Weekend in Review: A Series Split, Draft Musings and The Upcoming Week

The Royals didn't win a series in Tampa, but they split it, which is still super surprising.

The Royals lost two of three this weekend, but split the four-game series with the best team in baseball in their home park. The Rays aren’t playing especially well, but that’s a good showing for a team that was looking overmatched by just about every team they played. I think it’s fair to wonder a little bit how much of their somewhat improved play stems from getting that win last weekend against the Angels. Maybe it meant nothing, but it was nice to see them win a couple in Tampa and have a real chance to win one yesterday in the finale.

I did have a strange thought the other day. It was strange because I just finished writing about how the Royals weren’t necessarily unlucky but that they just didn’t have much of any good luck. Some of that has turned since then, but I wondered if there’s some luck involved with them being so bad in this season. Why is that lucky? I mean, it’s mostly not, but let’s pretend that the Royals were on pace to finish the season with the 73-89 record that I (stupidly) predicted. They’d be 35-43 right now. Nobody would mistake that for good. But in the 2023 American League Central, it would be right in the thick of the race.

Now, you may see that sentence and think how great it would be to be within a few games of first place in late June. And normally you’d be right! But take the division out of the equation and ask what a 35-43 team is. It’s a below average baseball team. That’s not a team that should abort their plans for the trade deadline. But it would also make for some difficult choices in who to move and who to hang on to. A guy like Aroldis Chapman may not change, but maybe they don’t move Scott Barlow or Taylor Clarke or any other number of players who are under team control beyond the next few months.

So whether this is stretching to see a silver lining or not, I think it’s fortunate that in a season where you don’t have to be good to be close to a playoff position in this division, the Royals don’t have any ambiguity. I’d say that’s a good thing for this club. I’m not as worried that they would trade something they shouldn’t for a rental, which means that it’s really about not hanging on to someone they should trade, but that’s a big deal for a team needing to add talent at all levels to not even have to make a decision on how hard to pursue in-season improvements.

Big Draft Coming and I’ve Got Thoughts

We are now less than two weeks away from the 2023 draft, which has me cursing the lottery again. I’m sure there’ll be a year that the Royals have the 12th-worst record or something and end up with the seventh pick or whatever and it’ll work out, but in the first version, it ended up hurting the Royals, pushing them to the eighth pick instead of the fifth (they’ll pick fifth in subsequent rounds). This is a big one for the Royals. Their farm system is lacking in high-end talent. Some of that is that their high-end talent is young talent in the big leagues. But not all of it or even half of it or probably even a quarter of it.

So the draft is big for them, and even with the eighth pick rather than the fifth pick, they have an opportunity to draft someone who likely will immediately be one of their two or three best prospects, depending on how you feel about Frank Mozzicato and Gavin Cross. I feel very confident in saying that Dylan Crews, Paul Skenes and Wyatt Langford will not be available for the Royals to pick at eight. Max Clark won’t be either. And neither will Walter Jenkins unless something weird happens.

So that leaves the Royals with a few options. Some of these may go ahead of their pick, which makes things easy, but as far as I can tell, they’re thinking about (in alphabetical order):

Enrique Bradfield Jr.
Rhett Lowder
Noble Meyer
Blake Mitchell
Arjun Nimmala
Matt Shaw
Kyle Teel
Tommy Troy
Hurston Waldrep

That’s quite a list. You’ve got a speedy outfielder, a couple of college arms, a high school shortstop, a high school catcher, a college catcher, some college bats and a high school pitcher.

I’ve been pretty vocal against Bradfield, though I’ve come around a little bit on him. He does make loud contact and is an elite defender with elite speed. I didn’t think there was enough in his bat previously to take him top 10. While I still am skeptical, I’m less confident about it. My favorites of this group are Troy, Shaw and Teel, probably in that order.

I just think college bat is the way to go. Both Troy and Shaw are middle infielders who are probably going to be second basemen in the pros, but both can really hit. Teel is a catcher who has shown that he knows the zone, makes contact and can hit the ball a long way. He’s also potentially athletic enough to play outfield in the pros.

If they go pitcher, I would prefer Waldrep on the college side, but I’m wondering a little bit if maybe Meyer is a good play. I know that people will scoff at this before we see results in the big leagues, but the way they’re working with pitchers in the minors now gives me a little hope that a high school arm with the kind of upside Meyer has might be a good longer-term investment. I still wouldn’t do it, but I’m far less against it than I think I was maybe a couple of months ago.

What’s super interesting to me is what they do with their next picks. They have the 44th pick and I’d love them to pop for Taylor Witt there. He’s a first round talent who has been hurt. He’s just now coming back and could be a great value in that spot. That’s if he’s there. If you want to add big power to the system, Jake Gelof could be there for them. He was a monster this year at Virginia. Cade Kuehler out of Campbell is very interesting to me. The Royals scouted Zach Neto a lot last year and I’m sure saw plenty of Kuehler. He has four pitches, including a big fastball and a nasty slider. There’s quick moving potential there.

I’ve also heard some interest in Tai Peete, who is one of the younger players in the draft, which fits analytically with what works in the draft but he also fits the system well. He’s a shortstop now and he could potentially stick there, but if not, he has the tools to play center field. He’s a bit different probably than some previous younger Royals picks as the hit tool lags while the power and speed are there, though maybe that fits with Bobby Witt Jr. a little bit? I don’t know, but he’s a name to watch with their second pick.

The Games

Friday - Rays 11, Royals 3

Zack Greinke just didn’t have it, and as smart of a pitcher as he is and as much fun as it is to watch him work the ball inside and outside, there is a very fine line between having it and not. It wasn’t that his command was terrible, but it was bad enough against an offense that doesn’t let mistakes go by. You can see how much of the middle of the plate he was getting.

Like I said, it wasn’t all bad. You can see him on the edges of the plate, but there is just so much right in the middle of the zone. The Rays were 7 for 10 with a double and a home run on pitches in the heart of the plate. To be honest, they didn’t really hit the ball hard. Those pitches in the heart had an average exit velocity of 79.8 MPH, but it just shows why putting the bat on the ball can be so important. They consistently put the bat on the ball and it got to the outfield. I think that might be even more important with the quick turf they have in Tampa.

I will say that Greinke could have easily gotten out of there with way less damage. He gave up a three-run homer to Jose Siri in the second on a mistake, but there were two men on from a weak ground ball single to center and a bloop single. He gave up an RBI single in the fourth on a soft single up the middle. In the fifth, he was hurt by a bunt single, a soft single to center and a solid single and then was hurt by Jose Cuas and his total inability to strand runners. Of course, Greinke also got a double play on one of the few hard-hit balls of the night, a 109.6 MPH rocket from Harold Ramirez.

So in some ways it was just one of those games, but I think Greinke’s comments after the game indicated that he was feeling it.

You can see it in the tweet. I wonder how much longer he’ll take the ball with that mindset. You can click the image to see the whole interview. Unfortunately, the child who runs Twitter has decided to block embedding tweets into Substack.

Another big issue right now, and maybe not for much longer, is Cuas. He’s now come into a game with 31 runners on base and 17 of them have scored. That’s atrocious. He’s also given up 17 of his own runs. I want to love Cuas. The story is just too good. He’s a great guy, by all accounts, but he’s just not good enough. I’m not saying you DFA him, but the Royals have a lot of relief arms working their way to the big leagues, plus some starters like, oh I don’t know, Brady Singer, who may end up in the bullpen and it’s hard to see where there’s room for a guy like him.

Offensively, the Royals relied on the long ball. It started on the second pitch of the game when Nick Pratto launched a ball to right field.

Then in the third, down 3-1, none other than Salvador Perez did have a big hit before the game got out of hand to tie the game.

But from there, the offense was shut down. Pratto may have had the worst of it with four strikeouts, including three more looking, but they didn’t really even have many opportunities. In the fifth, they had two on and one out, but Perez lined out and Dairon Blanco was just a touch too far off second and got doubled up. They had two on and one out in the seventh, but they hit into another double play. They had runners on, but never really threatened. I suppose they could have done something to make it more of a game and it was “just” 8-3 heading into the eighth, but the game just wasn’t flowing for them, in spite of their recent comeback ability.

Saturday - Royals 9, Rays 4

Jordan Lyles started this game.

The Royals won.

Gather your canned goods.

Those first two sentences are unlikely enough, but add in that Lyles was hit around pretty hard in the first two innings. He gave up four runs on six hits and three of them were for extra bases. It was 4-0 after two innings. Like Thursday’s unlikely win, these are games the Rays don’t lose and games the Royals don’t often win, and certainly don’t win when the Royals have Lyles on the mound.

Those first two innings were ugly. He was catching way too much of the plate and, like Greinke on Friday, the Rays weren’t missing. There was some soft contact that led to runs, but I just felt like it wasn’t as big of a factor for Lyles as it was the night before. So after two innings, Yonny Chirinos had thrown 19 pitches and retired the first six and it was 4-0. You know how it ended, but imagine we could use the device from Men in Black and ask then ask you what you thought would happen and you’d be lying if your answer was that the Royals would win.

I even made an odds joke on Twitter about it. In hindsight, I’d have made some money on the bet. It would have been a silly bet, but I would have won. The comeback started with none other than Waters. He was swinging early, but on this one, Chirinos left a sinker right in a happy zone.

That’s the second homer in three games for Waters, and as I wrote the other day, he’s a guy who can get hot. I think we can say he’s gotten hot. Now we just see how long it is that it lasts, I guess. It was what happened after that I thought was really interesting. Nicky Lopez singled and then Freddy Fermin walked to put two on with nobody out. A wild pitch got them to second and third. This is a situation that can and has ended up in frustration.

But with those two in scoring position, Pratto swung the bat and while he didn’t produce a big hit, he did put the ball in play and scored the second run of the game. Then on a 2-2 pitch, Bobby Witt Jr. swung at what was probably ball three, but with this umpire, you never know, and he put the ball in play to hit a sacrifice fly to score the third run.

The fourth was another example of an inning we haven’t seen a ton of from the Royals this year. They had two one-out singles to put two on and one out, but Lopez struck out to give them a situation that could have led to a similar frustration to what we’ve seen all year. But Fermin had other thoughts. He hit a rocket to the left field corner that got out and gave the Royals a lead they obviously wouldn’t give up.

His home run was followed by a really nice swing from Pratto for a double and then another rocket, this time off the bat of Witt for an RBI double.

With a 7-4 lead, Lyles surprisingly went to work. He gave up a single to Vidal Brujan in the fourth but that was the only runner he allowed in his final three innings of work. If you include the last batter of the second and then the third, he retired 13 of the final 14 batters he faced. As has been the case in many of his starts, it wasn’t a matter of being bad through the whole start, but letting an inning or two get away. Thankfully this time it didn’t cost the team the game.

They did tack on late. Pratto had another RBI groundout in the sixth after an Edward Olivares double, Lopez HBP and a Fermin single to load the bases. And then Olivares got one out in the eighth to give the Royals their 9-4 lead that was the final score.

Carlos Hernandez and Nick Wittgren were perfect in the last three innings with three strikeouts, which means they ended the game retiring 22 of 23 batters. Word on the street is that’s pretty good.

Sunday - Rays 3, Royals 1

Even when the team is playing a little bit better, the real victories don’t always show up in the standings. Daniel Lynch was coming off a great start against Detroit where he allowed just one hit over seven innings, but the Rays are different than the Tigers. They crush lefties and especially lefty starters, hitting .283/.353/.492 against them coming into the game. At home, they came into the game with a 163 wRC+ against lefties. This was not going to be easy.

And it wasn’t. Make no mistake, Lynch didn’t have an easy day against an offense that just doesn’t have a weak spot. But in the end, this was his line:

6 IP
6 H
1 R
1 BB
2 K

The strikeouts were low. I’ll get to that. But he only walked one hitter and he only gave up the one run. That was important because Tyler Glasnow was absolutely brilliant for the Rays and only allowed one run of his own while he struck out 12 in five innings. Ultimately it didn’t matter, but what I loved about Lynch was how he handled situations where things could have really fallen apart.

In the third, he gave up a leadoff home run to Jose Siri, the number nine hitter who now is tied for the team lead in homers. After that, he gave up a single, a fielder’s choice and then a stolen base. Then he walked a hitter and threw a wild pitch. The Rays had second and third with two outs. It’s a small sample, but the Rays came into that game with a .280/.419/.880 line in those situations. He got a popout to end the inning.

In the fifth, he had to deal with an umpire change when home plate umpire Mark Wegner got hit by a foul tip and had to leave. Those delays are lengthy. It was 2-2 with two outs and a runner on but he got out of that inning. It wasn’t just that. The Rays are relentless, but Lynch was very good.

It’s easy to see the strikeout numbers so low and worry. And yes, I’d like to see some more strikeouts, but I think a fair amount stopping it yesterday was the opponent. I can’t say enough how much I loved his command. Look at this pitch chart.

You see fastballs up, changeups arm-side and down and sliders moving glove-side with a whole lot of blank space in the middle of the plate. I don’t know if they picked up a tell on his changeup or if it just wasn’t quite as good, but they took a lot of pitches I’ve been seeing teams swing at this year against him. And when they didn’t take, they did as good of a job spoiling pitches as any team all season.

But his fastball had me excited. The location was great, but the velocity was up and it led to some swings from the Rays that seemed like they were surprised by. I actually think he should have stuck with his fastball against Siri. He took two huge swings and came up empty and then he came back with a slider that was honestly in a good spot, but Siri hit it out. Maybe if he throws another fastball, that run never scores.

On the year, Lynch now is looking again like a legitimate part of the future. Here’s his season line:

6 GS
36.1 IP
33 H
15.9% K
6.6% BB
3.96 ERA

You obviously want more strikeouts, but I think context does matter. In each of his last two starts, his opponent made more of an impact on the strikeout totals than his pitching. To take the next step, he’ll need to make that not matter, but you have to like what he’s done so far even if his bullpen couldn’t keep it at 1-1 long enough for the Royals to scratch another run across and win the series.

The Week to Come

The Royals are off today, but return home to face the Guardians for the first time this year. Yep, the newly more balanced schedule means they wait until June 27 to face one of their division opponents. It also means they’ll get the Guardians for 14 of their final 84 games. That’s a team that’s traditionally better as the season goes on and the Royals have the misfortune of playing all of their games against them after they’ve figured some things out. Not that it matters for the final standings, but that’s some Royals luck for sure.

One thing the Guardians have done, somewhat by necessity, is they’ve turned their rotation young. The Royals will see Gavin Williams make his second career start and they’ll see Logan Allen make his 12th career start. They’ll end the series against an old foe in Shane Bieber. Bieber is having a solid season, but his velocity just isn’t where it was and he’s simply not striking hitters out anymore.

Williams has a big fastball to go with a curve, slider and a changeup that made him the Guardians number one prospect before his callup. And Allen is a lefty who is not the same lefty Logan Allen who previously pitched for Cleveland. This Allen doesn’t throw hard and fills up the zone with his fastball, so you’d think he’d be hittable, but he gets a surprising amount of whiffs with it. He’s a good pitcher who feels like someone the Royals will struggle with.

Offensively, the Guardians have really struggled. Jose Ramirez is still good and Josh Naylor has been good too, but guys like Josh Bell, Andres Gimenez and Amed Rosario haven’t performed like the team was expecting. They have turned to Bo Naylor to add some offense behind the plate, but it hasn’t worked out just yet. Just like last year, they don’t strike out much, but they just don’t have any power to get the runs home. I could totally see that changing with some guys getting going, but until it does, they’ll run into some issues scoring.

After the Guardians leave town, the Royals will get the Dodgers who are supremely talented but struggling some this season. They’re having a nice season, but nice isn’t good enough for the Dodgers anymore. A lot of their issues are injuries. Their rotation is missing a bunch of key pieces, though they theoretically should be getting healthier in the next few days and weeks, and they’ve turned to young pitching, which can be volatile, but they develop as well as anyone. Evan Phillips and Brusdar Graterol have been great out of the bullpen, but they certainly have some issues back there that could be fixed with, oh, I don’t know, Chapman and Barlow. Still, no matter what their fans might complain about, I think this is one of the four or five best teams in baseball.