Three Days In for the Royals

The first weekend of spring training has come and gone. Let's overract.

I think 27 innings of baseball is more than enough to make some strong declarations about the 2023 Royals, right? Okay, maybe it isn’t, but that doesn’t mean that I’m just going to sit here and let three games go by without giving some thoughts on what we’ve seen and heard from Surprise as the Royals start their season with a lot of new faces. It’s funny because when something you thought would happen is confirmed, the idea is that no sample is too small to believe it. But when something goes against what you thought, there is no sample that you won’t consider too small.

One thing I can tell you is that every single sample, in actuality, is too small right now, but there are a few things I want to touch on based on just observing the games as best as I could from Kansas City and from talking to a scout who was at all three games. So now that there’s been an appropriate caveat issued, I want to start by talking about walks. Why? Because the Royals issued too many of them in 2022 and their big edict in 2023 is to “raid the zone.” They have walked eight batters so far in spring in 27 innings. That translates to a walk rate of 6.8 percent.

If you’re wondering how many three-game periods they walked eight or fewer in 2022, the actual answer is 47, but some of those include a lot of overlap. So it’s hard to really know how many stretches they had like this during the regular season. But still, this is one of those situations where what you want to see is what is happening. Last spring, they walked 10.4 percent of hitters. That very well could have been because of the truncated spring, but even so, that’s a big difference and, while it’s too early to celebrate, it’s something to keep an eye on. I also should note that among pitchers who are likely to be on the roster, the walk rate is a bit higher at 9.1 percent, but two of the three walks issued were by Dylan Coleman in his first appearance. And this is why the sample is far too small.

Now that we have that nonsense out of the way, here are a few of the notes I got from a scout who has seen all three games so far:

• Franmil Reyes looks good. The home run was an absolute bomb yesterday, but he looks good. I know we see so many “best shape of his life” stories in spring training and they get draining but after a year where Reyes admitted to being out of shape when he got to camp, being back where he should be is important for him. I asked about how his actual swing looked and he told me that it looked like Reyes. The guy hit .260/.325/.503 from 2018 to 2021 in 1,540 plate appearances. If that’s what he looks like, then that’s very good for the Royals. So far, I haven’t seen or heard anything that makes me think he won’t make the roster.

• Nick Loftin looks great. I had heard from someone a few days ago that Loftin looks big. I mentioned this on the Royals Weekly podcast that I recorded last night with the guys and I always take that with a grain of salt. The reason is that players are just generally bigger than you expect, so a lot of times when you see someone in person, you don’t realize that they actually aren’t any bigger than they were. Then Loftin came to the plate on Saturday in the televised game and I immediately realized that Loftin looked much bigger. And then he promptly deposited a ball over the fence. Loftin is a guy who I wrote about before last season as someone who I thought could jump to top-100 lists. Then the Royals put him in center field to start the year before getting him back to the infield and he was perfectly fine. He hit .270/.354/.422 in AA and struggled in AAA, hitting .215/.280/.360. But he’s a guy who has a solid approach at the plate and if he’s added some more muscle, maybe we can see some more power. If he’s a third baseman with some added pop, that’s fine, especially for what this team needs moving forward. Maybe he’s a second baseman or maybe he’s a utility player. Either way, it was good to see him looking good out there.

• Jonathan Heasley was rough. The numbers were bad, but worse, I was told he sort of looked like he generally always has. Heasley has long been someone who I feel like I should have thought would break out because he’s got a fastball that can look good to go along with a bunch of pitches that he just needs to figure out what’s working that night. But every time I watch him, I feel like I’m just tired from having to experience that game. And yesterday was apparently no exception to that rule. It’s just one game, but it just feels like nothing ever comes easy to him on the mound and you’d like it to come easy at least sometimes, right?

• Brad Keller might be okay. His second inning yesterday was rough, but he apparently looked really sharp in the first. There is still so much time to go, but first spring starts can be kind of weird given these guys haven't had an up and down yet. But in the first, his fastball looked good and he threw a lot of curves. What has me really excited was the sweeper he’s developed, which is an alteration of his slider. If he can get swings and misses with that pitch, he can find success either as a starter or as a reliever. I think he has to lose his job in the rotation and even though he struggled when he came out for the second, I think the organization is happy with what he showed.

A few of my own observations:

• Nate Eaton playing second base was very interesting to me. Anne Rogers wrote about that as well, but him being so versatile is a big reason why I had him on my last roster projection and he’ll continue to be on roster projections. He hadn’t played second base since August of 2021 in high-A, but the Royals are seeing what he can do all over the field. And if he can handle all three outfield positions, second base, third base and be an emergency catcher, it’s kind of hard to keep him off the team, especially with Drew Waters out and Isbel being the only center fielder on the roster.

• The games are really trucking. Yesterday’s game featured 15 runs and was over in 2:25. Saturday’s game also featured 15 runs and ended in 2:29. The opener featured 11 runs and ended in 2:33. I’m one of the people who doesn’t believe baseball needs a timer, but even I can look at these games and think about a Tuesday night game that starts at 6:40 in the first two months of the year and being done by 9:15 and thinking that’s not the worst thing in the world. You hate to see things like what happened in the Braves/Red Sox game where a walkoff walk was negated and turned into a strikeout to end the inning (and the game in this case), but those are things that will get worked out just as they did in the minors last season. I imagine they might need to make some tweaks to the timer and eliminate some loopholes that very smart pitchers and very smart organizations will find, but I’m enjoying the pace.

• The depth has already taken a hit with the Waters injury and now Diego Hernandez out for three to four months. That’s a tough blow. It’s not that Hernandez was ready for the big leagues, but if something happened and they felt they needed a true center fielder, he’s on the 40-man and could have been the guy. Now after a breakout season, he’s going to miss a good chunk of it. It does help a bit with the roster math with the Royals likely to include at least one of their non-roster invites on the Opening Day roster, but as I mentioned when talking about Eaton, they’re down two center fielders. That’s a tough blow for a team looking to really build depth.

• Maikel Garcia at third base and Matt Quatraro’s comments about giving him a shot to make the team got my attention. I said when they announced that Hunter Dozier would be the third baseman that while he very well might, making roster proclamations in January is generally not terribly newsworthy. I don’t know if Garcia will be the third baseman on March 30, but I do actually feel that he’s going to have a chance to unseat Dozier. I do know that the organization is extremely high on him, so that’s of particular interest to me.

The Royals have played three games. By my count, they have 30 more against other big league teams and one against a WBC team, Great Britain. Even if you take all 34 games they’re scheduled to play, the sample isn’t big enough, so looking at three games can be quite foolish. But it’s all we have and there are some things that have stuck out enough that I wanted to get some thoughts down for all to read.

The things I’m most curious about following closely are the walk rates of course, but also where the catchers are setting up. There has just been so much talk about that and Quatraro was really interesting on the broadcast on Saturday in saying that the average pitcher misses by seven to 12 inches. So I’ll be following setup spots and how close to the plate the catchers are. Plus, it’s just great to have baseball back and actually have something to react to finally. We missed you, baseball. Don’t ever leave us again!