Weekend in Review: JJ Makes the Rounds, Another Royals Sweep and One Last Week Ahead

The season has hit its final week for the Royals as they continue to win and play spoiler.

Winning is fun. I’m not going to get into it again about how this actually isn’t something the Royals do every year even though I continue to see that mentioned, but whatever it is, I’m enjoying these last couple of weeks. After sweeping the Astros, a team with basically everything to play for, the Royals have now won 10 of 11 games for the first time since July 19-July 30, 2017. That run is what vaulted that team to the top of the Wild Card standings and led to the moves to bring in Brandon Maurer, Trevor Cahill and Ryan Buchter as well as the trade for Melky Cabrera.

This run of 11 games isn’t going to be quite so costly to the organization (though only Matt Strahm was a real loss in either trade). It’s not even going to push the Royals out of the top odds for the number one pick in the draft, which is nice. Instead, it’s just sort of fun to watch baseball again when it hasn’t been all season long. Sure the bullpen is pretty scary every single time someone other than James McArthur takes the ball, but the Royals clung to leads all weekend against Houston. I don’t regret writing about McArthur this week already because he was great against Cleveland, but he’s been so good that I could write about him again from this weekend. That’s a really fun revelation for this club.

I’ll get to what they have ahead of them this week in the last section, but my recommendation for anyone moaning about wins is to stop. These wins aren’t stopping them from doing anything in the future and they’re actually something to cheer as the season winds down. I’ve had enough conversations with people who are very familiar with the thinking of the organization that nobody thinks this team is suddenly good and will carry this into 2024 without moves. You don’t have to worry about them looking at two weeks and thinking it’s more important than the 25 before them. The experience of hanging on in these games is important. But the result isn’t changing the evaluation on much.

JJ Speaks

JJ Picollo made the rounds this week, sitting down with both Soren Petro of Sports Radio 810 WHB and Josh Vernier of 610 Sports and I thought some of what he had to say was very interesting. I usually take notes when I’m listening to these things, but I didn’t this time. Why? Because this felt like a bit of a typical end of the season media tour that GMs do and I guess I kind of had an idea of what he was going to say. He pretty much hit all of the notes that I expected, and most of it included appreciated comments.

In the conversation with Vernier, he was also joined by John Sherman, which made for a bit of an interesting dynamic you don’t typically see in these interviews. Either way, there were a few things I really appreciated. One was that the idea of a season entirely devoted to evaluating is done, or at least will be in a few days. Every team is always evaluating, but the Royals devoted this year to giving as much time as was necessary to young players to see what they had in certain guys and the tone was that there won’t be so long of a leash next year.

What does that mean? We’ll have a great idea in the offseason when they make moves to fill the many holes on the roster. But we’ll also get a big idea once the season starts. For example, they may very well start the 2024 season with Michael Massey as either the every day second baseman or the strong side of a platoon. But if he’s hitting next April like he did this April, I’d expect him to be spending some time in Omaha. The same is true for MJ Melendez, though I still wouldn’t be surprised in the least if he’s traded. My guess is Nick Pratto is not only not going to be given a big league job, but I think I’d be surprised if even the best spring ever would get him a big league job without seeing some tangible change.

There’s obviously more to it, but it’s nice to hear that there will be a shift to the actual results mattering again in 2024. And they aren’t stupid and know that pitching is the biggest cause of problems. I don’t think they believe that the offense is completely fine without any additions necessary, but it’s pretty easy to look at an offense that has scored 4.8 runs per game in 65 games since the break and say that it’s a secondary issue on a team that, even with this surge, has a .431 winning percentage since the break. That’s a 70-win pace. Honestly, this team since the break is sort of what I figured they’d be all year, which makes me believe it more because of preconceived notions, but I digress.

They absolutely know they need starting pitching and one thing Picollo said this week that he also said before the season is that this was a year for some guys to step up. And while there were positives from guys like Kris Bubic (very few, of course due to time) and Daniel Lynch IV, part of being a big league starter is making 25-30 starts and they proved they can’t be counted on. At least from the interviews, it sounds like the Royals are not going to be counting on them moving forward and if they can produce, great, but they won’t be needed to produce. That was the message I was given before the season and it’s the same message right now.

What does it mean for spending? That remains to be seen, but based on these interviews, it sounds like this is going to be a very active winter for the Royals. And it absolutely should be. Right now, it’s all talk, but until they’re able to act, the talk is all we have and I think the right things were said about the future of the big league club.

Another Sweep

Break up the Royals! No, for real, just break them up. But let’s enjoy this stretch. I love this team playing spoiler. I know I’ve said it a lot of times over the last couple of weeks, but you can take whatever you want from beating the White Sox or even a Guardians team that was basically done. But beating a team in a fight for a playoff spot is impressive, no matter how they’re playing. And I don’t care how poorly the Astros are playing, that lineup is really, really good. Yesterday, Yainer Diaz was hitting seventh for them. He’s hitting .285/.309/.544. Matt Duffy was hitting seventh for the Royals yesterday. He’s hitting .249/.299/.324.

Cole Ragans Keeps on Keepin’ On

Okay, well, he’s not going to be the best pitcher in the history of baseball…probably. But Ragans keeps pitching extremely well. After giving up five in six innings against this very lineup less than a week earlier (but deserving better than that), Ragans took the mound to open the series in a big test. Facing a team twice in a row is very tough. I didn’t think Ragans had it going, especially early, but in the end he found a way to go six innings and give up just two runs on three hits.

In looking a little closer, though, it sort of felt like he was maybe just pitching them a little more carefully than he had the first time against them because his pitch maps showed that he was actually likely hitting his spots quite well. Sure, there were a few mistakes like a couple of changeups that stayed in the middle of the zone, but generally I think he was actually locating where he wanted to. Well, that’s not entirely true. I think his slider was eluding him in this one. You can see the locations here:

And he only threw 10 out of 93 pitches, getting zero whiffs on five swings. It was very unlike him with his new pitch, but I appreciate that he seemed to get the idea it wasn’t fully there and said forget it. Instead, he was getting whiffs with his cutter, which was the pitch I wished he would have scrapped not long after the Royals acquired him. He got seven swings on it and four were whiffs with three put in play softly. I really love what that pitch has developed into and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s feeling it some game and throws 25 or 30 of them.

But in the end, he had 16 whiffs on 52 pitches and 93 overall swings. I think the 20 foul balls showed that he wasn’t quite as difficult to pick up as he has been, but some of that might have been that they had just seen him six days earlier. Facing any team twice is extremely difficult. I also think there’s some added difficulty in that it was the Astros, who he faced with the Rangers in a long relief outing earlier this year and started twice against last season. Even though he’s a different pitcher this year, this lineup has seen a lot of him.

He has one start left with the Royals this season. His first 11 have gone about as well as you can hope:

65.1 IP
45 H
81 K (31.2%)
23 BB (8.9%)
2.34 ERA

He made his first start with the team in that doubleheader right out of the break, but since he came up for good on August 2, he leads all pitchers in fWAR, is fifth in ERA, first in FIP, third in strikeout percentage and even is tied for eighth in wins if you’re tracking that. And because of his time in relief, he’s still about 40 innings short of last season’s innings total if you’re worried about that at all. What an acquisition he’s been. I’m excited to see him against Detroit.

The Bullpen Remains Jumbled

There have been some positive performances out of the Royals bullpen, without a doubt. McArthur is the biggest to come out of it, but this weekend showed that even in a hot stretch, there are still way more questions than answered about who is going to protect leads in 2024. Jackson Kowar had been pitching really well since a move on the rubber and a slight drop in arm angle. He had allowed just two runs on eight hits in 9.1 innings with 10 strikeouts and two walks. As I always say, when you make a change, I’m willing to listen to sudden results shifts.

But on Friday night, with a 7-2 lead, he couldn’t even get through an inning. He gave up three runs on three hits with a walk and no strikeouts. These last six games are big for him. I really hope there are multiple situations where he can show the last outings was the fluke and not the eight before it. But until he can, it’s hard to think he did anything but have a nice few weeks given his history.

I’ll continue to say what I guess is a sort of hot take, but Taylor Clarke should probably be a part of the 2024 bullpen. He worked out of trouble that Kowar set up on Friday and did what McArthur has done and finished the game out for the save. I don’t think Clarke is good, but I think if there are four or five relievers better than him, he’s very useful in a big league bullpen. You get in trouble with him as one of your regular late-inning guys, but he has a 30+ percent whiff rate on three different pitches. That is useful in a bullpen.

I’ve never thought Tucker Davidson or Collin Snider are long-term answers, but if you went into this weekend fresh on both of them, you’d have seen them give up runs in one outings and look actually great in another. Steven Cruz had looked good, but struggled as the opener yesterday after struggling as the opener his last time out. Is he just a depth guy who goes up and down until he’s out of options or can he develop into someone who can pitch at the end of games? I don’t know the answer and neither do the Royals.

Even Carlos Hernandez is a question, which nobody would have expected two months ago and now nobody wants to see come out of the bullpen. But he did pitch consecutive scoreless outings for the first time in nearly a month on Saturday and yesterday. But he’s also throwing differently, as the broadcast noted. Yesterday, he threw eight sliders, one splitter and one four-seamer. On Saturday, he threw six sliders, six splitters, four curves and four four-seamers. The move away from the fastball is interesting. On Saturday, he had four whiffs on nine swings and looked pretty good. Yesterday, well, he got through the inning but didn’t get a single swing and miss. I’d like to see him three or four times in the final six games with this new approach.

I love what I’ve seen from McArthur and think he’s earned a spot in next year’s bullpen on the work of the last month alone, but they don’t really have anyone with a track record, which makes their decisions so difficult. I don’t care much for Snider, for example, but he also throws a 96 MPH sinker with a slider that actually gets swings and misses. It’s hard to move on from that when you don’t have a lot set. The same is true of Kowar and Hernandez and Cruz. Davidson, well, he can go. But the non-tender deadline is going to be very interesting with this bullpen.

Sunday Powerup

I was pretty surprised to see the Royals, who had hit some home runs since the break, not hit any in Houston to start the series. I was expecting one from Bobby Witt Jr. to get to 30/30, but now it’s getting to crunch time with 29 homers for him and six games to go. So Sunday was pretty satisfying when they started to hit the ball out of the park. Of course, it started with Nelson Velazquez sneaking one over the wall in right where it actually cuts back a few feet.

I’ll get back to him in a minute. Then it was Matt Duffy.

Duffy’s home run is so fascinating to me because I’m a weirdo. He homered in his very first game with the Royals. It was the third game of the year against the Twins and the Royals hadn’t scored on the season until Edward Olivares homered early in that game. Then Duffy came up and hit one out to left field and I remember thinking, “wow, this is a really nice depth signing, he’s the kind of guy good teams have.” And then Duffy didn’t homer again until yesterday. I think he’ll probably get another start before the season ends (but I do wonder if they get Samad Taylor back up and just DFA Duffy now that Omaha’s season is over), but I hope not so we can look back and say he homered in his first and last game.

Anyway, Witt started the next inning with a walk and Salvador Perez, back from the concussion IL did what he does when he’s rested:

That was a freaking shot. It was 109.4 MPH off the bat and went 410 feet, but I don’t buy that distance. It almost went through that wall behind the seats. It’s good to see that he’s okay and good to have him back in the lineup as a rested Salvy for the last week. I still think it’s better than 50/50 that he’s traded this winter, so I was worried he wouldn’t get another chance to play at home, but it looks like he’ll get that three-game set to end the year.

And then it was Velazquez. Again.

I know he has his warts as a hitter, but he has 14 home runs in 131 plate appearances for the Royals now. There’s a reason why this isn’t fair, but from 2000-2007, Barry Bonds had a homer every 12.8 plate appearances. Velazquez is at 9.4. Okay, the walks are what makes it unfair. Bonds had a homer every 9.1 at bats in those years. Velazquez is at 8.4. The sample is way too small and that’s obviously a ridiculous comparison, but it just shows how absurd what he is doing is. I know he’s hitting .239, but something that happens to hitters once they start to get feared is they started getting pitched differently.

In September, Velazquez has a walk rate of 11.7 percent to go along with his ridiculous home run pace. He’s striking out a lot, but 27.3 percent isn’t unreasonable when you get all those home runs. I don’t know if he’s for real, but I actually think he’s what allows you even more to trade Perez. You’ve got the right-handed thunder because I think the power is absolutely for real. Stick him and Vinnie Pasquantino behind Witt and there’s protection and probably a lot of runs scored in 2024.

One Last Week Ahead

The Royals finish their last road trip of the year with three against the Tigers in Detroit. I would think the Tigers are pleased with how they’re finishing the season. They’re exactly .500 since the break and their pitching has been solid. Tarik Skubal has been really good since coming off the IL. That’s huge for them. Reese Olson looks like he might be a rotation piece. Eduardo Rodriguez is still likely to opt out but he’s back and pitching well.

No, they still can’t hit, but they’ve got some interesting pieces there too. Spencer Torkelson has turned it on in the second half with some real power. Kerry Carpenter might actually be a thing for them. Riley Greene is hurt, but he’ll be back. Andy Ibañez has surprisingly been very good for them. Jake Rogers has some power. They’ve got some pieces. They’re an interesting team to watch this offseason, I think. They might think they’re ready to go add those final pieces. Of course, it feels like they already did that when they signed Javier Baez and Rodriguez, so who knows?

This week, it looks like it’ll be Olson, Skubal and Sawyer Gipson-Long, who has pitched quite well in three starts, against Zack Greinke/Angel Zerpa, maybe Anthony Veneziano (and Jonathan Bowlan?) and Cole Ragans. It should be an interesting series with the Tigers playing steadily better and the Royals in the midst of a massive hot streak.

After that, the season ends with three against the Yankees, who are only playing to finish above .500 for the 9,000th straight season or something. It lines up right now for Greinke to pitch the last game of the year. The rotation could shift so it doesn’t work out that way, but I won’t be too surprised to see him start on that Sunday and get pulled mid-inning early for the crowd to acknowledge him. It’s been a terrible year for him, but the guy is all over Royals career leaderboards, won a Cy Young with the team and played a big part in that World Series win with the return in the trade. And then that’s it. The season is over and we’re talking about next year. Which, I guess we sort of have been since like mid-April, but the finality of it makes it feel different.