Friday Notes

Friday Notes

So now we know what both the ALCS and NLCS and it hasn’t gotten any less weird to me that the Royals aren’t involved. Oh well. I’m actually really looking forward to the baseball being played in the Blue Jays/Indians series, but I just wish there was a way for both teams to lose. Sadly there isn’t. As for the NLCS, I think the Cubs are obviously the clear favorite, but we’ve seen the randomness of postseason baseball at work. Any team with Clayton Kershaw is dangerous, no matter who they’re facing, so I guess you could say I’m looking forward to that as well. What I’m not looking forward to is the World Series ending and having to deal with no baseball at all. Let’s get to the notes.

  • The more I think about the Royals outfield situation and their payroll situation, the more I kind of wonder if they wouldn’t be just fine with giving Jarrod Dyson all the starts in center field against right-handed pitchers with Lorenzo Cain moving over to right to save his legs a bit. No, Cain isn’t your prototypical right fielder in terms of power profile and all that, but he was a legitimate star player in 2015, and can play at that level again, you’d assume. As for Dyson, all he did was put up a .340 OBP in 337 plate appearances with his elite speed and fantastic defense. Now, you could argue that this may be a case of September bias, and Dyson did hit .367/.400/.500 from August 29 to October 2 in 98 plate appearances, but I think he can be a contributor to this team like he was expected to be to start the 2016 season. He hit .302/.354/.450 in 165 plate appearances after the break. You want to look for a way to save some money, utilizing a relatively inexpensive Dyson in a starting role would be a good way to do it and to help the team. For reference, there are some who loved the idea of signing Denard Span in the offseason. Span hit .266/.331/.381 while Dyson hit .278/.340/.388. It’s not apples to apples for a number of reasons, but that’s pretty quality.
  • I think I could probably copy and paste this from literally every offseason ever, but the Royals have to find a way to get Salvador Perez more time off in 2017. And I know they won’t, but whatever. I’m going to write it anyway. Over the last three years, Perez has posted a collective OPS+ of 90. And no, it’s not being dragged down by one bad season. He’s gone 91, 88 and 89 respectively over the last three years. This is the hitter he’s become. And that’s not necessarily a terrible thing. He has impressive power and relative to the rest of the league, his offense isn’t bad for a catcher. But I think it could be better. I know everyone loves Drew Butera, but I wonder if the Royals wouldn’t be better off using some of that money saved on not paying top dollar for an outfielder that I mentioned above and go out and get a legitimately good catcher to backup Perez. This will also save some money, but if they could sign someone like Alex Avila and count on him to catch 60-70 games per year, they could finally rotate that DH spot like they’ve talked about forever and keep Perez’s bat in there. You may argue that he isn’t a good enough hitter to provide value as a DH 45 times per year, but I think if he wasn’t so worn down from catching, that would change. Plus, it would be awfully nice to have a lefty hitting backup catcher.
  • I think no matter what the Royals do this season, they need to find a way to make sure Alcides Escobar is not the leadoff hitter. Take a look at some of these numbers. Leading off, Escobar hit .242/.269/.289 in 82 games. Batting seventh, he hit .304/.323/.543 and batting eighth, he hit .286/.343/.389. Obviously I would never count on a .500+ SLG, but what he showed at the bottom of the order is that he can be a different hitter, and a lot of the reason for that is the way he’s approached by opposing pitchers. Escobar goes out and plays a solid to very good shortstop literally every single game. He’s one of the few guys you can count on to be out there as often as possible, and there’s big time value in that. If he can show that his hitting at the bottom of the order can produce a line more like what he produced in 2012 or 2014, then he’s worth way more than the $6.5 million option he has that was never not going to be picked up, no matter what anybody said. Raul Mondesi is pretty clearly not ready, so hopefully Escobar can stay at the bottom of the order and be a great bridge to the next Royals shortstop.
  • The Arizona Fall League is underway and while the prospect side of things is better left to Clint Scoles, I still get into it. I guess all those years of bad Royals baseball has me still scouring the team’s top prospects to hopefully uncover something. Anyway, with the AFL going now, I’m really excited to see how three Royals prospects in particular fare. They are, in no particular order, Ryan O’Hearn, Josh Staumont and Corey Toups. The reason that I’m interested in those three is that I think they could play a big role for the Royals in the near future. I’ll admit that I wasn’t at all sold on Staumont heading into the 2016 season because I didn’t think he could throw strikes. I still have my questions, but he’s limited them a bit, and now I’m beginning to think that he could be a really big addition to the 2017 team at some point out of the bullpen. Now, if he can show that he can start and keep this all up, then I’m all about it, but for this year, I think he can help out of the bullpen. Toups is a guy who I think should compete for the starting second base job in spring training. I don’t think he’ll win it, but I wouldn’t be that surprised if he did. The guy can play. I just hope he’s given a chance. And finally with O’Hearn, he’s vying to be the first baseman in 2018 after Eric Hosmer leaves as a free agent. He’s one of a few possibilities, including some we don’t even know about yet, but I’m really excited to see how he does in the AFL to see if he can take that final step and become big league ready to take over so the Royals barely miss a beat if at all.
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