35 Comments

I continue to be impressed with Maikel Garcia. Not only is he hitting impressively, he's 11-11 on stolen base attempts. And as a defensive infielder, so far he's everything that we had all once hoped BWJ might be: yes he makes his share of spectacular plays but perhaps even more important he makes the routine plays with extreme consistency. Since this team has left us no choice but to try to get interested in individual players instead of the team as a whole, I look forward to watching him in the future.

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Garcia has been better than I expected. Defensively, I thought he'd be good. He's been great. Actually, no, he's been elite. Offensively, I expected him to make enough contact to be successful with his speed, but he's hit the ball hard and he's done it consistently. I wouldn't be too surprised if he continues to put on some good weight over the next couple of years and ends up a 12-15 home run bat with his defense.

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David - any theories as to why Cuas struggles so much more with RH batters than lefties? Meaningless noise in a small sample size? Or something else…???

Given his arm slot I'd expect his splits to be exactly the opposite of what they are. What am I missing?

And is there any sort of rational foundation for believing that he'll be more effective against righties in the future?

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I'd have to dig more on this, but I wonder if his slider is locating poorly against righties where it slides right into their swing path. I'm struggling to find a way to explain my thought process, but I think the way a hitter might bail with his arm slot might lead the bat right to where the slider ends up. But, at the same time, he's never had this split before, so I really don't know and would attribute it mostly to noise.

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Jun 26, 2023·edited Jun 26, 2023

Don’t blame the bullpen for yesterday. Blame Witt. When will he stop with the stupid throws? Am I wrong?

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I think you are. I can think of two bad throws this season. There was the flip to second and the throw yesterday. Over the course of a season, the defense is going to make errors. It happens. He needs to learn from them, absolutely, but it's not like it's his 12th or something.

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I may have made his rushed throws a bigger deal in my head than they actually are. Sorry I blew up.

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If that was a blowup, you must be the calmest person in the world!

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Let’s hope Chapman and Barlow absolutely dominate the Dodgers, for obvious reasons.

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I hope they dominate the Royals next weekend!

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I’m fearing we are watching Clarke’s trade value decreasing everytime he takes the mound right now. Hopefully, he can put together a good stretch right before the deadline.

You hearing anything more on the Chapman front? If nothing is there…nothing is there….but my biggest fear right now is he gets hurt two weeks before the deadline. I know you can’t control that…but it also feels like a very Royal thing to happen right now. Lol. Maybe it still happens, but I kinda felt like it would be a year where the front office gets out in front of some of the deadline moves. Maybe teams are so focused on the draft yet and they happen more right after when that finishes up.

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I actually tweeted about Clarke yesterday. Teams just don't operate by living and dying with each appearance like fans do. A week ago, he was a hot trade piece. I don't think a week changes much. I don't think it has no impact, but I don't think it has nearly the impact people think. Outside of injury, of course.

We had this discussion last year with trades. The draft has made the trade market extremely slow because there's just so much focus on that. Now, that said, the Royals made two moves last year before the draft. One was on June 27 when they traded Santana and one was a couple weeks later when they traded for Drew Waters, CJ Alexander and Andrew Hoffmann. There is no point where a Chapman trade would surprise me anymore. It could happen before I hit enter to post this comment or before tomorrow's game or really any other time.

I know there's big interest and I know it's not waning. I don't know who is involved, but there are certainly some obvious options. The Dodgers are interested in Chapman and Barlow, from what I understand, so I could definitely see them saying they want to get ahead of letting those two beat them and make a move before that series this weekend.

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Like every one else, I am getting tired of Witt' stupid throws. It was good to see them play better as a whole. They had a great chance to win 6 of the 7 games on this trip had Taylor not imploded 3 times. I'm not really complaining about Clarrk's usage, because he had been so good. I have been watching the mock drafts and a lot of them have the Royals picking Jack Wilson. I noticed he wasn't even on your list. Anyway great work, as usual!!!

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I mentioned this in a comment above, but that was his second throwing error of the year. It probably seems like more because the last one was recently, but he really hasn't had much of an issue with that.

I think a lot of people assume Wilson is a Royals pick, but multiple people have told me they aren't interested in him. Is that a smokescreen? Maybe, but I think he's not really an option.

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You should be complimented that they know you're influential enough to bother with throwing a smokescreen your way!

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I know the Royals shouldn’t draft him if there’s better available, but Enrique Bradfield Jr would really be fun to watch in center at Kauffman

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He absolutely would be. And maybe I'm way off and he becomes a great player and we'll lament them not taking him.

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Apparently you have decided to reveal some of your political views with your Twitter comment. Definitely not a conservative. #Disappointed

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My issue that I mentioned is that I have a problem with blocking Substack links on Twitter and not allowing embedding of Twitter links here on Substack, which has literally nothing to do with politics. I find that childish because it was done based solely on the fact that Substack unveiled a Notes platform.

That said, who cares what my politics are? I'm here to write about baseball.

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Oh Lord please anything but this! One of the main reasons I turn to sports is to escape all the political BS. I couldn't care less whether David is hard left or hard right. All I care about is that he knows baseball like few others.

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ditto and amen.

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Signs of life from Waters and Lynch are encouraging. Garcia continues to impress. But that only goes so far.

Pratto 2 for 16 with 9 (that's not a typo) strikeouts in St. Pete. Hitting .265 for the season, but only .225 in June with 45% strikeout rate. Career .227 average in 343 at-bats and -0.1 WAR. That's enough at-bats to provide a good picture of a players capabilities.

Melendez hitting .215 this year with -1.1 WAR. Career .216 average in 721 at-bats and -0.7 WAR. 721 at-bats is a big sample size.

According to Fangraphs, "Replacement level is simply the level of production you could get from a player that would cost you nothing but the league minimum salary to acquire." Both Pratto and Melendez are below replacement level players.

For the Royals to continue to play this caliber of players shows the sad state of affairs for this organization. It means they are playing guys who shouldn't be in the big leagues, but they don't have anyone better in the system

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For what it's worth, I don't think either players have enough big league time to provide the picture you think it does, but that's open to opinion.

Melendez has been very disappointing with the bat and his glove has obviously been a huge problem. With Pratto, he had a bad weekend, but using stats without context such as improvement gets into a dangerous spot. I don't think it shows the "sad state of affairs" to be playing two guys who were consensus top-100 prospects heading into last season in a year where they're figuring out what they have.

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Respectfully disagree. Please tell me more about “using stats without context such as improvement gets into a dangerous spot.” 1) Do you know of more inclusive, statistically valid data points than WAR or fWAR? 2) What improvement for either of those players are you referencing? I’ve surely missed that. 3) How would you more accurately describe the status of the Royals’ organization?

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I'm just saying that using overall WAR for a player's 343 at bat career can lead to a conclusion that doesn't make sense to me. Pratto hit .184/.271/.386 last year and has hit .265/.349/.416 this year. I'm just saying that adjustments and improvements matter and simply taking the overall numbers doesn't tell the whole story. I think there are plenty of reasons to be concerned with Pratto. Obviously the strikeouts (and specifically the called third strikes) are a massive issue, but I also think that a young player can be viewed in the context with weighing recent stats more heavily.

Again, you're certainly free to disagree. It's all opinion.

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You and I discussed his called 3rd strikes last year. I had foolishly begun to hope that particular problem was in the past now. I should have known better.

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Final comment. Pratto has hit .225 in June, striking out 46% of the time.

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Yep, he's hit poorly this month and specifically over the last week and a half or so. I'm not saying he's going to be great or he is great or he's been great.

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Jun 26, 2023Liked by David Lesky

I guess it's part of the nature of fans that care enough to be engaged with a team that has this poor of a record, but I don't personally get the reactionary comments about how bad one of the young guys has been over X time period. This team has 22 wins in late June. Taking ABs away from any of the young guys to add more replacement-level Matt Duffy types makes zero sense to me. Whether we like it or not, this is a lost season from any type of competitive standpoint, so the only way (IMHO) to make it worse would be to quit on seeing if any of these young controllable guys can play. And that's probably going to look pretty messy for all of them at times, whether they pan out or not.

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I'm with you. The only way to make this season mean anything is to stick with these guys until the end. Now, if you want to argue that someone like Melendez could benefit from an overhaul that only makes sense in the minors, sure. Or if you want to make an example of someone like Singer for seemingly refusing to use a third pitch, sure. But generally, it's about them getting experience and the coaching staff getting an evaluation.

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Jun 26, 2023Liked by David Lesky

Nipsey Russell arose from his grave and wrote a poem about this weekend:

"The Royals got a split

Didn't look like total 💩

And the "clutch" gene just showed us a glimmer.

"But the pitching's still iffy

Vibes could leave in a jiffy

Leave us and our hopes even dimmer."

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I’ve seen the idea of trading Garcia being floated around, thoughts?

It makes sense IMO and it goes along with our desire to be more transactional but I’m having trouble gauging his trade value. Would a team be willing to give a top 100 prospect? I think he will be a valuable part of this teams future if he isn’t dealt so I’m in no hurry to get a deal done and I’m sure that’s JJ’s mindset too. From an opposing team’s view I see the risk in paying up (in terms of prospects) for unproven SS but financially it beats the commitment of overpaying someone in FA, so surely a SS needy contender/near future contender, who has the firepower to make a trade happen, would be tempted right? What kind of offer tempts you if you’re in JJ’s shoes?

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Jun 26, 2023·edited Jun 27, 2023

I don't think we're there yet. Given the Royals dismal track record in player development I'd have little interest in trading him for a minor league ballplayer or two, even highly rated ones. History has shown us that once the Royals get their hands on them they wouldn't be highly rated much longer.

I would only trade him in order to obtain a productive established MLB player who has been trained and developed by a competent organization. I seriously doubt that any such organization would make that kind of trade for him. Not yet, at least.

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I think if you're trading Garcia, you're trading as if he's a prospect in order to get back a controllable starting pitcher. I don't think they have to trade him by any stretch. But I also see the thought process that he might be worth more as a shortstop to some team like the Marlins than as a third baseman with the Royals. Using the Marlins, if they offered Luzardo or Garrett, I don't know that the Royals would say no. I don't think the Marlins would offer that, but that's the type of player they'd want for him.

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I don’t think the Marlins would offer Garrett either but I like that a lot if we could get it

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