Royals Roster Projection 2: Position Players

Spring is about half over, so this seems like a good time to see if there's any change from the first Royals roster projection.

Through 16 spring games out of 31 they’ll play in the Cactus League, the Royals have one of the best records in all of baseball. I wrote last year about how their run differential might actually mean something (or it might not and it didn’t). This year, they’re not dominating the games they play, but they are winning the majority of them. After a pretty slow offensive start, they’ve been scoring a lot of runs too.

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They scored just 23 in their first six games and were being shut out through five in their seventh game. I was on the radio in Wichita and noted that the offense had been a little slugging to start the spring. They scored six that next half inning and have averaged more than six runs per game since and including that game. We all know the numbers are only so meaningful in spring, and Royals fans may not believe this, but it’s better to be good than bad even if being good isn’t all that important.

Spring training can be such an odd time because we inherently know that the numbers are far too small of a sample to matter. There are a million other things too. And yet, it’s all we have, so it’s all we can look at. It’s the same thing early in the regular season. When the small sample is the only sample, it becomes oddly more meaningful in your brain. And if a team has roster battles, how they perform does matter even if that performance is more about things that may or may not be seen in a box score. Either way, let’s get to the newest roster projection. In this one, for the stats, I’ll use Steamer projections for this iteration.

Catchers

This is a pretty boring group because there wasn’t really ever going to be a change. Since I last wrote about catchers, the Royals went out and signed Nola to a big league deal. At the time, I think that caused a lot of people to wonder if he was going to be the backup catcher. As I wrote at the time, someone in the know reached out and told me that a big league deal only really means a 40-man roster deal. The Royals, before his signing, only had the two catchers on the 40-man roster. Now they have three, which is something they like to do.

The question that I have at this position is what the playing time allocation is here. Salvador Perez has worn down so often. I look back at last season when he was hitting .274/.310/.506 on June 14 and got hit in the hand. He hit .239/.278/.354 after that. I’m not going to beat the dead horse, but he came back way too quickly. It’s probably not a coincidence that he hit .266/.300/.391, still not great but way better, after starting to play a lot of first base and staying out from behind the plate. And he can do that because Freddy Fermin is legitimately good back there.

By the metrics, he was worth 8 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), framed really well and was 25th in all of baseball in pop time to get his throws off. By contrast, Salvy was -11 DRS, rated terribly in framing and was 49th in pop time. That last number is still fine, but for a guy who is clearly the second-best defender on the team at his position, why not let him get off his feet. I’d absolutely love it if Perez caught like 65-70 games, DHed another 40-45 and played first the rest of the time. I think that makes his bat better and gives the Royals the better lineup because Fermin wasn’t a slouch with the bat either.

If they do commit to that, though, it means that more often than not, they’re playing with both catchers in their lineup. That could lead to Nola getting to the big leagues to serve as a third catcher. Personally, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. If it’s only a quarter of the games where you’d be forced to lose your DH if something happened to Fermin, you deal with it for that game and then make a decision after the game, but that’s not how teams think, so that’s the way that I could see them keeping three catchers.

I will note that Carter Jensen impressed in big league camp this season. That’s a good thing for him. I’ve heard good things about Luca Tresh as well. I don’t know that his upside is much more than a backup catcher, but those are very valuable.

Infielders

This was a lot more difficult this time around than it was the first time. We know that Vinnie Pasquantino, Bobby Witt Jr. and Maikel Garcia are on the roster. We also know that Adam Frazier and Garrett Hampson are. Where there was always a question was second base. Does Michael Massey keep the job or does it go to Frazier? Can Nick Loftin emerge as a possibility? A good problem is happening for the Royals.

Massey is hitting .333 with a .762 SLG and playing his consistently above average defense at second. Loftin is hitting .400/.550/.667 with five walks and just two strikeouts in 20 plate appearances. What do you do there? You can absolutely keep Loftin, but it’s probably at the expense of a backup center fielder. Is that going to be Hampson instead? I suppose that’s a possibility and that might be where this is headed the next time I do one of these projections. But Hampson has also had mixed results in center. I’ll get to more of this in the outfield section, but it belongs here as well.

So ultimately as of this second, I’m guessing Loftin cools off some and makes the decision a little easier for the Royals. They send him to AAA to start the season and play every day and then if and when things change at the big league level, he’s back. This is an important time to remember that the Opening Day roster is just a snapshot in time. Still, Loftin isn’t making this easy.

And neither is Nick Pratto, who I didn’t even consider in the first iteration, but he’s had a great spring in multiple ways. The numbers - .409/.458/.773 speak for themselves. But there are two things that stand out and he was almost on this projection at the expense of an outfielder. One is exactly what I wrote about on Friday. His approach has been different and it’s led to success.

The other is something I may have known but if I did I totally forgot and it’s that Pratto was dealing with hip and groin issues the last two years. Suddenly, you start to wonder if the issues were related more to that than anyone knew. Maybe he’s more the guy who hit .265/.385/.602 in the minors in 2021 with really good defense at first. I could see a world where both he and Loftin are on the next projection if they keep this up through the week. It’s all small samples, but when you’re battling for roster spots in spring, it always is.

There are some others, of course. Devin Mann and Cam Devanney are sort of utility swiss army knives on the infield with Mann able to handle some outfield as well. I thought Mike Brosseau might provide some depth, and I guess he still could, but he’s had a rough spring and seems to be getting fewer chances lately. And while I don’t think there’s a real path for Ryan Fitzgerald to get any playing time, he’s had a nice spring in a handful of plate appearances.

Outfielders

I was hopeful that Tyler Gentry would be having the sort of spring that made the Royals do a double take, but so far he hasn’t. That’s okay. There isn’t really a spot for him anyway right now. I thought there was at least a chance there might be an opening with Hunter Renfroe’s early back issues, but he’s been playing and it seems like there’s no problem there, so he’ll start the season on the roster as expected.

It’s been a really strong spring from MJ Melendez as well. I figured he’d do well, but .444/.583/.722 with more walks than strikeouts is exactly what you want to see. I predicted he’d have a big spring because I think it’s a good environment for him, so we’ll see how it translates, but after his second half last year, this is a good follow-up. I’ve also heard legitimately strong reports about him in the outfield. I don’t think he’ll ever be a star defensively or anything but he’s far too athletic to be as bad as he has been. Don’t forget that this is his first spring as an outfielder only, so I’ll put a whole lot more stock into his defense this year than I had in the past.

Getting back to the center field conversation, Kyle Isbel is the starter out there. He’s the best defender by far and I think there’s more in his bat. The above projection seems pretty solid to me with his glove. As long as he’s hitting eighth or ninth, I think that’s fine. If they need more offense, that’s a spot where they might be able to go with a little higher upside. But I think for what the Royals are looking for to start the season, Dairon Blanco is the guy to back him up over Waters. It’s less about whether Waters is deserving of a big league job and more about him needing regular at bats that he simply won’t get at this point.

He can get those in AAA. There are worse things than legitimate big league depth and I think Blanco makes more sense playing twice a week. Again, though, this spot is tenuous since Hampson has played center quite a bit in his career. If the Royals feel comfortable with it, they could push him to that backup center fielder role and keep one of the two infielders on the bubble right now. It’s kind of a mess, but that’s where we are with it.

I mentioned Gentry and Waters, but I did include Nate Eaton on this list as in the mix. I don’t think he really has a shot at a roster spot because of the numbers game and him no longer being on the 40-man roster. That said, I did talk to someone who says the organization is very happy with how he’s responded to last season. It’s easy to forget that a year ago we were looking at Eaton as someone who can really fill out the back half of a roster with his versatility, speed and decent enough bat. Then he was a disaster and never saw the big leagues again. He’s had a really good spring. I’m not necessarily predicting it, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if he saw the big league roster in 2024.

Nobody else has really stood out in the outfield. Javier Vaz has made a couple of nice plays, but he hasn’t gotten enough of a shot to do much more than that. I am excited to see how he does in 2024, so maybe he can be a late-season addition. John Rave hasn’t taken advantage of his non-roster invite especially well. Diego Hernandez hasn’t looked very good either. So that’s a bit disappointing, but there’s some depth here and a few prospects who can work their way into the conversation next season or maybe even late in 2024.

So that’s the second roster projection for spring bats. I’ll do this again next week. It’s amazing how close the season actually is. We’re just a little more than two weeks away from all of this counting. Tomorrow I’ll give you the pitching staff projection, which is a lot easier than the position players in some spots and a lot tougher in others.