The 60-day DL Guys

Jesse Hahn, Nate Karns, Cheslor Cuthbert and Jorge Soler all are currently not counting against the roster, but will be in short order. Soler, barring a trade, is sticking around. The other three all have a case for getting non-tendered. None are expected to make much, with MLB Trade Rumors projecting the three to make a combined $4.2 million or so, but two of the three didn’t even make a big league appearance last year and the third was anemic offensively for the second straight year before an injury lingered and kept him out.

If I’m running the show, I probably non-tender both Hahn and Karns and try to get them back on minor league deals. I think that might be the way the Royals go, but you really never know with them. They always march to a different beat. With Cuthbert, I’m probably cutting bait and just saying goodbye. While he’s younger than Hunter Dozier, he never showed the power that Dozier has and doesn’t have the positional flexibility. And both may be passed up soon anyway by some of the minor leaguers working their way through the system.

So with cutting bait on those three, the Royals could call it a day and be done for at least the time being as that would put them at 39 on the roster.

The Minor Leaguers Who Need to be Added

But that 39 number comes before players who need to be added to the 40-man to avoid being selected in the Rule 5 draft. The Royals have done a really nice job of knowing who they were likely to lose and not protecting those they aren’t, but there are quite a few decisions to make this year.

Nick Dini and Xavier Fernandez are both catchers who could be solid and might attract attention as big league backups right now. The Royals are so rich in catching that they really can’t afford to add them unless they make some cuts elsewhere. This won’t thrill people, but I’m guessing they don’t add Frank Schwindel either because they feel he’s a good risk to not be lost. D.J. Burt is eligible as well, and he’s a guy they may lose, but I just don’t see how they can use a 40-man spot on him either. The same is true for Donnie Dewees. They have plenty of fourth outfielder types, so if they lose him, oh well.

I believe there will be plenty of conversations about adding Jecksson Flores who broke out in 2018 at Northwest Arkansas and hit .314/.363/.440 while playing all over the field. Elier Hernandez also could get some consideration, though I think the Royals ultimately will risk losing him after he posted a sub-.400 SLG in both stops last season. The big questions are on the pitching staff.

Jonathan Dziedzic, Arnaldo Hernandez, Jake Kalish, Foster Griffin, Scott Blewett, Gerson Garabito, Ofreidy Gomez and Jon Perrin are all starters who are eligible for the Rule 5. Josh Staumont, Gabe Speier and Yunior Marte are all relievers eligible.

Hernandez, Blewett, Griffin and Staumont seem to me to be the likely pitching staff additions, and potentially Yunior Marte. The team likes Hernandez a lot while Blewett has had a fantastic AFL showing. Add them to Flores who I think gets the nod and that’s five new players and maybe even six if they do add Marte.

And now we’re back in trouble with 45 members.

The DFA Crew

So now it’s time to cut some players, and probably a lot of them, which means decisions the Royals don’t want to make will have to be made. To me, there are at least five obvious cuts to start. Bubba Starling, Paulo Orlando, Burch Smith, Brandon Maurer and Andres Machado can all be cut without even thinking twice. The Royals will likely think twice on all of them, but I think (hope?) they make the right call. That leaves questions on a few guys.

Ramon Torres had a similar rise to Flores, but took a big step back in 2018 and with Adalberto Mondesi and Nicky Lopez’s rise, the opportunities there for him are few and far between. I think he goes. Now we’re back in a situation where they could just stop, but it helps to have a little wiggle room, so I think they need to find one more cut. The easy answer is Ben Lively to me. He’s a depth guy and nothing more. That said, I wonder if they’d look at a DFA of Jason Adam with the idea that they could bring him back on a minor league deal. Either way, they’re down to 38, which is a good place to be for the moment.

I think it’s worth noting that Rosell Herrera may not make it through the spring, though I think he’s safe until at least then. The Royals may break camp with Lopez, and if they do, I think Herrera’s spot is the one to go and he’s out of options.

One other name to watch is Samir Duenez. He had a nice 2018 in Northwest Arkansas, hitting .279/.352/.464 and I really liked him as a prospect a couple years ago, but with Ryan O’Hearn hitting like he did in the big leagues and Nick Pratto coming on in the second half, Duenez might be in no-man’s land. I don’t imagine he loses his spot now, but his day of reckoning might be coming.

Trade Candidates

There’s really not much here that could clear a 40-man spot. Danny Duffy would have been a trade chip if he had a good season and/or was healthy, but neither really happened, so they’re not moving a guy at his lowest value, especially when they don’t want to move him anyway. They could flip someone like Jerry Vasto or Tim Hill to a team looking for a LOOGY, so that’s something to watch for. Or one of them could easily be let go as well, though I don’t really expect that.

Some would argue that Whit Merrifield should be in this list, and they might be right, but the odds the Royals trade him are so low that it’s not worth talking about. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but they’ll have to have their socks knocked off and it’s starting to get cold and they don’t want bare feet. I mentioned Jorge Soler earlier as well. Either he or Jorge Bonifacio could be moved, but the Royals need Soler’s potential and Bonifacio isn’t exactly coming off the best campaign to trade. I suppose it could happen, though, and that would open up another spot.

So that’s what the Royals are facing this offseason. It’s a lot of work for a team that isn’t likely to win more than 75 games and even that may be optimistic, but they’ll really have to work to massage this roster to get down below the 40-man and with so many fringe players, this might be a season-long struggle for them. But hey, at least it’s something to talk about!

• I’m both surprised and not surprised that Frank Schwindel didn’t get a callup when the Omaha season ended. I had heard some things a couple weeks ago that indicated to me that he had a really good shot to be in the big leagues, so in that way, it’s surprising. But then when I think about it a little more, it’s really not. I’ve mentioned in this space that even with what O’Hearn has done, I still think Schwindel was the more deserving player at the time to get called up, but he was passed over. He also was eligible for the Rule 5 draft last year, coming off a .329/.349/.541 season and was passed over by every team. Yes, the Royals have some easy 40-man moves they could make to get him in the big leagues now, but looking forward, there will be a squeeze on the roster after the season when 60-day DL guys need to be activated. They have two pending free agents on the entire roster and a nearly full roster. Add in the four guys on the 60-day DL who will need to be added back and there’s already a crunch because subtract those two free agents and add the four DL guys and you’re over 41. Yes, there is absolutely dead weight. You could DFA guys like Nate Karns and Jesse Hahn and try to bring them back on minor league deals. Cheslor Cuthbert appears to have played his last game for the Royals. Andres Machado, Burch Smith, Ramon Torres, Paulo Orlando and Bubba Starling are easy drops if you need the space, but they’ll also need 40-man space for a Rule 5 guy next year if they go that route or any free agents they sign to shore up the bullpen. My guess here is that with O’Hearn hitting the way he has and Dozier stepping it up that the Royals decided to roll the dice and assume they could keep Schwindel without making their 40-man decisions any tougher over the next six months. I’d have brought him up, but it’s easy to see why they didn’t.
• Acquiring Ben Lively from the Phillies is a vaguely interesting move for a team that is evaluating starters the rest of the season and probably into next year. He’s probably more Sam Gaviglio than Jakob Junis, but it’s still a worthwhile gamble to take for a team that isn’t going anywhere for a couple seasons. He had his moments last year for the Phillies with a 4.26 ERA in 88.2 innings, but he didn’t strike out enough hitters and had a basically appalling seven percent swinging strike rate. This year, he wasn’t especially good, but the sample is skewed by one of his five starts being a massive disaster. He does a pretty good job of throwing strikes and seems like a guy who can get you deep into a game occasionally. His fastball isn’t special, sitting 91-92 and maybe touching 94 at times and his bread and better is his slider, which has been good for a 36.4 percent whiff percentage. The biggest issue I see is that his pitches tend to flatten out, which is both good and bad because it may be a mechanical issue that I’m certainly not smart enough to figure out. Or it may be that he’s just not good enough. I don’t mean to make it seem like he has to be great to justify the acquisition or anything, but hey, it’d be nice. Like I said, this is exactly what they should be doing, so I’m curious to see if they just liked him for depth or if someone sees something in him they believe they can unlock.
• Lexington won their first playoff game on Wednesday night, and it was really fun to watch because of how they won it. First, Jackson Kowar had a really nice playoff debut, going five innings in just 57 pitches and striking out five without a walk. After striking out just eight batters in his first 17 innings (with 10 walks), he let it fly and now in his last four starts, he’s gone 14.1 innings with 10 hits allowed, two runs and just two walks with 19 strikeouts. That’s what you want from a top draft pick. And to do it on a playoff stage is impressive. But maybe even more impressive is what Nick Pratto is doing. He went 2-for-3 with a home run and two stolen bases in his first playoff game as a pro, which is just maintaining what he’s done since the start of August. In 32 games, he’s hit .374/.439/.659 with 10 doubles, two triples and seven home runs. His BABIP is insane at well over .400, but it’s so nice to see him breaking out. I think his start to the season really took him off the radar, and he’s doing everything he can to get back on it. I’m not sure much would surprise me with him, but it’s nice to see him performing so well.
• Man, what a weird year for Jorge Bonifacio. He looked like one of the two best players on the team in spring training (with Whit), then obviously got popped for the PED suspension that cost him half the season. Then he comes back and hits .288/.351/.451 in 13 games before the break and it looked like he would build on some nice things in his rookie year and that very good spring. Then he spent 16 games just ice cold, hitting .109/.210/.164 and it sort of looked like maybe he was actually a product of those PEDs and he wasn’t worth figuring out the roster for moving forward. So naturally, he’s hit .292/.365/.431 since and has been more than serviceable offensively (though with much lighter power than you’d like). The Statcast data for him isn’t good. His average exit velocity is way down. His hard hit rate is way down. His barrel rate is way down. His launch angle is way up, but not in a good way. Some underlying numbers, though, are quite good. His walk rate is up by about one percent. His strikeout rate is down by about two percent. He’s swinging at fewer pitches outside the strike zone and making contact on more pitches inside the strike zone. One of the biggest differences in his batted ball profile is that he’s pulling way more pitches and not using the middle of the field as much. And he’s hitting considerably worse on balls he pulled. In 2017, he hit .500 with a 1.118 SLG on pulled balls. This year? It’s still obviously impressive, but his average is down to .425 with a .750 SLG. I’m not sure that means he shouldn’t be working to pull the ball as much, but it is interesting. Either way, it’s a weird year and I’m not sure we actually learned anything about him, which kind of stinks.