Weekend in Review: Draft Day 1, The Games and the Week Ahead

We finally know the direction the Royals went with their first three picks of the draft and, well, it's a mixed bag.

It feels like this season has been going on for about three years, but here we are, finally at the All-Star break. The halfway point was actually a week and a half ago or so, but this is the unofficial dividing line. So when you see that a player did this or that in the second half compared to the first half, you don’t need to “well actually” anyone. They mean no harm. It’s understandable if you felt the Royals harmed you in the season’s first half. I’m assuming there may be a class action lawsuit for the fans to get in on regarding mental duress, so I’ll keep you all posted if and when I hear anything.

But the first half closed mostly with the whimper in Cleveland that it deserved. It’s just so interesting how much better we all felt a week ago coming off a series win against the Dodgers. The team is basically the same, but winning is more fun than losing. And because of that, this season hasn’t been especially fun. What can you do, I guess, right? As a brief programming note, I’m probably going to take a couple of days off unless a trade or something noteworthy happens and come back on Thursday with some looking back/looking ahead stuff and then we’ll be back to it on Friday.

Risky Draft Demographics

The Royals turned in their first selection last night and the name on it was one that didn’t surprise me in a lot of ways, but absolutely did in other ways. It was Blake Mitchell, a high school catcher out of Texas. And let me tell you, friends, I’m not a huge fan, but not for the reasons that many seem to be. I think at some point there’s some laziness involved with pointing to the demographics of a player. Mitchell, as a high school catcher, is considered one of the riskier demographics of a player to take. It’s just tough to develop high school catchers.

Why is that? I think there is a boatload of demand on the catcher position and many high school catchers simply struggle with that demand. They need to learn a position that requires a lot more than most spots, all while continuing to develop. But I also have a hard time caring about what happened in 1997. The smartest front offices in 1997 would have a hard time competing with the absolute worst front offices in 2023. There is just so much more information available. Heck, there is so much more information now than even in 2013.

That doesn’t mean that there isn’t validity to the concern, just that I think it’s overstated a bit because I put more weight on recent history than ancient history. Prior to the Royals taking Mitchell and the Guardians taking Ralphy Velazquez last night, there had been seven prep catchers taken in the first round since 2015. So the sample is small (and I’d assume that’s for a reason). Four of the seven were top-100 prospects this season. A fifth, Tyler Stephenson, is a career .281/.358/.425 big league hitter.

That’s sort of an arbitrary cutoff, but also a fairly long amount of time. That’s why I’m not quite as concerned about the high school catcher angle. Another thought that someone I respect quite a bit mentioned is that the burden on catching prospects is not what it used to be, so that’s interesting as well.

So even with that said, why am I not in love with the Mitchell pick? It’s on the merits of the player, not on what people who have nothing to do with him did before him. If you look at the bat itself, I think there’s a pretty strong argument for a top-10 pick. The Royals’ press release noted his high school stats in a state that likely had him playing top competition. He hit .474 with 51 walks and eight strikeouts. That’s a great starting point. He has the approach. His bat speed is outstanding and he has big-time power.

My concern actually has a lot less to do with him and more who was available and why they picked him. But still, I’m not entirely sure that he’s going to be able to catch in the big leagues and while many have noted that he absolutely has the arm for right field, I don’t think that’s quite as easy as it may seem. MJ Melendez, a high school catcher taken in the second round in 2017, is far more athletic than Mitchell and he’s very clearly struggled with a move to the outfield.

Similar to the high school catcher profile, different players and all that, but it’s an example of it’s not so easy to just move a guy. Now, if the Royals identified the bat as so good that they didn’t care to wait for him to catch and moved him early, you never know. They did that with Wil Myers and it worked out okay.

But I’m concerned that you’re taking a catcher like him at eight and Kyle Teel was on the board. I felt pretty confident the Royals would take Teel if he was there. Then he was there and they didn’t take him. They also passed on Noble Meyer, Tommy Troy, Matt Shaw and Enrique Bradfield Jr., four players they’d been connected to in recent weeks. The reason they passed, at least on Teel, is that they were looking to save a little money with this pick. Now, that is not being cheap. Let me repeat that, IT IS NOT THEM BEING CHEAP. They will spend their draft pool. I just don’t like the strategy.

I actually don’t mind that strategy as much if they picked in the Competitive Balance Round A and had gotten something like the 32nd pick or whatever, but their second pick wasn’t until the second round when they had the 44th pick. That’s a long time to wait between picks to hope to use some savings. Had they been able to snag Colin Houck, a shortstop, or Charlee Soto or Thomas White, pitchers, with their next pick, I’d have loved it all. But those three went 32, 34 and 35. And they took Blake Wolters at 44.

Wolters will likely require overslot money to skip college, but he’s a high school right-handed pitcher, which is also a risky demographic. Wolters is good and he was the best pitcher on the board, in my opinion. He has been compared to Bobby Miller, the Dodgers pitcher, with a huge fastball and a slider that has shown to be very good at times. He does throw strikes and he’s a big boy, so the hope is that he can hold velocity, but there’s some risk with high-school righties and that risk is one I understand a lot more.

Wolters is the type of high school pitcher I’m not sure the Royals would have taken in previous years, but he fits with a lot of the changes they’ve made with some of their prospects this season. His fastball is high-spin to go along with the high velocity. The slider is big-time high spin as well. And he utilizes the top of the zone in a way that pitchers in the system this year are more than ever before. We’ve seen the pitching development group have success, at least in the minors, with quite a few closer to this profile this season, including with the last right-handed high school pitcher they took after saving money in the top-10, Ben Kudrna.

So I actually like the pick of Wolters. I just don’t think I’d have gone underslot with Mitchell to have made it. I think there’s just too much risk there when they could have drafted a much higher floor at eight. Again, this wasn’t a decision about being cheap. It was about spreading money around better. And, to be fair, it’s not just about saving money for their second pick. The Royals were able to take Austin Charles in the 20th round last year because they had money left available to add. They also got David Sandlin because of that. So this puzzle isn’t fully put together yet. I just don’t love the way it’s starting, though at least there is some massive upside in each of their first two picks.

Their third pick, Carson Roccaforte, doesn’t carry as much upside, but I do like the player. This was a reach, but a lot of teams reach in this spot as another area to save some money for a player who may have fallen. Roccaforte struggled in summer ball last summer and reworked his swing to be a little less power-oriented and a little more contact-oriented. The results were solid and he still had some pop. I like the swing and I think he has a chance to play center in the big leagues, but I also think there’s a chance he stalls out at AA.

One final thought. I know the Royals have struggled to develop talent. The whole world knows. That’s also not analysis. If their struggles to develop talent are the whole basis for not liking a player, then they shouldn’t draft at all. I understand the concept of saying you want someone who is further along in the development path, but I just don’t love the lazy analysis that comes from so many people now. Okay, rant over on that front. Let’s get to what happened on the field this weekend (I’ll keep it a wee bit shorter since I wrote so much on the draft).

The Games

Friday - Guardians 3, Royals 0

I don’t think Daniel Lynch was bad at all, though I’m a bit concerned about him after this start. He went six innings and gave up three runs and walked just one. That’s perfectly fine. He allowed just seven runners. He made a mistake, giving up a two-run homer to Josh Bell. It all happens. I’m not going to worry about a performance that was plenty good enough to give the Royals a win.

What I am going to worry about is the fact that he averaged just 91.6 MPH on his fastball and there were some later in his outing that weren’t even breaking 90. I do think there may be some classification issues on pitches at times and maybe some of them were something else, but that’s something to keep an eye on with him. The trainer did come out to talk to him in the sixth inning and what followed were two of his eight hardest thrown pitches. Now, it was his eighth start of the season, which is about a time when some guys see a velocity dip for a start or two, so maybe it’s nothing.

But I’m going to be very curious to see how the Royals use him coming out of the break to see what they believe. Pitching on Friday, he could start the first game out of the break and still obviously get six days of rest. Or they could push him to Monday or Tuesday and basically “skip a start” with how much time off he can get. I’m interested in their path here with him. Overall, I thought the results were good, though, and he continued to exhibit the kind of control he’s going to need to if he’s going to continue to struggle to get swings and misses.

Unfortunately, the Royals just couldn’t solve Aaron Civale, which has happened to teams a lot more this year than you’d expect. He’s turning in a very nice season. But the offense looked lifeless in this one as they generally had throughout the road trip to this point. They had two hits and a walk against Civale, Trevor Stephan and Emmanuel Clase. It was tough to watch.

The only point of interest was that Jonathan Heasley looked good again in relief. I’m keeping an eye on that.

Saturday - Guardians 10, Royals 6

This start is why I wasn’t ready to say Brady Singer is back. His line was really something:

5 IP
13 H
6 R
3 K
1 BB

I guess I liked the one walk. He was just the fourth pitcher to allow 13 or more hits in a game this season. I suppose if you look on the bright side, he pitched the most innings and gave up the fewest runs of any pitcher to do it. So there’s that. But what do you take away from this other than he continues to be broken? He threw 48 sinkers, got swings on 27 of them and not a single swing and miss. I know it’s not really a swing and miss pitch, but not one?

He also got hit hard on everything. It was all about location for him. Just look at the middle of the zone filled up.

That’s 26 pitches in the heart of the plate. The Guardians were 8 for 13 against them with an average exit velocity of 96 MPH. That just doesn’t work. He even threw changeups. He threw nine of them in 92 pitches. Maybe he should have thrown more? I don’t know. But he is decidedly not back.

What I did like was the offense getting after Gavin Williams. They had a very tough time against him the first time through the order. Bobby Witt Jr. singled in the first, Kyle Isbel walked in the second and Freddy Fermin singled in the fourth, but it seemed like another wasted offensive effort.

Then they got a two-out triple from Witt with Nicky Lopez on first and he scored to give them an actual real-life run. In the sixth, MJ Melendez had one of his better swings of the year and led off with a double, then a Fermin single, then an Isbel double and finally a Drew Waters sacrifice fly gave the Royals two more runs. In the seventh, Witt hit a long home run to set him up for a chance at the cycle, needing only a double (he wouldn’t get it). The eighth, though, was the difference, and I give all the credit to Cleveland for this.

With one out, Isbel walked (he had a really good game) and Matt Duffy singled as a pinch hitter. A Waters strikeout got Lopez to the plate and he singled to left to score Isbel to make it a 7-5 game at this point. Then Maikel Garcia came up clutch again and doubled with Duffy on second and Lopez on first. The Guardians then put together one of the most perfect relays I’ve ever seen.

There is nothing wrong with the decision to send Lopez. That was all Cleveland. Nick Wittgren then came in to keep it a 7-6 game and he decidedly didn’t and the Royals lost. Again.

Sunday - Royals 4, Guardians 1

Ryan Yarbrough’s return to the mound meant very little to the 2023 Royals, but meant a lot because it was just nine weeks ago that a rocket came back to the mound, hit him in the face and put him on the IL in a very situation. He worked his way all the way back and was outstanding on his rehab assignment before getting the start that would have gone to Zack Greinke. He didn’t disappoint, though he did wear down a bit in the sixth inning. Still, he ended up putting together a very good start with six innings of one-run ball with just one walk and five strikeouts.

Again, it’s meaningless for the current (and future) Royals for someone like him, but you love to see a start like that from a guy like him. And the Royals needed it, having lost six in a row to start this road trip before the break. What I liked too is that the offense finally got to Shane Bieber, who had never lost to the Royals (though Cleveland had lost when he was on the mound). Similar to the day before, the Royals offense took a bit to get started. They had just one base runner through three innings and he was picked off.

They did get a Witt double in the fourth and then a Salvador Perez single, but Witt couldn’t score and then Bieber struck out two in a row to end the inning. But, trailing 1-0, they got a home run from Isbel to tie the game in the fifth. Isbel ended up going 2 for 4 after going 2 for 2 with two walks on Saturday, so that’s a nice end to his half after struggling majorly since coming off the IL. Hopefully he can keep that going.

In the sixth, they got a Freddy Fermin double to score Perez after he was hit by a pitch. Isbel singled to get Fermin to third and a Michael Massey triple scored both of them. And that was that. The Guardians ran into more outs, which seems to be a theme for them, at least against the Royals. And Carlos Hernandez went two scoreless innings to hand it over to Scott Barlow, who got the save in a relatively easy ninth inning.

The Week Ahead

We all get a break. The Home Run Derby is tonight and that’s a fun event now. But no Royals. The All-Star Game is tomorrow and that’s sort of a fun event. We might see Salvy bat once. And then it’s a couple of days off that we all have earned. After that, they get right back in action with the Rays at home, which is exactly how they started their second-half schedule last year. They have a chance to reset their rotation a little bit and I’m not sure what they’ll do, but if it was me, I’d come out of the break with Singer and Lynch on Friday and Saturday in whatever order and then turn to probably Alec Marsh because that’s fun.

Zack Greinke can’t come off the IL until the 20th. Austin Cox can’t come back until the 19th. They could go with Ryan Yarbrough in that third game, and maybe they will, but I like the look in a three-game series of the three I mentioned in that order. The Rays will probably counter with Tyler Glasnow, Zach Elfin and Taj Bradley unless Shane McClanahan can come back from his injury for this series, which may be possible. We all know the Royals split their series with Rays in Tampa a couple of weeks ago, and we now know that they haven’t been playing great baseball. The break can reset a lot, but they’re also just 23-20 on the road, so I’m at least interested to see how the Royals fare against them.