Friday Notes — Royals Thoughts for May 3, 2019

The Royals won two games against the Rays in one day after winning zero against them all last season. It’s probably more sad that they were swept last year than that they swept a double header, but whatever. This team continues to look like they should be better than their record while simultaneously providing the feeling of doom in every game they play. Even with an improved bullpen of late (improved doesn’t mean good), the rotation sure seems to have taken a step back from sure it’s fine I guess to boy I remember when Homer Bailey looked like he was on the comeback trail. My biggest concern there is Brad Keller, who simply seems to have no idea where the ball is going right now. I’m leaning more and more to the side that Cal Eldred needs to go, which is scary because I was already there at points last year, so if I lean any more, I’ll probably fall over. I definitely have my concerns, though it’s worth noting that Jakob Junis has at least looked better in his last two starts, so maybe that’s a building block.

• Assuming no issues with weather, the Royals will play their 40th game on May 11th. Why is that important? It’s the magical mark that Dayton Moore has cited often as when you’ve seen enough of a season to start making evaluations. I think many people were ready long before even today, let alone next weekend, but that’s when I expect you might start to see some moves. While I think there might be a move or two between now and then, I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re very close to some decisions being made by the Royals on guys like Brad Boxberger, Wily Peralta, Chris Owings and Ryan O’Hearn. As I said on Twitter, I think it’s time for Terrance Gore to go too as he’s been horrible on the bases recently, but I also don’t know if the Royals are ready to pull that trigger just yet because he’s been better offensively than expected (in a tiny sample, of course). Still, I’d bet that we see Nicky Lopez within the next month or so, and it might very well be at the expense of Owings on the roster, which it absolutely should be. I think a lot of people want action as quickly as possible, but the reality is that it just doesn’t work that way, and the Royals needed to give their decision time to potentially work. I’d argue we all knew it wouldn’t work, but that’s irrelevant once the decision was made. Anyway, I digress, but the point is that judgment day is coming, so by the time the Rangers come to town on May 14th, we might be looking at some changes that people have been dreaming of for awhile.
• I feel like we’re not really talking enough about Ian Kennedy even though we’ve talked a fair amount about him. The numbers are impressive enough with a 1.15 ERA, tons of stikeouts and very few walks. The one issue is that he’s given up a fair amount of hits, but it’s also worth noting that he’s allowed an average exit velocity of just 85.9 MPH, a hard hit rate of just 31 percent and a barrel percentage of just 2.4 percent with a BABIP allowed of .381. That doesn’t quite add up and while he’s stranded 89 percent of runners, it seems that his BABIP allowed should drop even while the strand rate does as well, so it might balance out a bit. What’s different? The obvious is that his fastball is averaging 93.2 MPH compared to 91.9 MPH last season. That’s a jump you see quite often when a guy shifts from the rotation to the bullpen. He’s gotten more spin on it, but one thing I think he’s gotten back to in the bullpen, and it might be because of the added velocity, is throwing the ball up in the zone and slightly above the zone as well. While the adage is that keeping the ball down is better, the reality is that a lot of hitters utilize uppercuts to generate power and throwing a 91 MPH fastball down in the zone is a recipe for disaster. Kennedy hasn’t had those disasters and that’s partially due to placement. I still think he should go to the changeup more because it’s such a good pitch, but for now, he hasn’t needed it.
• The Royals have four players who are on pace to accumulate more than 5.0 fWAR this season, which is pretty incredible. The four players are Hunter Dozier (on pace for 9.1 fWAR), Alex Gordon (6.1), Adalberto Mondesi (5.6) and Whit Merrifield (5.6). To put that in perspective, just 18 players reached the 5.0 threshold last year and just 12 were higher than 5.6. The only team to have a player with a higher WAR than these four are on pace for to not finish .500 or better was the Angels with Mike Trout. To have players putting together the kind of seasons the Royals foursome are right now could be unprecedented. The good news is that three of the four players having great seasons factor prominently in the Royals future. It underscores the need to raise the floor of the bottom of the roster. Chris Owings, Jorge Soler, Ryan O’Hearn and Martin Maldonado all have negative fWAR to date. And that hasn’t even gotten into the disaster that the bullpen truly was early in the year and still is at times even with some guys stepping up to be really solid. The bad news is that it’s going to be hard to expect Dozier, Mondesi and Merrifield to be worth 20 wins above replacement in future seasons and the team is wasting these great years. But hey, at least there’s some great players root for. I’ll take that over the alternative. I think.
• I don’t have a ton of new information to say here, but the Royals television ratings continue to be really impressive in spite of how awful the team has been. They still rank near the top of baseball in terms of share, and that bodes well for their television deal coming soon. Now that things appear to be taking shape with it looking like Sinclair will purchase the regional networks, the Royals can move forward with their new deal since the current one expires after the season. I’ve been saying this for over a year now, but everyone I’ve talked to who knows way more than I do about this insists the Royals will still get a very good deal in spite of the uncertain climate with teams on television. No, they won’t approach Dodgers money or anything, but they have a chance to triple their yearly intake. The Cardinals deal of 15 years for $1 billion is probably roughly in the ballpark of where they’ll land. It might end up at 10–12 years, but the $60-$65 million mark still seems attainable for them in the negotiations. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out, but I’m still optimistic that they’ll find a very good deal given how popular they are on television.