among others, three of the Royals who stung the baseball the hardest. 

But we didn’t get answers to any of it. Sure there was alternate site action, but nobody really had a view of that other than the organization and they’re likely to spin just about everything to a positive light, as they should. 

So now, the Royals have prospects who have quite a bit to prove. I’ve noticed a lot of talk about Pratto over the last few months and how much he’s improved. I haven’t heard very much about Melendez. It doesn’t mean it’s not out there, but it hasn’t been the same coordinated effort for him to talk about the strides he’s made like there has been for Pratto. Matias, though, well, Matias did some speaking for himself the other day when he assaulted the top of a palm tree 500 feet from home plate in Goodyear, and that’s a good sign. 

Kansas City Royals @Royals

Matias' moonshot really hit a palm tree. 😳🌴 #RoyalsST

My good friend Clint Scoles mentioned that he thought Matias’ swing was shorter in winter ball. I went back and watched what I could find, and I have to say I agree. The home run swing the other day was more like the winter ball swing than the one that saw so many strikeouts even before the major 2019 struggles. 2020 is a huge year for him. He’s in his age-22 season and he was already Rule 5 eligible but didn’t get selected. I anticipate he’ll start in AA when the season starts in May, but if he hits well, the Royals are going to need to add him to the 40-man roster because his power will get selected if he shows well in the upper minors.

For Pratto, he’s also scheduled to be Rule 5 eligible following the season and while a mediocre hitting first baseman likely won’t be taken, if the bat shines the way it did in the second half of 2018, he’s the guy in line to take the job after Carlos Santana leaves following the 2022 season. As I mentioned, the Pratto talk has me skeptical, but it’s coming from all corners of the baseball world, so maybe he really does actually look better. I hope so because as much as I’d rather my first baseman hit well than be slick fielders, if Pratto can hit well, he is pretty darn good over at first defensively and that’s not without its value. 

And finally, Melendez is also scheduled to be Rule 5 eligible after the season. If he proves he can quiet his game down a bit and be even an offensive neutral in addition to his defense, he would be a candidate to be selected by a catcher needy team. This might seem weird, but he’s the guy I’m least optimistic about coming through. We’ve seen some early results with Matias and heard all sorts of talk with Pratto, but Melendez seems to be the forgotten man. 

With Salvador Perez’s contract up at the end of the season, if the Royals don’t sign Perez to an extension before the season, Melendez could have a chance to determine how long Perez’s next deal is. If he doesn’t hit, bet on four years.  Okay, maybe bet on four years anyway, but Melendez still does have some relationship with how badly the Royals need Perez moving forward.

And there are others obviously, who didn’t get the chance to show out in 2020. Brewer Hicklen had a chance to build on a really nice 2019 season with his athleticism. I mentioned Kyle Isbel before, though he seems to be high on the Royals radar without a 2020 season. Emmanuel Rivera, Brady McConnell and two of the Royals best hitting prospects, Bobby Witt, Jr. and Erick Pena, all didn’t have the opportunity to show what they could do in 2020 and to show off the new hitting instruction in the organization. 

So with the announcement that the AAA schedule is going to start a month later than originally announced, we have to wait a little bit longer, but this is a huge year for the Royals with their offensive development. As a group, they need to show that the new way is markedly better than the old way (not sure how it could) and as individuals, some prospects have a way to find their way back into long-term plans and help shape the future of the big league club.