• I probably should have put this out prior to the awards being announced, but if I had a vote on all the major ones, it would gone like this:
  AL ROY: Ohtani, Andujar, Torres
  NL ROY: Acuna, Soto, Buehler
  AL MOY: Cora, Cash, Melvin
  NL MOY: Counsell, Snitker, Maddon
  AL Cy Young: Verlander, Snell, Bauer, Sale, Kluber
  NL Cy Young: deGrom, Scherzer, Nola, Corbin, Freeland
  AL MVP: Betts, Trout, Martinez, Chapman, Bregman, Ramirez, Lindor, Khris Davis, Verlander, Merrifield (because 10th place votes are for fun or something)
  NL MVP: Yelich, deGrom, Story, Arenado, Baez, Cain, Freeman, Muncy, Rendon, Realmuto
  Obviously my votes align pretty well with what we saw over the last few days, but not entirely. I’m a little bit surprised that Brad Keller didn’t get any love, but not a lot surprised since voters only list their top three and the three finalists were clearly the best three rookies. I don’t think Ryan Yarbrough deserved the vote he got at all, so that’s where I’m surprised Keller didn’t fit in, but oh well. Whether they mean something or nothing, I still think awards season is fun, and I enjoy going through and see who voted for whom and all that good stuff. Next up is Hall of Fame season, which is less fun. Here’s hoping for Edgar Martinez to get that final push to get to where he belongs.
• Craig wrote about the Royals bullpen roles yesterday and the KC Baseball Vault team talked about them on the podcast that you can click the links to read and listen to respectively, but I wanted to weigh in as well. Some of my thoughts will likely overlap, but that’s okay. I think the Royals do have an opportunity to find a way to build a really effective pitching staff with the talent they have, which is something we’ve talked about a little bit over the last few months. In guys like Jorge Lopez, Heath Fillmyer, Eric Skoglund and even Jakob Junis and Danny Duffy, the Royals have pitchers who I think you can count on for at least six outs in a big moment in games. I know that’s weird to include a couple of those guys in there, but even Skoglund flashed a really good curve at times and if he can figure out how to get some consistency out of that, his long arms can make him a big weapon with that pitch. They’ll still need starters. I don’t think it’s sustainable to not have anyone shooting for 175-200 innings in a rotation, but I do believe the Royals talent on hand puts them in a great position to take advantage of some unorthodox thoughts. Think about opening a game with someone like Duffy and stacking with righties and letting him go three or four and then moving on to Junis to finish things out against all these righties with his nasty slider. That’s just one example, but I do think the Royals would do well to find a different approach as they’re rebuilding looking toward their next contender. And for those who say Ned Yost is too rigid, I do agree that it might be a factor, but I always go back to him being the one to put Alex Gordon in the leadoff spot, which made all sorts of sense, but was seemingly out of character for Ned. That’s not to say it proves he’s forward thinking, but it does prove that he can be, so we’ll see, I guess.
• The 40-man roster is now sitting at 37 players, which is actually still sort of high for this point in the offseason because they haven’t yet added the minor leaguers who will be eligible for the Rule 5 draft otherwise. I would imagine there are at least three players the Royals will protect. Scott Blewett, Arnaldo Hernandez and Josh Staumont come to mind. And if they do that, they’d be back full at 40, which leaves them no room for any additions to the roster, and that includes the Rule 5 draft, which I imagine they’ll participate in again. I feel like this is almost a weekly feature of Friday Notes, but with Ramon Torres out, there are now some obvious removals left. I know it’s hard, but Bubba Starling has likely got to go. Beyond that, it’s not so easy to find the next removals, but Jason Adam, Burch Smith, Glenn Sparkman (even though I think he has a chance to be very useful) and Rosell Herrera all seem like candidates to go. I was going to say Samir Duenez, who I mentioned awhile ago as being on borrowed 40-man roster time, but I still think they give Ryan O’Hearn a shot to prove what we saw at the end of the season wasn’t a fluke before they look for something to do with Duenez. Even though it’ll be a boring offseason, I imagine there’ll be some roster maneuvering going on right up to the last minute.
• Remember early in the season when it seemed like the Royals hit into a double play even when there was nobody on base? Well that happened, but then it also seemed to sort of shift as the season went on. One thing is that Salvador Perez stopped hitting into quite so many with eight over 36 games between his return and the end of May, but another thing is that the personnel is much better equipped to not do that. One Baseball Prospectus stat that I think is fun to look at in the offseason is NETDP, which basically shows how many more (or fewer) double plays a player hits into than the average player based on opportunities. The worst on the team was Hunter Dozer at 5.22 and Perez at 5.20, so that’ll continue to be a problem in 2019, but then it was Abraham Almonte, Cheslor Cuthbert, Alcides Escobar and Drew Butera. The best on the team was a lot of guys we’ll see on Opening Day with Adalberto Mondesi at -3.61, Alex Gordon at -3.29, Ryan O’Hearn at -2.81 and Jorge Bonifacio at -2.61. Really outside of Dozier and Perez, everybody likely to be on the 2019 roster was below 1, which means maybe there’ll be a little less frustration any time a runner is on first with less than two out for the Royals. And for what it’s worth, after being at the top of the league early, the Royals finished with just the eighth most double plays in baseball at 123. So, hey, it could have been worse.

All these stats are from the incomparable Baseball Savant.

Exit Velocity Allowed

So yeah, that’s not great. If you’re getting strikeouts, you can live with getting hit a little harder because you’re getting hit less frequently, but for guys like Skoglund and Hammel and Lively, that’s not great. It’s also not great to have two pitchers below the MLB average. If you’re looking for some optimism, well, look elsewhere.

Hard Hit %

So here’s what I’m learning. Tim Hill limits good contact pretty well. I was pretty hard on him because I just didn’t see it and a guy who isn’t good against righties should be better than he is against lefties. But he gets an awful lot of weak contact and he’s capable of getting the strikeout. Maybe I’m underestimating him. Also, Keller had a really nice season.

Barrel %

I kind of felt like Sparkman never really got squared up, even when he struggled, and he did allow the lowest percentage of barrels of anyone. It’s also no surprise that the top of the list has Adam, who I love and hope he can turn it around, but woof. Again, man, Brad Keller had a really nice season.

Launch Angle

So the biggest takeaway here is that Hill is a ground ball monster, which we knew. He’s no Scott Alexander who was at -5.8° this year, but to be negative at all is pretty impressive as he was one of just seven pitchers with 140 batted ball events or more with a negative average launch angle. And, hey, look at that. McCarthy was there too. Oh and there’s another Keller sighting on a positive leaderboard.

Whiff %

The Royals offense swings and misses too much and their pitchers don’t get enough swings and misses. You can live with some guys who get a ton of grounders like Keller, Hill and McCarthy, but there are just too many guys on this list who are either too close to or below league average. If the Royals are going to be good again, they need to get their swing and miss bullpen back first and then find a starter or two who can be above average because this just isn’t going to work in this era of baseball.

Weak Contact %

They don’t get many swings and misses and didn’t have many pitchers who elicited weak contact either. If you’re not going to do one, you need to do the other. And they didn’t in 2018. It’s probably no surprise to see Peralta at the top with his heavy fastball, but I would have thought Keller would be a little higher on this list. To see Adam near the top tells me he needs to find a middle ground more often, though him toward the top of the list says more about the Royals than him probably.

So yeah, the pitching isn’t what you’d call good. There is some hope for improvement as the team posted a 4.26 ERA from August 1^st on and struck out hitters on par with their season average, but walked fewer and gave up way fewer homers per game. And even more optimism comes from a 3.79 September ERA, though that came with a decreased strikeout total, so maybe there shouldn’t be the same optimism there. Either way, expect some new faces in that bullpen and maybe even the rotation to help turn things around in 2019, but it might be a couple years before we see a real change there.

Early on, it looked like they made a terrible mistake. Maybe moving on from Eiland wasn’t necessarily wrong, but Eldred didn’t appear to be a positive influence on the staff as they appeared unprepared for opposing offenses at times and unwilling to adjust. I know that’s an odd thing to say about a guy who never threw a pitch for the team, but I sort of felt like that was on him and I questioned his ability to do his job. Obviously the lack of talent in the bullpen was a problem, but even so, established pitchers were struggling as well, which is a bit concerning.

It was pretty much a struggle through July. The offense got more fun when Ryan O’Hearn came up and Adalberto Mondesi really got going, but it’s pretty easy to see why the team got better after July 31st. The pitching improved a great deal. After starting 33-73 with a 5.30 ERA, they went 25-31 with a 4.26 ERA the rest of the way. August wasn’t stellar, but the starters had an ERA of 4.90 while the bullpen’s was down to 4.52, their second lowest mark of the season to that point. In September, the starters really kicked it up with a 3.49 ERA and the bullpen posted a 4.39 mark, their new second best. Take a look at the starter and reliever ERAs by month here:

I guess the question is whether or not that was just noise or if there’s something to it. I think simply not having Blaine Boyer and Justin Grimm helped and limiting the innings of Jason Hammel helped quite a bit too. And overall, the numbers weren’t really that much better. There was a spike in strikeout percentage in August, but that dropped significantly in September as well as the swinging strike rate, so maybe the September numbers are a bit of a mirage. I’ll get back to that in a second on an individual basis, but here are their numbers month-by-month.

And finally, before I get into the individuals, I found it very interesting that the team ground ball percentage as a staff in the first half was 41.7 percent, which ranked fifth lowest in baseball. The fly ball percentage of 37 percent was fifth highest. In the second half, the ground ball percentage was 45.3 percent (third highest) and the fly ball percentage was 33.1 percent (fourth lowest). Here’s a look at the ground ball and fly ball numbers by month followed by the home run per nine numbers:

Now let’s talk individuals because it’s one thing to look at team numbers, but they include guys like Boyer, Grimm and Hammel and a bunch of pitchers who don’t really matter to both the future of the team and even a cursory evaluation of Eldred in his new role. The young guys are who Eldred was brought in to work with, so I actually want to see how they did throughout the season. Let’s start with the success stories and move into the…others.

Brad Keller

It’s hard to fully evaluate Keller’s season on a month-by-month basis because the first two months were mostly spent in the bullpen and then he had to evolve a bit as a pitcher, which he absolutely did. This is an Eldred success story if you pin that on a coach. He saw his strikeout percentage jump up in the last two months and his swinging strike percentage go way up in his final month with his walk rate taking a tumble. It all kind of came together for him in September as you can see his ground ball rate jumped back up to where it was early in the year as well. All in all, this is a fun one to look at.

Heath Fillmyer

Fillmyer is a massive success story even if he never becomes a solid big league pitcher. Maybe it’s just my perception because I believed he was a big nothing burger, but he just kept getting better as the season went on. When he first came up, he was a ground ball machine, as you can see below, but after settling into a starting role, he wasn’t quiet that. Still, in September, like Keller, he put together is best effort with season highs in strikeout percentage, swinging strike percentage, walk percentage (well, low there, but that’s good) and a solid enough ground ball rate. His slider is a legitimately quality big league pitch, limiting opponents to a .242 average and .318 SLG with a 35.3 percent whiff rate. The surprise is that his changeup and curve both were solid as well. He may need to pitch backward a bit, but I think there might actually be a future on a big league club for him.

Jakob Junis

It was a truly odd year for Junis, who started off looking like he was going to way outperform projections, then his season took a dark turn and then he ended up about where everyone thought he would. The key for him is keeping the ball out of the air a little better. Through June, he’d allowed 22 homers in 96.1 innings, which is decidedly not good. And he had a fly ball rate of 43.8 percent. From July through the end of the year, he allowed 10 home runs in 80.2 innings. That’s decidedly much better. And his fly ball rate then was down to 29.2 percent. His home run per fly ball wasn’t drastically different. It was good to see him continuing to keep the ball in the park even while throwing a ton of strikes. Just look at those walk rates.

Kevin McCarthy

The reason I think McCarthy was a success for the coaching staff isn’t so much the performance on the surface because he was relatively steady all year. What gets me excited about McCarthy is that he’s an extreme ground ball pitcher (64.3 percent on the year), but he started getting swings and misses in August and September. Look at those rising swinging strikes rate (11.6 percent and 12.2 percent respectively after not topping 9.6 percent in any month). If he can do that while maintaining a fantastic walk rate and his ground ball rate, he might be more than a middle reliever moving forward. It’s at least worth watching.

Danny Duffy

Duffy isn’t young, but he is a part of the future, and his season cannot be classified as anything but disappointing. Injuries played a big role here, so I don’t want to put this on Eldred, but it was a rough go. We know the baseball card numbers, but in August, his swinging strike percentage was down to just 7 percent, which is well below his average. I’m guessing this was injury, but look at this chart. He was just all over the place. I’m not sure it tells us anything, but he had a weird year. You can probably ignore September given that it’s just two-thirds of an inning and seven batters worth of work.

Brandon Maurer

Please help me. There’s something about Maurer that makes me wonder if he can be something next year. After some adjustments, his strikeout percentage jumped from 8.8 percent in July to 25 percent in August and 25.8 percent in September. He still walks too many and he’s terrible, but this is exactly the reason why he’ll get chances until he’s 112. Anyway, I just wanted to throw him in because I’m mean.

Burch Smith

He’s not good. He’s not a big leaguer. He didn’t get better. He’s just not good. But hey, he walked fewer batters in July and August. So there’s that.

I thought about throwing in Tim Hill and Jorge Lopez, but they weren’t especially interesting, though it is worth noting that Hill saw his walk rate cut in half from the first half to the second and his strikeout rate remain mostly the same. He doesn’t get a ton of swings and misses, but his ground ball rate is so good that you’re okay with that as a LOOGY. The big win for him was cutting that walk rate because he was putting way too many guys on early. Lopez is tough to gauge because the sample is tiny, but also because he was in a different role with the Royals than he had been in the big leagues before.

One other player who was of interest was Eric Skoglund. I was pretty adamant he wasn’t a big leaguer, and I might have been wrong about that. He came back in September and the back of the card numbers were very good with a 1.33 ERA and just 11 hits allowed in 20.1 innings, but the underlying numbers were not great. The sample was obviously very small, but he’s worth watching to see if that was a mirage or the improvement was for real.

In all, I really liked the trend of a fair amount of young pitchers. I’m not sure this is the best way to evaluate Eldred as a coach, but is there really a great way to evaluate coaches? It’s kind of on the players. I’d say the improvements throughout the year at least reflect well on him and seeing guys like Junis, McCarthy, Keller, Fillmyer and some others improve in various ways as the season progressed makes me hopeful for him to be able to continue to make an impact as the pitching staff theoretically skews younger over the next few seasons. I’m not sold on him, but I do feel much better about him than I did early in the season

• Speaking of managers, Dayton Moore announced prior to the final game of the season that Ned Yost would be back for the 2019 season. I’m sure some people won’t like that, but whatever. I think it’s a prudent move, especially if the next manager truly is in the organization right now, which I believe to be true. The 2019 Royals, no matter what you’re hoping for after that strong finish, are not likely to be good, but there is a brighter future ahead than what anyone likely saw at this time last year when there was just so much uncertainty around the team. Yost staying to absorb some of those losses and to help get the initial growing pains out of the way makes a lot of sense for the Royals and shows that Yost has the best interest of his successor in mind. That’s another reason why I believe the manager is in house. It sure seems like Yost cares enough about whoever’s fate. Personally, I think Pedro Grifol is the guy. I know a lot have speculated Dale Sveum and Vance Wilson, and I can’t argue with them, but I’ve heard whispers too often that Grifol is the next man in charge for me to shy away from making that prediction now (and on Twitter a few days ago, I guess I’m pretty transparent). And I think it’d be a good fit as he’s bilingual and mixes the analytics with the scouting extremely well. He seems to have a good relationship with Moore and the team obviously knows him well. Plus, it’s pretty clear the Royals, and maybe Yost specifically, have fought to keep him around even when he lost his job as hitting coach. Take it for what it’s worth. That’s my two cents.
• The sample is small for everything Adalberto Mondesi did in 2018, but the trend is somewhat interesting to me. There’s been some talk on the interwebs about how he’s laying off pitches better than before and all that, and this is just an extension of that. Prior to the break, he hit .250/.270/.444, which showed good power, but not nearly enough in the way of getting on base to show off his wheels. And he had a .306 BABIP, so without diving too deep into the back end numbers, he wasn’t especially unlucky. After walking twice in 74 plate appearances before the break, he walked nine times in 217 after. No, that’s still not good. But going from a 2.7 percent rate to a 4.2 percent rate is noteworthy to me. But even moreso, he began coming on strong on August 25th when he really started playing basically every day, and in his final 30 games, he walked seven times in 135 plate appearances. Nope, still not special, but 5.2 percent is much, much closer to acceptable. He hit .312/.351/.624 in that time with 10 home runs and 16 steals and a .354 BABIP, which honestly isn’t outrageous given his speed. He’s never going to walk a ton, but with his pop and his ability to add extra bases after the fact, he doesn’t need to have a 10 percent walk rate to be a star (though it’d be nice). I think he’s on the right track. I’m curious to see how things go in 2019, especially if he doesn’t get off to a hot start, but he’s one of the most exciting storylines of 2019.
• I’ve thought a lot about how pitching and roles are changing in baseball thanks in large part to the Rays sort of having to go on the fly with their opener strategy. And I know I’ve talked a little bit about how the Royals might go about that. As it stands right now, making the silly assumption of health, the Royals have four guys who will enter the season in the rotation – Danny Duffy, Jakob Junis, Brad Keller and Ian Kennedy – and then have a fifth starter spot that’ll be open for some competition among Jorge Lopez, Heath Fillmyer, Trevor Oaks, Scott Barlow and maybe even a couple other guys like Foster Griffin or Scott Blewett if they’re added to the roster. So the Royals aren’t likely to be too innovative given what they have, but they could really benefit from using the opener for a couple of their pitchers. Junis stands out to me as a guy who would really benefit from getting to start his day with the fifth or sixth place hitter and only face the top four or five twice in a game. His third time through the order penalty isn’t crazy stiff, but his .306/.353/.529 is bad enough that it’s worth him not having to get there. Keller and Duffy didn’t really have any noteworthy third time through the order splits (in fact Keller still held opponents below a .700 OPS the third time), but Ian Kennedy struggled actually the second time through the order last season, and maybe if the hitters getting a second look at him are the 6-7-8 hitters and in the fifth or sixth inning, that would be helpful to him. It seems unlikely like I said, but I could see Richard Lovelady, Jerry Vasto, Tim Hill, Scott Barlow and Jorge Lopez all as guys who could be really good in that opening role. The lefties for their ability to get through a lefty heavy top of the order and the righties as guys who might be better in two or three inning stints. I imagine that time will come for the Royals once Yost leaves, but he’s surprised us before, so you never know.
• Someone mentioned on Twitter that it would be interesting to see what the Royals have actually lost in the Rule 5 draft in response to my article about what the Royals have gained over the years. Not surprisingly, the answer is that they haven’t lost much. Best I can tell, they’ve lost 15 players over the years with 11 of them seeing big league team. Such great names as Aurelio Monteagudo, Dick Colpaert and Ryan Baerlocher adorn the list of those gone to other teams, and the best they’ve lost is probably Victor Santos who went to the Pirates in the 2005 draft, but that was after five years in the big leagues posting a 4.99 ERA in 423 innings. So I guess he wasn’t really the best after the draft, but he was the best overall, I suppose. Rodney Myers was taken in that same draft by the Cubs and he actually put together some big league seasons, so that’s a plus for him. I guess the moral of this story is that the Royals have certainly gotten way more than they’ve given in the Rule 5 draft throughout their history and that’s a pretty good thing.

Before I get to the pitchers, a quick note on the Rule 5 hitters, the Royals have selected. They’ve played nine and only four of them have accumulated 100 or more plate appearances. Jon Nunnally was probably the best with a .244/.357/.472 line and .280 TAv with 2.4 WARP. Tony Solaita was up there too, hitting .268/.361/.406 with a  .288 TAv and 1.5 WARP. He also probably had the best career with Endy Chavez a close second.

But the pitchers are where it’s interesting.

The Royals pitching history in the draft is actually pretty interesting (though maybe only to me) and now that we’ve embarked on the offseason, I wanted to look back at the pitchers they’ve selected, whether they’ve stuck or not and how they fit into categories. I’m just looking at how they did in their Rule 5 season, not their career. I’ll get to a career ranking at the bottom.

The Good (in enough ways)

These are the guys who put up really solid seasons based on ERA really, but all of them also did well on runs allowed. So for most of them, the peripherals didn’t look good, and that caused some short careers, but Brewer did last through 1999 even though he was pretty bad after his second season in the big leagues. Sisco was surprisingly good on the surface in his Rule 5 year, striking out more than a batter per inning and was generally actually pretty good other than the walks. He had an affinity for tacos. Between that and some other factors, this was the best he ever was.

Of all the Royals Rule 5 picks other than Soria, Carrasco is the one who had the best career. His ERA is clearly the highest of anyone on the list and even higher than a couple guys on the list below, but he was above league average in 2003 and had a league average ERA in 2004 for the Royals and was just a few ticks below league average in 2005 when he spent most of his time as a starter. He stuck around for a few more solid seasons before petering out a bit at the end of his career with the Mets, which is a little bit redundant, but that’s okay. He’s probably the second best Rule 5 pitcher the Royals have taken.

The obvious best pitcher here was and might still be Joakim Soria who got himself a big strikeout to help hold off the Cubs and get the Brewers the NL Central just on Monday. It remains to be seen how Keller’s career shakes out, but one thing I find encouraging is that in the second half, he upped his strikeout rate and swinging strike rate while lowering his walk rate and still managing to not allow a ton of homers. The DRA isn’t terribly pretty for Keller, but it improved as the season progressed and makes me hopeful for him.

The Okayish (in some ways)

It drops off pretty quickly, which is sort of what you’d expect for a group of players defined by the fact that they weren’t really wanted. Adcock was sort of okay in 2011 and actually ended up posting a silly good ERA in 2012 (even though the peripherals were garbage). Texeira threw some innings, so there was that. And Asencio is on here because he was so awful early that his ERA was skewed somewhat. The Royals inexplicably gave him a start on May 21^st after he’d spent nine appearances being generally horrible and he posted a 4.63 ERA through the end of the season. Sure he walked more than he struck out, but hey, this is 2002 we’re talking about. He did only allow 12 homers in those last 22 games, so that’s something. That WARP, though, man, I thought about putting him in the next category, but 123.1 innings from a Rule 5 guy of a nearly league average ERA is enough to keep him off the next one.

Woof

The game changing makes a difference here. Wright in 1970 posting a 5.23 ERA was good for an ERA+ of 72 while Asencio’s 5.11 above was good for 97. So that’s why they look relatively close and one is up there and one is down here. He lasted through his age 27 season with the Yankees, but was never especially good. And we know the Smith story. I’m still surprised he ended up here and Keller all the way at the top based on my spring training expectations, but it quickly became apparent that I (and many others) was way too optimistic about him. Could he still have a solid career? Sure. Will he? I’m not betting on it.

If I had to rank them based on their rookie seasons, there are two clear guys at the top, but I’ll go:

1. Soria
2. Keller
3. Carrasco
4. Sisco
5. Brewer
6. Wright
7. Asencio
8. Adcock
9. Texeira
10. Wright
11. Smith

Yeah, Burch is at the bottom of the barrel.

If I’m ranking them by their careers, obviously Smith and Keller are incomplete, but my ranking is:

1. Soria
2. Carrasco
3. Brewer?
4. Wright
5. Adcock?
6. Asencio
7. Sisco
8. Texeira
9. Wright

In all, here’s the line for Royals Rule 5 pitchers throughout their history:

I guess for guys who were basically free roster adds, that’s really not all bad. A couple guys have had decent or better careers and there’s a possibility for that with Keller as well. For a bad team, it’s obviously a great way to add potential talent and if it doesn’t work out, you’re only out the time and a small amount of money. It’s interesting to me that they’ve had so many pitchers outperform their peripherals as rookies. Maybe it’s being put into mostly low leverage situations, but whatever it is, the Royals have gotten a fair amount of in the moment bang for the buck from this draft. Hey, it’s something.

Shohei Ohtani gets the headlines, and if his arm had cooperated this wouldn’t even be a discussion. Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar play in pinstripes, and Torres was an All-Star. Tampa’s Joey Wendle actually leads American League position players in fWAR. Cleveland’s Shane Bieber is tied with Keller in pitching fWAR, and leads him in both FIP (3.34/3.53) and xFIP (3.37/4.18). There are options that have been just as good if not better than Keller.

In my view, the argument for Keller is simple; until Jakob Junis’ recent resurgence, Keller was the only starting pitcher the Royals could trust every five days. Every time out, Keller was going to go deep, limit the innings Ned Yost had to turn it over to a frustratingly inconsistent bullpen and give an anemic offense a legitimate chance to win a ballgame if they could just keep it close, because Keller would do the same. That doesn’t translate very well from a statistics standpoint, even if it is the kind of abstract argument that just got Jack Morris elected to the Hall of Fame.

Ohtani is incredible (and the Royals are the ones who broke him, smh). Torres and Andujar may win a World Series; ditto Bieber, although he’s unlikely to be in the playoff rotation for Terry Francona. Wendle is a huge part of why the Rays are outperforming all expectations. I won’t lie to you and say Keller is objectively better than any of them; it’s just closer than I think people might surmise, is all.

Sunday’s game was a good microcosm of that. Daniel Norris et al. were very good for Detroit! I would not take anything away from them, because aside from one pitch to Adalberto Mondesi from Norris and the 7-8-9 hitters dinking-and-dunking a pair of runs against Drew Ver Hagen, they employed a bend-but-don’t-break approach that largely worked.

Didn’t matter. At all. Because Keller scattered three hits and a run over seven innings and rendered the two biggest hang-ups for the Royals—a worrisome bullpen and inconsistent offense—moot.

Mondesi, the second batter of the game, blasted a home run to put the Good Guys up a run early and then it was Keller Time. The burly righty set down the first nine Tigers in order, getting some help via a barehanded pick and throw by Alcides Escobar to end the second inning and a sliding grab by BERTO deep in the left-center Bermuda Triangle to start the third.

Keller rolled merrily along before running into a hiccup in the fourth inning when Jeimer Candelario and Christin Stewart posted back-to-back singles, with a Nicholas Castellanos sac fly scoring Candelario. But Keller helped his own cause, inducing a Niko Goodrum tapper to the hill to start a 1-6-3 double play to end the frame.

The Royals scratched the deciding runs in the sixth, when Escobar, Rosell Herrera and Cam Gallagher strung together three straight singles. Rosie’s knock moved Escobar to third and he stole second to put two in scoring position, and with two down both were moving on Gallagher’s blooper, which hit the heel of Mikie Mahtook’s glove and bounded away.

Keller’s day ended with a sliding grab by Alex Gordon in the seventh, and Kevin McCarthy held serve in the eighth. Things got a little hairy in the ninth when Wily Peralta gave up a leadoff single to Goodrum, a one-out knock to Ronny Rodriguez and a walk to Grayson Greiner. Victor Reyes lined out to Whit Merrifield in center for a big second out, which nonetheless scored Goodrum. With two down, Peralta was able to strike out Jim Adduci for his heart-stopping 13^th save of the season.

Your Unusually Happy Tweet of the Game

I can’t believe we got Keller as a rule five guy. I’m sure he’ll have his struggles, but the way he got out of that was just beautiful. #Royals #RaisedRoyal

— Bandon Decker (@Bandon_Decker) September 23, 2018

The Bright Spot: Keller. Seven innings, three hits, one earned. Would I like him to strike out more than two batters against an offense as bad as Detroit’s? Sure, but I would like lots of things and that’s not how the world works.

The Nadir: Peralta has a tendency to put a couple guys on just for poops and grins. Not a great quality for a closer.

The Next Step: Monday is a day off, with a two-game set in Cincinnati awaiting Tuesday. Eric Skoglund and Matt Harvey will do battle; this is not the Matt Harvey that once went eight and struck out nine while scattering five hits in Game Five of the World Series against Kansas City in 2015. That guy is gone now. This other dude will throw the first pitch at 5:40 p.m. (CT) at Great American Ball Park.

Tigers Vitals

Royals vs. Tigers

Offense

Pitching

Tigers Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Thursday – 6:10 pm

Boyd is having a nice season, getting a good chunk of strikeouts, showing similar to control to his almost solid 2016 season and limiting hits extremely well. He does a lot of his work with his slider, which has been truly outstanding this year. He’s recorded more than half his strikeouts with it and allowed a .165 average with a .263 SLG. It’s interestingly not quite as lethal against lefties, though still good, but he’s allowed a bit more power to same-siders off it. He’s put together this solid year while being surprisingly not great against runners in scoring position, allowing a .286/.333/.473 in those situations compared to .203/.279/.364 with the bases empty. He’s gone 1-3 with a 4.32 ERA against the Royals this year in four starts with just one home run allowed in 25 innings.

Lopez looks like he’s in line to make this start after leaving his last one with a chest contusion after running into Hunter Dozier. He couldn’t quite follow up his near perfect game, going just 4.1 innings before the injury and allowing three runs on nine hits, but he really fell apart after the pain started, so it’s probably not fair to box score scout. He threw four shutout innings to start, and if he has his curve working against the Tigers, that’s a team that hasn’t seen him before and a really bad lineup, so he has an opportunity to put up a fantastic start if it’s working for him. The one thing I’d like to see is the swinging strikes like he got against Baltimore when he had 14 in 99 pitches. This Tigers team seems like one he could absolutely dominate, so it might be fun.

Friday – 6:10 pm

It sure looked like a bounceback season for Liriano after his sixth start of the year when he shut down a terrible Royals team to bring his ERA down to 2.97, but things haven’t gone quite as well since. In his last 19 games (18 starts), he’s gone 2-9 with a 5.18 ERA in 88.2 innings and struck out 75 while walking a whopping 53. Basically this is who he is now, fast start or not. That said, he’s been decent in September, allowing just four earned runs in 18 innings, though he has allowed five unearned runs, so it’s not all roses for him. He hasn’t been too bad early in the games, giving up a .225/.324/.326 line the first time through the order with a 3.86 ERA in the first three innings. But the second time through is a disaster with an .855 OPS allowed and the third time through is slightly worse at .863. It’s a small sample, but Jorge Bonifacio is 3 for 5 with two doubles and a homer against Liriano. I’m guessing he’ll be in the lineup for this one.

I think most people are ready for Ian Kennedy to just be done, but he’s got two more years under contract and it’s worth mentioning that in his first two starts off the DL, he’s been quite good. He’s gone six in both starts and allowed just two earned runs total while striking out 10 and walking five. The biggest thing for him, though, is no home runs allowed. It’ll be his first start against a team other than the Twins since June 29^th, so maybe this is another real test for him. Kennedy, if healthy, is going to be in the rotation next season, so it’s in the Royals best interest for him to pitch well because that’s better than the alternative.

Saturday – 5:10 pm

Given how bad Zimmermann was last season, this year has to be considered some sort of success even if it hasn’t been that great. Of course, he matches Liriano’s 5.18 ERA in his last 11 starts since the All-Star break. He’s not striking hitters out and he’s giving up tons of long balls with 17 allowed in that time. Lefties have crushed him, which I’d think bodes well for Ryan O’Hearn and Adalberto Mondesi, especially considering he’s not only easy to hit, but he’s around the strike zone a lot. Given that the stuff isn’t especially good anymore, he’s been hit hard on the first pitch with a  .400 average allowed and an .833 SLG. That’s six homers in 61 plate appearances that ended there, which isn’t a great number to have. He’s been fine against the Royals, but he struggled in his last start against them in July, going five innings and giving up four runs on seven hits and two homers.

Junis had been so good for awhile since coming off the disabled list, but the home run ball has returned and he couldn’t get out of the fourth inning in his last start against the Twins. He’s now allowed five homers in his last two starts, and even though one was an eight-inning outing, there’s a little reason for concern. Luckily, Junis has purchased the Tigers from the Ilitch family as he’s gone 4-0 with a 1.74 ERA in four starts against them, going 31 innings, allowing 21 hits and striking out 25 while walking just three. It’s been a pretty impressive display and he’ll get the opportunity to go 5-0 against them in this one.

Sunday – 12:10 pm

It wasn’t supposed to be like this for Norris. He finished so strong as a 23-year old in 2016 that it looked like he was about to really emerge as a solid starter for the Tigers for years to come. Now, his fastball velocity is down to 90-91 after averaging nearly 94 in that 2016 season. He’s been mostly a two-pitch pitcher this year, using that (with some horrible results) and a slider (with some much better results). My guess is that if the velocity doesn’t come back, he won’t either, but the Tigers need bodies, so here he is. He is still striking out a ton of hitters with 40 strikeouts in his 34.2 innings, but he’s been a bit homer prone and just generally not all that good. He did pitch reasonably well his last time out against the Twins and he held the Royals to one run over 4.2 innings back in April, so that’s a couple things to build on for him if he’s looking.

Keller picked up his first career hit and run scored in his last outing, but continued to impress on the mound even though it wasn’t a great start for him. Yes, he gave up four runs on 10 hits in six innings, but he struck out seven and got a ridiculous 19 swinging strikes in 109 pitches. His slider was the king in this one with 11 swings and misses out of 17 swings and 31 total thrown. That slider could be a huge difference maker for him as he tries to stick as a starter into next season and beyond. He hasn’t faced the Tigers as a starter, so it’ll be a test for him, but if his slider is working, the success of Junis against them should bode well for Keller.

Like I said at the top, I think the Royals are better, but they’ve got some road woes still and four-game series are notoriously hard to win, so I’ll go with a split here, but at this point, nothing would surprise me.

I don’t know what Ryan O’Hearn’s big-league career is going to look like, and neither does anyone else. He could blossom into a fringe All-Star or spend most of his 30s in South Korea. I try not to get carried away on the small samples, because once upon a time Jeff Francoeur was on the cover of Sports Illustrated something like 15 games into his career and I bet SI wishes it had a mulligan on that, and I say that as an absolute Jeff Francoeur stan.

Francoeur eventually went from phenom to highly-regarded clubhouse guy and role player, largely because he couldn’t/wouldn’t work the count at all. There’s no shame in that life; Frenchy played 12 years and earned almost $30 million during his big-league career. If you offered that to O’Hearn right now, I imagine he’d say yes. A decade-plus in the bigs and life-altering money is nothing to turn one’s nose up at.

And yet there is a whiff—an ever-so-slight as to be almost imperceptible hint—that O’Hearn could be even better than that. He may not be—again, he’s a big dude who mashes, with an aversion to lefties and defense that’ll probably have him doing a lot of DHing during his life. He may need to brush up on his Korean. But so long as he keeps hitting like this, I’m more than willing to keep giving him the benefit of the doubt.

The Kansas City Royals bullpen is another matter entirely.

The Pittsburgh Pirates hosted the Royals and the two teams matched one another tit-for-tat for much of the night. But as happened a few times (so, so many times that one loses track), the bullpen simply hold up its end of the bargain in a 7-6 walk-off loss to open the series.

Brad Keller was good again. He wasn’t dominant, and he ran into trouble at times, but he managed to scatter 10 hits over six innings, limited the damage to four runs and struck out seven to boot. He pitched well enough to win. You’ll find that doesn’t often matter around here.

A chance for the Royals to do some really early damage—after Alex Gordon was hit by a pitch and Salvador Perez reached via error—was negated when Joe Musgrove induced an O’Hearn ground out to end the first inning, but Kansas City still managed to draw first blood in the third inning. Whit Merrifield led off with a single, moved to second on an Adalberto Mondesi bunt and scored on Alex Gordon’s double. Good ol’ National League baseball at its finest.

That lead lasted approximately seven minutes. Adam Frazier singled with one out, moved to second on a Starling Marte groundout and scored on a Corey Dickerson single. Back to square one we go! The Pirates then took the lead an inning later when Frazier doubled home Kevin Newman and Jacob Stallings after the duo posted back-to-back one-out singles.

The Kansas City offense roared to life in the fifth when Keller singled to lead off the inning. Smelling blood in the water, BERTO, Gordon and Perez followed a Merrifield flyout with three straight singles, with Gordon’s scoring Keller and The Sheriff bringing home BERTO. Then Mrs. O’Hearn’s Baby Boy scored Gordon with a booming double into right; Jorge Bonifacio’s sac fly scored Perez and gave the Royals a 5-3 lead.

Alas.

Keller faced the first two Pirates to start the seventh; that didn’t go well, as both Pablo Reyes and Marte singled. Dickerson was out on a bang-bang play at first that allowed Mondesi to casually show off the cannon attached to his right shoulder (call was upheld on review), but both runners moved up on the high chopper and Josh Bell drove in Reyes with a single.

It looked like fortune was favoring the Royals when O’Hearn led off the eighth against LEFTY Steven Brault and took him out of the park. Leaving aside that it was just O’Hearn’s second hit against a lefty in his Kansas City career, he did it against Brault, no slouch against lefties himself.

Pirates lefty Steven Brault had not allowed a homer to a left-handed hitter in 151 2/3 career innings before Ryan O’Hearn went deep in the eighth. It was O’Hearn’s 11th since debuting July 31st. 6-4, KC

— Rustin Dodd (@rustindodd) September 18, 2018

Things went to crap once more in the eighth. With two outs, Jose Osuna singled on a ball Kevin McCarthy couldn’t handle, moved to second on a wild pitch and then scored when O’Hearn dropped Hunter Dozier’s throw on Reyes’ single. Marte’s triple tied it. You know where this is heading, but let’s see it to its logical conclusion. The Royals ninth yielded nothing. Ben Lively walked Bell but got Jordan Luplow to ground into a 5-4-3 double play. A sliver of hope! Dashed. Kevin Kramer walked. Newman singled to left. So did Stallings and Kramer, off at the crack of the bat, slid in ahead of a throw up the line. Lather, rinse, repeat. Seen this one.

Your Tweet of Despair

You mean Ben Lively didn’t pitch well? No way. #Royals

— Roberto (@RobertElledge89) September 18, 2018

The Bright Spot: O’Hearn and Gordon both got base knocks and both drove in multiple runs.

The Nadir: Three innings, three earned runs is not inspiring bullpenning.

The Next Step: Eric Skoglund gets start No. 2 since returning from the disabled list. His reward is Jameson Taillon, who has a 2.41 ERA in his last 11 starts. I’m sure the Royals will provide adequate run support.

Pirates Vitals

Royals vs. Pirates

Offense

Pitching

Pirates Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Monday – 6:05 pm

Musgrove was a nice acquisition from the Houston Astros, even if it seems like they should have gotten more for Gerrit Cole. He’s a guy who throws strikes and is generally an acceptable member of a big league rotation. This year, he’s really fit the bill as an average starter, which has legitimate value. He isn’t just a control type guy either. He has decent stuff, averaging 94 on his fastball along with a changeup and a slider that have been generally really good this season. Lefties have hit him much better with a .763 OPS and a .167 ISO compared to .615 and .113 respectively against righties. He’s not one to get terribly deep into games, pitching into the seventh in only about half his appearances and past there just one. Still, he’s a solid pitcher and a guy I could see the Royals struggling against.

Keller is starting to get some run as a Rookie of the Year candidate and while I think he’s the fourth best rookie at best this season, it’s nice to see him get the publicity. After another fantastic outing his last time out, he’s posted a 6-2 record with a 2.95 ERA since the break in 10 starts. He’s averaging better than six innings per start, striking out a reasonable number of batters and has even been getting more swings and misses lately, which is the biggest thing plaguing him in his quest to be a starter. I think there’s still reason to be skeptical, but he’s answered the bell all season long, and that’s great to see.

Tuesday – 6:05 pm

Taillon is a great story, having come back from cancer last season and looking like he’s put it together this year to become a very good big league starting pitcher. He gets strikeouts, has good control, limits hits well enough and eats some innings. He’s not an ace, but he’s certainly working his way into becoming a number two. He lives on 96 MPH pitches, throwing his four-seamer about 35 percent of the time and his sinker about 23 percent. His curve and slider are both very good, but his curve is the real strikeout pitch, making up 56 of his 156 strikeouts this season. Like Musgrove, he has a decent left-right split, so the Royals big lefty bats might be able to do some damage against him. The one thing that might make him seem like a candidate for some regression (in the future) is that he’s allowed a .264/.312/.429 line with nobody on, but .189/.269/.266 with runners in scoring position. It’s not that pitchers can’t be better in different situations, but that’s a pretty big gap.

Skoglund gets to make his second start since his long DL stint, and he was actually pretty good in his first one, giving up two runs over five innings. He was limited to just 67 pitches, so I doubt he’ll throw a ton more than that, but the Pirates are a touch worse in the contact department against lefties than righties, so if his curve his working for him, he might be able to turn in a good game. As you all undoubtedly know by this point, I’m a big proponent of swing and miss rates being a good indicator for the future and Skoglund just doesn’t get them. If he’s going to succeed, he’s going to need to, and I just don’t see it for him, but I’m rooting for it to happen.

Wednesday – 6:05 pm

I can’t imagine there’s a bigger “what if” pitcher in all of baseball. The stuff is electric. He strikes out a ton of hitters, he doesn’t walk that many and every indicator about him says he should be an absolute beast. But after a 2015 that was his third straight excellent season, he just hasn’t lived up to the hype. And now this year, he’s been extremely hittable with 145 allowed. I imagine the Pirates acquired him and his unbelievably valuable contract with the idea that they could fix him in a way they’ve fixed other pitchers before him. So far, he hasn’t been good in Pittsburgh, but maybe they can unlock some of what he’s capable of. PNC Park hasn’t been kind to him in his three starts there. He’s allowed a .293/.388/.517 line with just 15 strikeouts and eight walks. And like the previous two starters, he has a bigger issue with lefties than righties. Let’s just say if you play daily fantasy, Ryan O’Hearn might be a guy to stock up on. Of course, I just jinxed him, so move forward at your own peril there.

Fillmyer isn’t my favorite of the Royals young starters, but he’s shown me a lot more than I expected to see when he was called up. He’s gotten double digit swinging strikes in three of his last five starts, which is great to see. When he’s on, his slider is excellent and give him a chance to get through a lineup a couple of times. When he’s not on, well, he’s horrible. It’s those times where he gives up six runs in 2.1 innings and can’t protect a 6-2 lead. I honestly never know what to expect with Fillmyer on any given night, which is fine for a September game in a lost season, but it’s a big reason why I highly doubt he’ll be a key contributor on any good team.

I love the way the Royals are playing, but I just really don’t like the matchups in this series, so I’m going to predict the Pirates win two of three and put the Royals on the brink of 100 losses before they leave town.

White Sox Vitals

Royals vs. White Sox

Offense

Pitching

White Sox Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Monday – 7:15 pm

Things have generally been going a bit better for Giolito, but he’s still inconsistent. Still, since the start of August, he’s gone 3-2 with a 4.66 ERA, which isn’t the real story. The story is that he’s struck out 43 in 38.2 innings, allowed just 30 hits and walked 14. So yes, he’s definitely been better and has flashed some of the promise that made him a top prospect and made him such an important piece in the return for Adam Eaton. As bad as he’s generally been, he’s really handled the Royals since coming to the White Sox. He’s 3-0 in five starts with a 2.01 ERA in 31.1 innings. He’s struck out just 17, so we’ll see if his improvement is for real in this one. My guess is he handles the Royals, but this young team has surprised some.

Junis is on one now and looking like the guy we were so excited about in spring training and earlier this year. With seven two-hit, shutout innings against the Indians (with no walks, I might add), he’s padded his post-DL stats some more now having gone 52.1 innings in nine starts with 49 hits allowed, 53 strikeouts and a 2.75 ERA. The six unearned runs still loom, but even adding those in, he’s still at just a 3.78 RA, which is perfectly acceptable. I’ll say again what I’ve said a few times since his DL stint as well. With just three home runs allowed, it maybe does lend some credence to the idea that his back was a bigger problem than we originally thought. The White Sox haven’t been a good matchup for him. He’s faced them three times this year and gone 1-1 with a 6.48 ERA with six home runs allowed in 16.2 innings against them. Two of those times were in August and weren’t nearly as bad as the first time, but there’s still a bad track record this season.

Tuesday – 7:15 pm

Dylan Covey isn’t very good, which would be a nice pickup for the Royals offense. Of course I say that and Covey has been decent against the Royals this year at times. He throws a hard sinker that can be very good at times, but other times can be a trainwreck pitch. His changeup has been outstanding this season, holding opponents to a .088 average and .158 slugging percentage with 20 strikeouts on it, so that’s one to watch out for. And on a team of somewhat aggressive young hitters, it could be the difference between getting crushed and getting through six for him. Lefties have hit him much better and he’s fared much better at home than on the road. All that, to me, adds up to a potential big night for guys like Ryan O’Hearn, Adalberto Mondesi and maybe even Brian Goodwin.

There’s every chance in the world that this is the best Keller will ever be, but it’s really encouraging to watch him get hitters out in different ways all the time. He’s still not getting enough whiffs, but he’s done much better recently and does have 45 strikeouts in 57 innings since the break. No, that’s not enough, but it plays with all the ground balls he allows. And since the start of August, his swinging strike rate and 19.8 percent strikeout rate will work. I still would like to see some improvement through his last few starts to make me feel better about his prospects moving forward, but the results have just been so strong for a guy in his position. He struck out 14 in 11.1 innings against the White Sox in August, so maybe we’ll see another big strikeout game for him in this one.

Wednesday – 7:15 pm

A number of things have stopped Rodon from putting it all together, but among them are injuries, and now that he’s healthy this season, he’s been mostly very good. Still, it’s hard not to notice his strikeouts are way down, though so are his hits allowed. His slider is still his best pitch, and he’s allowed a .067 average on it with a .112 SLG in 89 at bats that have ended on it. That’s crazy. Of those 89, 50 have ended with a strikeout. Yikes! As good as he’s been this year, he’s probably due for some regression for a few reasons. One, he has been absolutely unreal with runners in scoring position, allowing a .145/.256/.237 line with runners in scoring position. The sample is small since he hasn’t thrown that many innings, but that seems likely to turn around. Another is that I’m not sure his four-seam fastball is as good as the numbers against it have been. He doesn’t get a ton of swings and misses on it, he doesn’t throw it for strikes nearly enough and it’s not an especially elite spin rate pitch or anything. I don’t know. It just seems like that’s a pitch that can get him in trouble and he’s somewhat lucky it hasn’t yet. The Royals have hit him decently in his career with 35 hits against him in 27.2 innings. Of course, they haven’t faced him since 2016, so the sample isn’t exactly current.

I’m not exactly excited about Skoglund’s return to the rotation because I still don’t believe in him, but I was also sort of disappointed when he got hurt because this is the year to evaluate. He posted about what you’d expect for a AAAA pitcher on a rehab assignment, and now it looks like he’ll get three or four starts before the end of the season to both see what he can do and prove he’s healthy heading into 2019. If you’re looking for a reason for hope, Skoglund’s best start came against the White Sox in April when he went seven innings and gave up one run and just two hits while striking out nine. That was the game that his curve was so outstanding, giving hope that maybe he had a plus pitch to work with. Maybe he’ll flash it again in this one.

The Royals are playing much better at home recently, but the White Sox have the Royals number. I’m going to say that the Royals play well this series, but end up winning just one of three and getting a couple steps closer to their fifth 100-loss season in franchise history.