Not that there was much drama to be had anyway. All three: Cheslor Cuthbert, Brian Flynn and Jesse Hahn were projected to make between $1 million and $1.7 million. Once the club decided to tender contracts, the differences at the open of negotiations were always going to be easy to overcome. 

As written in this space last week, the pitchers were obvious candidates for a contract, Cuthbert less so. By keeping the price below a million, the Royals leverage their meagre offseason war chest, so why not keep him around for another go? We already know what he brings to third base, but competition is healthy. At least that’s what I’m telling myself at this point of the winter.

By avoiding arbitration with their three remaining candidates, the Royals now have nine players under contract for the upcoming season at a total commitment of $72 million.

This is relevant because the Royals stated desire is for their Opening Day payroll to land somewhere in the $90 million neighborhood. That means they have around $18 million left in the kitty to divide among 16 players left to fill out the roster. Per the current CBA, we do know the major league minimum salary will be $555,000. 

Let’s just cut the crap and state the obvious: There are going to be a lot of minimum wage earners on next year’s team. 

Of course, that’s by design. It’s been written before and bears repeating that it just doesn’t make sense to throw good money at a bad baseball team. Yes, last year’s Royals team was all about bad baseball, never mind how you felt in September. There’s a decent chance they will improve, but really, it’s difficult to not have that good old dead cat bounce following a 104 loss season. 

Whit Merrifield played for $24,500 over the league minimum last year and bumping his WARP from 2.5 in his sophomore season to 4.3 last year, should get some sort of reward. But let’s not get carried away. It would be decent of the Royals to reward their best player, but there are plenty of internal pressures from within MLB to keep the gift-giving to a minimum in the short term. The system is the system is the system. Maybe he earns around $600,000 next season. 

So those free agent lists that go over 100 deep? If you’re aiming to guess as to who the Royals would bring in to fill out their roster, start in triple-digits and work your way down.

Meanwhile, the Royals chose not to tender four players prior to Friday’s deadline, making all four free agents. All four were expected to sign minor league deals and remain with the team.

The only surprising thing about Bubba Starling these days is when you remember he’s still playing baseball. The Royals added him to the 40-man roster in November of 2015 to keep him protected from that year’s Rule 5 draft. Since then, he’s amassed 800 plate appearances due to injury. It’s just not going to happen for the guy. Keep him around as an organizational guy at this point.

Jason Adam saw a handful of innings in Kansas City last summer and was a nice story as the local kid who makes good. Except he was underwhelming out of the bullpen. In 32 innings, he surrendered 30 hits, nine of which left the yard. His chase rate was average and he was able to miss bats on occasion. It’s just when contact was made, it was generally hard. On a team looking for bullpen help, it’s a bit of a surprise to me they would remove him from the roster, but it makes sense if they’re going to bring him back. Maybe he’s an adjustment or two away from being a cromulent bullpen piece. 

He got a cup of coffee in 2017, but Andres Machado boarded the struggle bus at the opening of last season. After getting raked at Triple-A (9.72 ERA and 16 walks in 25 innings), he was demoted to Double-A. He found his footing there, but was still allowing far too many baserunners. He’s currently getting lit up in the Venezuela Winter League (5.27 ERA and 1.902 WHIP in 13.2 innings).

Perhaps the biggest surprise was the non-tender of Samir Duenez. The Venezuelan repeated Double-A last summer and improved offensively, hitting .282/.357/.463 in 80 games. He’s been in the organization since 2013 and has been on the 40-man since 2016. Just 22 years old last year, he could conceivably attract interest to another team on a minor league deal. But sometimes, you stick with the one who brought you to the dance. Besides, it’s not like he’s ready for the majors and the Royals are doing him wrong. They’re simply removing him from the 40-man where he’s occupying space that could be put to better use.

The moves leave the Royals with 36 on the 40-man, which gives them the flexibility to add a player or two via free agency (yeah, right) or, more likely, through this month’s Rule 5 draft. When you’re struggling to keep your team above the 100 loss level, it’s all a numbers game anyway.

Even amateurs know you use the Friday after the holiday to bury the bad news, so it wasn’t exactly surprising that the Royals chose that day to announce Mike Matheny would be joining the club as a special advisor. Despite protestations from the beats not to read too much into this move (as in, the Royals just brought the successor to Ned Yost into the org), it’s never too early to panic. Dayton Moore is quite predictable when it comes to matters such as this. Anywho, why rehash that unpleasantness when Colby summed everything up quite succinctly. 

The other move the Royals made, one with fewer long-term consequences, they grabbed right-hander Connor Greene from the Cardinals via waivers. In a corresponding move, they designated Burch Smith for assignment. This is what qualifies as action this winter in Kansas City. Bundle up.

Damn if I know what the Royals see in Greene that they need to create a roster space for him at this very moment. I’m no Burch Smith fanboy, but Greene? When he’s standing next to Josh Staumont and you point at Staumont as having better control, that should raise a red flag or six about the newest Royal. Greene opened the 2018 season in the Texas League and posted a 5.9 BB/9 in just under 50 innings. If you’re going to issue walks like that, it would be nice if you could counter with an abundance of whiffs. An 8.0 SO/9 isn’t going to do it.

Still, that work earned Greene a promotion to the Cardinals Triple-A affiliate where he practically flip-flopped his strikeouts (5.9 SO/9) and walks (an astronomical 8.0 BB/9). He’s struggled with control before, but never like this. For good measure, he went to the Arizona Fall League and walked 15 in just under 10 innings. Damn your small sample size. That’s abysmal.

It was enough for the Cardinals to drop him from the 40-man roster ahead of the deadline to set rosters prior to next month’s Rule 5 draft. Greene arrived in the St. Louis organization last year in the deal that sent Randal Grichuk to Toronto. Prior to that trade, Greene was rated as the Blue Jays fifth best prospect by the BP prospect crew.

The good news: He does throw hard.

The velocity stands out, reaching triple digits from an easy delivery, and sitting 94-98 mph throughout his starts. Greene’s fastball is lively with above-average movement in the mid-90s, though it will become true when he reaches back for peak velocity. The changeup is a second strong pitch with arm-speed deception and good fade.

The Royals obviously see something in the delivery they can fix that will yield better control. Note that by using the word “better” the bar is already set extremely low. Another thing that works in Greene’s favor that I’m sure the Royals realize is that he’s been young for the league he’s played in at every stop along the organizational ladder. Not that age matters so much when you can’t find the strike zone, but he probably deserves a chance or three before he rides off to the independent leagues. And the Royals, on a never-ending quest for bullpen help and in a low pressure situation of zero expectations, can afford to give him that chance.

We saw what Smith could do for a full season and it wasn’t impressive. Why not go ahead and switch him out for another live arm. Still, the control issue for Greene is a massive problem and if he can’t fix that, he’s topping out in the bullpen at Triple-A.

The deadline to tender contracts to players eligible for arbitration is Friday evening. The Royals have three players on the roster who can go to arbitration: Cheslor Cuthbert, Brian Flynn and Jesse Hahn. All three are eligible for the first time.

Cuthbert is projected by MLB Trade Rumors to make $1.1 million next year. That’s not going to break the bank, even on a club looking to scrimp and save like the Royals. However, why keep him around at all? He missed most of last summer with an injury and when he was in the lineup, both in Kansas City and Omaha, he didn’t exactly produce. He’s just not an average offensive player, even when healthy. Same could be said about the defense. If he had any kind of versatility, you could possibly entertain an argument to keep him around, but it just doesn’t seem to make enough sense. I’m with Flanagan here; the roster space a non-tender would create is more valuable.

Flynn saw his walk rate increase while his whiff rate tumbled. Not a great combination, but the lefty does keep the ball in the yard for the most part, which limits the potential damage. He gave the Royals 75 innings out of the pen and MLB Trade Rumors figures that’s good for a raise to a cool $1 million. Why not? It gives the Royals a little more certainty in the bullpen. Not that you would necessarily give Flynn key innings on the regular, but you can certainly find a tiny bit of value in an average reliever. 

Hahn pitched just six innings in three minor league stops while rehabbing from an injury. (My god! That’s Kyle Zimmer’s music!) He had surgery to repair his UCL (not Tommy John) in August and is now in the process of another rehab. Trade Rumors projects the biggest raise for the starter, at $1.7 million. That’s quite a chunk of change for a pitcher who is not supposed to be ready until the early part of next year. But it’s a cost the Royals should absorb as they need to find out if Hahn can rebound from his latest injury. The upside is certainly there.

Every move the Royals make should be viewed through the prism of their timetable to contend. The smart money says they’re in rebuild mode at least until 2022, which means neither Flynn or Hahn figure to be around when the next expected wave of talent from The Process 2.0 reaches the majors. That doesn’t disqualify them from getting tendered as the Royals still need to fill their roster for the upcoming sesaon. It’s just that, at these arbitration prices, it’s a bit of business even the Royals can afford.

All numbers come from the insanely awesome Baseball Savant. If you haven’t been there, don’t go there unless you have like seven hours to spare because you’ll get sucked in forever. Darin and the team there does an amazing job.

Exit Velocity

Obviously, exit velocity isn’t the be all, end all, but if you’re hanging out at the top of the list, you’re probably doing pretty well. And if you’re at the bottom, well, not so much. Cuthbert’s average exit velocity is so interesting to me because he hits the ball hard, but just doesn’t have much success there. I’m not quite as worried about Phillips as some might be because he spent the last month hitting with a bum shoulder, which I can’t figure out why he was playing in the first place.

Hard Hit %

The list isn’t that different than the average exit velocity list, but it does explain Cuthbert a little more. Yeah, his average is high, but he isn’t hitting nearly as many at 95 MPH or harder. O’Hearn’s assault on the ball is pretty clear in both these metrics, so it’ll be fun to see if he can keep that up.

Barrel %

This list is fun too because it shows the guys who square up the ball the best. How in the hell did Hunter Dozier struggle so much this year? I mean I know he swung and missed too much, but he carried a .296 BABIP and that’s with hitting the ball hard a lot, squaring it up a lot and running pretty well (see below). I don’t get it.

Launch Angle

It’s not always good to have a high launch angle, but the guys who sit in the middle are usually pretty successful. A line drive is typically about 10-25° while a ground ball is below 10° and a fly ball is between 25 and 50°. A popup is above 50°. Obviously, the average launch angle doesn’t mean that most of these guys are averaging a line drive, so this doesn’t tell us a ton, but it’s another metric that we might as well look at while we’re here.

Whiff %

The Royals did some swinging and missing and if you look at the top of the leaderboard, quite a few will be on the club next season and should play big roles. The Royals want to get back to a contact-oriented team, but it looks like we’ll be seeing some swinging and missing instead.

Sprint Speed

The Royals can run a little bit now. Yes, they still have Salvador Perez and Alex Gordon as anchors at the bottom, but adding Adalberto Mondesi and Brett Phillips to Whit Merrifield and somehow Hunter Dozier and Jorge Soler has made this team a pretty fast and fun to watch team. They had eight players who ranked in the top fourth of the league. That seems pretty good to me.

We’ll take a look at how the pitchers ranked in the Statcast numbers later this week (hint, it’s ugly, don’t eat before reading). But for now, we can look at a Royals team that has a shot to at least be fun offensively in 2019, if not downright almost above average. If you want to dream a little, they did hit .255/.313/.425 from August 1 on and scored 4.5 runs per game while pacing for 182 homers over 162 games. That’s, well, not bad. Get pumped.

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!

With the first year of a rebuild in the books, and contention seemingly far in the future, it’s not a surprise the Royals list is thin and relatively uninspiring. All told, they have six arbitration eligible players on their roster. Odds are strong the club will non-tender most of this list.

The Royals have close to $67 million committed to five players for 2019, but are reportedly dicing payroll into the $85 to $90 million territory. That means every dollar counts. 

Brandon Maurer
2017 Salary – $2,950,000
2018 Estimate – $3,100,000

Maurer’s claim to fame is last winter he became the first player on Dayton Moore’s watch to go all the way to the arbitration hearing. He lost. Still, he pocketed a cool sum of cash in a season he provided an 8.9 K/9, a 7.2 BB/9 and a 2.0 HR/9 while posting a -0.5 WARP. Really, pick your metric. He stunk up any ballpark where he took to the mound.

He’s eligible for arbitration for the second time and is coming off the worst season of his career. In his best seasons, he’s a decent reliever. Averagish, if we can coin a term. In other words, he’s the kind of guy you sign in February as you’re in the final stages of piecing together a bullpen for a million or two and hope he can keep you in the game in the sixth inning. He’s not someone a rebuilding team needs to tender a contract to.

The guess here is he’s non-tendered and picked up by a mid-level team early in spring training.

Wily Peralta
2017 Salary – $1,500,000
2018 Estimate – $2,800,000

There’s always one. Peralta’s contract makes this an interesting conversation. He signed last year to a one year deal with a club option for $3 million with a low $25,000 buyout. Peralta entered last season with just under five years of service time which means the Royals could decline the option, pay the buyout and proceed through the arbitration process. In other words, could Peralta get more than the $3 million coming to him by entering arbitration?

MLB Trade Rumors takes the under. It’s not under by much, so is it worth it for the Royals to decline the option for a potential savings of around $200,000? Obviously, these are estimates so there’s no guarantee that Peralta would get the above amount. By the rate stats, Peralta wasn’t much better than Maurer: a 9.2 K/9, a 6.0 BB/9 and a 1.0 HR/9 along with a -0.5 WARP. But he saved 14 games for a team that lost 104 after spending almost half the season in the minors. Don’t forget in the arbitration process, counting stats like saves tip the scales rather disproportionately. He never blew a save, but pitched a clean inning in just four of his 14 opportunities.

The Royals of the Allard Baird era probably would’ve non-tendered Peralta to save money. The Moore era is decidedly different where the team generally does the right thing. We can debate whether or not bringing Peralta back at that amount is a good move, but there’s a very small chance the Royals will go this route to save a few dollars. They will pick up his option for 2019 at $3 million.

Jesse Hahn
2017 Salary – $574,000
2018 Estimate – $1,700,000

That’s quite a bump for a pitcher who threw only six innings in the minors last year. Hahn had surgery to repair his UCL sometime around early August with a timetable for his return estimated at around six months. If everything goes according to plan, he should be ready to go at the start of spring training. 

The Royals don’t have the luxury to wait to later in the rehab process to see how things are going. But health has always been a concern and he’s coming off unproven surgery for his injury. Plus, the most innings he’s ever thrown in a season is 115, back in 2014. He seems a candidate for a non-tender where the Royals negotiate a smaller contract with some incentives he could reach if healthy.

Nathan Karns
2017 Salary – $1,375,000
2018 Estimate – $1,375,000

All even for Karns who, like Hahn, had his season entirely short-circuited by injury. He had thoracic outlet surgery in July off 2017 and, after making a few appearances early in spring training, missed all of last year with an elbow injury. 

His stuff is tantalizing and his injury history is depressing. He’s another non-tender candidate who the Royals could bring back on a smaller deal as Karns needs to prove he’s healthy enough to get back on the field.

Cheslor Cuthbert
2017 Salary – $573,500
2018 Estimate – $1,100,000

We won’t blame you if you forgot about Cuthbert. He’s missed time over the last couple of seasons with foot, wrist and back issues. And when he’s been in the lineup… Ugh. Let’s just be kind to the infirm and say .215/.278/.313 over the last couple of seasons (and .252/.303/.378 in 830 career plate appearances) doesn’t get the job done. 

But the third base spot is up for grabs. Hunter Dozier didn’t play well enough to earn it for next year and there’s no one ready in the wings. The Royals could throw some money at Cuthbert and let him and Dozier battle it out. Plus, this estimate feels high given his injury history and lack of production. But when the estimate is already that low, we’re just quibbling over a couple thousand of dollars.

Brian Flynn
2017 Salary – $573,500
2018 Estimate – $1,000,000

Flynn is young, left-handed and has had decent success in the two seasons where he saw extended action out of the bullpen. At this price, he’s worth it to keep around for the bullpen depth. With a 5.6 K/9, a 4.2 BB/9 and 0.6 HR/9 last summer, he was the kind of reliever who you don’t necessarily want to give valuable innings to, but there’s still a place in a bullpen for someone like Flynn. 

The guess here is the Royals will tender him a contract for 2019.

Assuming the Royals tender Flynn and exercise the option on Peralta, that would push the 2019 payroll to around $71 million for seven players. If we’re to believe the Royals are serious about bringing payroll down to under $90 million, that leaves at most $19 million for the remaining 18 players. It’s certainly doable, but that just sets up the offseason to be one of the most boring winters in recent memory. 

BPKC Hitter of the Day: Sebastian Rivero 3-3 4R, 2b, HR, 4 RBI, 2 BB

BPKC Pitcher of the Day: Jake Kalish 7 IP 7 H 0 R 0 ER 1 BB 4 K 6-8 GO-FO 99p/67k

Royals 1st Round Pick RHP Jackson Kowar signed for $2,147,500.

Lexington Legends 18 Asheville Tourists 10

31 hits, 9 walks, 8 home runs and 28 runs for the two teams combined in this one as the Legends outslugged the Rockies Low-A affiliate. Three Legends hitters combined for 10 of the team’s 15 hits with Brewer Hicklen, Sebastian Rivero and Cal Jones pacing the offense with three home runs between them, eight runs scored and eleven RBIs. None of the eight pitchers between the two squads tossed a scoreless outing while each team went scoreless in two individual innings. Lexington’s fifth, sixth and eighth innings featured four runs apiece as they created too large of a gap to be overcome in the win.

Seuly Matias: 0-4 2R, 3K
Nick Pratto: 2-5 2R, BB, 2K
Brewer Hicklen: 4-6 2R, 2b, HR, 4 RBI, 2 SB

Winston-Salem Dash 5 Wilmington Blue Rocks 2

The Rocks piled up 10 hits and three walks, both of which were more than the Dash could put together. Unfortunately, not one hit went for extra bases and Wilmington’s 2 for 14 effort with runner’s in scoring position was outdone by a pair of home runs, a double and a couple of Wilmington errors that accounted for two unearned runs in the loss. Starter Ofreidy Gomez took the tough-luck loss despite giving up just one earned run (3 R) after a pair of unearned runs scored in the fourth on a throwing error by Travis Jones. The Rocks missed out on multiple scoring chances over the final five innings in the loss.

Rudy Martin: 2-3 RBI, HBP
Meibrys Viloria: 2-3 RBI, BB
Ofreidy Gomez: 6 IP 3 H 3 R 1 ER 1 BB 5 K HR

Corpus Christi Hooks 7 NW Arkansas Naturals 2

After starter Scott Blewett pitched six and one-third innings with just a run allowed, the Naturals bullpen gave things up. Reliever Franco Terrero after tossing a scoreless final two outs in the seventh and a scoreless eighth struggled in an attempt to close out the ninth, giving up a leadoff double and a single sandwiched around an error by third baseman Kelvin Gutierrez. The Naturals would turn to Bryan Brickhouse, but after the right-hander got one out, the inning got out of hand with him giving up a single and back to back home runs to Yordan Alvarez and Lorenzo Quintana to hand the Naturals in a 7-2 loss.

Khalil Lee: 2-5 CS, 2K
Jecksson Flores: 3-4 2R, 2-2b
Scott Blewett: 6.1 IP 6 H 1 R 1 ER 2 BB 4 K 8-2 GO-FO 85p/55k

Game 1 Omaha Storm Chasers 7 Nashville Sounds 0
Game 2 Omaha Storm Chasers 6 Nashville Sounds 3

A day after the bullpen was forced into plenty of action after a starting pitcher injury the Chasers got exactly what they needed from Jake Kalish with the lefty spinning seven shutout innings to save the bullpen. The Chasers offense rewarded him with seven runs including a pair of home runs from Cheslor Cuthbert and Nicky Lopez that accounted for five of the team’s runs.

The second game was more of the same for the Chasers with the offense knocking out 10 hits including home runs from Ryan O’Hearn and Humberto Arteaga in this one. Four singles in the first inning helped to three Omaha runs with O’Hearn driving in Donnie Dewees with a single. In the fifth O’Hearn connected on his 11th home run to start the inning before Arteaga expanded the lead to 6-0 with a two-run job. After Eric Stout tossed three and two-thirds innings scoreless the Sounds got three runs off Michael Mariot and Jake Newberry to trim the lead in half but Newberry got the final outs to secure the win.

Nicky Lopez: 3-7 2R, HR, 2 RBI, BB
Cheslor Cuthber: 2-3 HR, 3 RBI
Ryan O’Hearn: 2-6 2R, HR, 2 RBI

Bluefield Blue Jays 6 Burlington Royals 2

The Royals ruined a nice start to their game with pitcher Austin Cox twirling beautiful baseball over his three and two-thirds innings. The lefty put away nine hitters via strikeout in that time with two walks and one hit allowed. When he left the Royals had a 2-0 lead thanks to Juan Carlos Negret’s second home run of the season. Left-hander Marlin Willis couldn’t match the effort though with six hits and six runs allowed from the fifth through seventh innings, more than enough to put away the good guys as the Royals went scoreless the after the home run.

Austin Cox: 3.2 IP 1 H 0 R 0 ER 2 BB 9 K 2-0 GO-FO 62p/36k
Marlin Willis: 2.2 IP 6 H 6 R 6 ER 2 BB 3 K
Juan Carlos Negret: 1-3 HR 2 RBI

Monday Boxscores

Tuesday Probables
Omaha – Glenn Sparkman 7-2 3.44 ERA 1.23 WHIP
NW Arkansas – Foster Griffin 3-9 6.38 ERA 1.65 WHIP
Wilmington – Gerson Garabito 3-6 4.05 ERA 1.45 WHIP
Lexington – Yefri Del Rosario 0-3 8.44 ERA 1.94 WHIP
Idaho Falls – J.C. Cloney 3-0 1.35 ERA 0.75 WHIP
Burlington – Elvis Luciano 0-2 4.15 ERA 1.27 WHIP

With the draft coming up this week, we’ll begin to see that happen as the Royals have the highest pool allotment and four of the first 40 picks. I believe the performance of many of the Royals top prospects have probably helped their standing in prospect rankings. Guys like MJ Melendez and Seuly Matias starting off so strong, along with solid seasons from Khalil Lee, Nicky Lopez and others, looks good for the organization. It’s still a long process, though. And even with that, there are three other areas that the 2018 season can be judged at the big league level, so I wanted to take a look at the progress of those three areas:

Finding Out

While nobody would argue that the Royals have enough impact talent in the upper levels of the organization to compete quickly, they do have some pieces that could be useful parts of the next good Royals team. This season was important to determine if they can cut it in the big leagues long-term or if they’re just placeholders for when the big prospects make their debuts over the next few years. It was important to see if Jorge Soler and Jorge Bonifacio were long-term pieces, along with guys like Cheslor Cuthbert and Hunter Dozier and maybe even Ramon Torres.

The Verdict:

So far, the reviews are mixed on both the players and the Royals ability to learn anything. Soler has played every day and has done quite well, though he’s in the midst of a slump right now. He looks like a part of the next good Royals team whether he’s in the lineup or part of a trade to acquire more talent. Cuthbert has played regularly and struggled mightily and is now on the disabled list. I imagine he’s facing his last days as a Royal soon, and part of that is that I believe the Royals have been impressed with what they’ve seen from Hunter Dozier. Even though the power has been lacking, he’s had good at bats and hit the ball very hard while looking good at first base.

Obviously they haven’t yet had the opportunity to see a sophomore season from Bonifacio because of his suspension, but his time is coming with the Royals scheduled to play their 81st game on June 29th in Seattle. And with Ramon Torres, they chose to enter the season with Ryan Goins on the roster. I assume this is because Dayton Moore was tired of people making fun of Chris Getz, so he wanted to show everyone what a truly awful baseball player could do, but I can’t be certain. Even so, those two along with Dozier need to be front and center for the Royals for at least a few weeks to give the Royals an idea of what they can expect moving forward.

Building Value

When the Royals signed the veteran trio of Lucas Duda, Jon Jay and Mike Moustakas, the general consensus was that they were doing so to make the team more watchable in the short term and to find some trade chips in the slightly longer term. They also signed a couple veteran relievers that I’m sure they hoped they could flip at the deadline for non-zero prospects in Blaine Boyer and Justin Grimm. In addition to them, the Royals already had Kelvin Herrera, Danny Duffy, Jason Hammel, Whit Merrifield and maybe even Ian Kennedy as players the Royals could try to move at the deadline.

The Verdict:

Moose has been fantastic this year, and provided there are needs at third base, figures to be a somewhat coveted bat. The issue is that there are a lot of the same problems plaguing his trade value that plagued his free agency given that there isn’t a huge need out there. Still, the season he’s having and the attitude he’s shown have been big pluses for him. Duda was starting to come around before getting hurt, but he has the same issues as Moose as far as need with the added issue of more trade chips around the league at first. But that’s nothing the Royals weren’t expecting. With Jay, he’s been quietly much better than I want to give him credit for, though he still has an empty batting average and even a slightly empty OBP due to his lack of speed and ability to take extra bases. Merrifield has turned in another really solid start to his season. If the Royals are willing to deal, there’ll definitely be takers for him.

On the pitching side, only Herrera has done the Royals any favors this year. I imagine he’ll bring back the best return at the deadline of any player the Royals deal, simply because of the need for lock down relievers. Like I’ve mentioned before, he has the added bonus of having done it before in the postseason and having done it well. We all know the stories about Duffy and Hammel and Kennedy was a long shot to be dealt anyway. He’d have had to pitch like a legitimate number two just for a team to consider taking on his contract and, while he’s been good at times, he hasn’t been nearly good enough. And then there’s the relievers, but you know that story.

Keeping Things Interesting

As I said above, signing some veterans to the roster was designed to make the team more watchable and interesting. Adding some pieces to the offense would help the team score some runs while the bullpen looked like it’d be in a big time transition early in the year while waiting on guys like Richard Lovelady, Josh Staumont and others to progress. If the team could plate a few more and keep a few more off the board in the late innings, maybe they could be decent enough to keep the team competitive in games and interesting.

The Verdict:

Nah. This team is 3-13 in games decided by five or more runs, allowing 136 of the 301 runs allowed on the season in those 16 games (127 of the runs in the 13 losses). The offense has been better than it likely would have been with Jay getting on base and Moose hitting home runs, as well as a bit of a breakout from Soler. The pitching has been a disaster and the veteran bullpen arms have been a huge part of the problem. So no, this team is decidedly not entertaining or especially watchable, though they have been better of late, so that’s something.

Overall, the Royals have gotten a decent start on their 2018 “to do” list, but plenty of work remains. They need to get Richard Lovelady, Josh Staumont and others up to the big leagues. They need to find out what they have in Trevor Oaks. They need to see what Adalberto Mondesi can show in the big leagues. They need to stop giving time to useless veterans like Goins and Boyer. They now have 107 games left to do that this season (and let’s be real, next season is more of the same). If they can get through this year and have an idea on most of these guys, along with getting some value back for their current veterans, this year’ll be a success even if they don’t win another game.

But what if I told you it didn’t have to be that way? In fact, what if I told you the Royals were (gasp) underachieving?

Actually, you’d probably believe that.

But what if it could be true?

If you’ve made it to this site, you (I hope) have a pretty good understanding of semi-advanced analytics, which means you don’t need my awkward attempts at sounding like I know what I’m doing. So let’s dive in with some super-fun stats that may offer you a glimmer of hope in this abysmal season.

(Note: I’m an equal-opportunity employer. I’ll use some stats from Baseball Prospectus, Baseball Savant and FanGraphs. Variety is the spice of life, after all.)

xwOBA

I could try (and fail) to give you the clinical definition of expected weighted On-Base Average, but the definition is like 250 words long and reads like a rogue SAT question. Call it quality and amount of contact plus walks and strikeouts, which is what I pulled from Baseball Savant.

What has this to do with the Royals? Well, at present the MLB average wOBA is .312 and the expected wOBA is .334, a -.022 difference. Well, guess who has the most players in baseball (minimum 50 plate appearances) with a wOBA/xwOBA difference larger than that -.022 difference?

It’s the Royals, stupid (and also the Blue Jays and Phillies, but you can do your own legwork on why they’re not very good at the moment).

Only Jorge Soler (.416 wOBA/.382 xWOBA) is outperforming expectations, but some of those underperforming are doing so quite spectacularly. Lucas Duda is -.060 (.314/.374). For all the good Mike Moustakas has done, his differential is -.049 (.362/.411). Alcides Escobar, Cheslor Cuthbert and Drew Butera are all underperforming by more than 40 points.

Will the difference be substantial, should these guys start tracking closer to the mean? Dear reader, they will not. Even if Butera, Cuthbert and Escobar get closer to the -.022 mark, they’ll still be below league-average in wOBA. So will Abraham Almonte. Only Moustakas and Soler have an xwOBA at .380 or above; while not out of the ordinary, no other teams are fielding so many Quad-A players on the regular.

Hard-Hit Ball Rate (short interlude)

You will not be stunned to learn that the Royals are one of 15 teams across baseball who do not employ a player who have hit at least half their batted balls 95 mph or harder (min. 50 batted ball events).

You’ll similarly be unsurprised to learn that the Royals are one of seven teams with three or more batters hitting less than 30 percent of their balls 95 mph or harder.

Of those seven, the Royals are one of four—the Rays, the Astros and the Twins—with fitting into both slivers of this particular Venn diagram. The Royals are hitting softly almost across the board. Jon Jay is a starter for this outfit and has made solid contact on less than one percent of the pitches he’s seen.

(Silver lining: Overall, FanGraphs has the Royals hard-hit ball rate pegged at 36.5 percent, which is a very solid ninth in the league. The downside there is that 20.7 percent line drive rate is but 17^th.)

You probably knew all this. But this is one of those nice stats that confirms what we already believe.

Chasing Balls and losing the strike zone

You look at the top of the leaderboard for lowest swing rate on balls outside the zone, you find the usual suspects—Joe Mauer, Joey Votto, Mike Trout, Alex Blandino (hey, you fish for tuna, sometimes you catch an old boot). There are no Royals on the top-30 of this list, although there are plenty of old faces—Jarrod Dyson, Lorenzo Cain, Ben Zobrist—and a few more quality Alex Gordon at-bats may put him up there.

What was more surprising is that both Salvador Perez (47.3 percent) and Mike Moustakas (39.0 percent) were bottom-30 chasers. Both are well-known for their aggression at the plate. Both have done a good job this season as the linchpins in a lineup lacking consistency. Both could stand to quit chasing outside the zone so often.

This represents a larger problem within the Royals ethos: they don’t walk. I don’t know if this is a philosophy problem or poor command of the strike zone, but at 7.7 percent, they walk less than all but the Red Sox (who hit) and the Tigers (who suck). The swinging strike percentage, while not as bad (10.2 percent) is still in the bottom-half of the league.

On the one hand, you check out someone like Moustakas and you can see an area for improvement—low and/or away is the spot to get him to chase, which you can see from below…

… while someone like Cheslor Cuthbert is more of an equal-opportunity chaser.

Conclusion

Sports can be frustrating. Sometimes you spend day after day following a team and they are more up and down than a depressed cocaine addict. I’d argue that the teams that lose 3-2 and win 10-3 drive fanbases crazier than whatever the Royals keep doing (i.e. losing all the time and being largely bad while doing so).

The good news: like as not, only Perez, Gordon and Soler are locks to be on the roster by next season. That’s beauty of a rebuild (which is what this is, regardless of how terrified the whole franchise seems to be of uttering those words, even when they’re barely winning a third of their games and the stadium is 40 percent full): whatever dumb things are dissatisfying to you currently, chances are pretty good some other worse, stupider thing will be the problem soon.

(I’ve been told my articles are not for those suffering from clinical depression. There’s probably something to that.)

• The nice thing is that this team has had some really nice bright spots in the early going, and some of them are actually important for the future. The obvious is Jake Junis and I’ll get to him in a minute, but another pitcher who has looked outstanding is Brad Keller. I’ve said this before, but when spring training started, I figured Keller would be a guy the Royals would need to swing a deal to keep. Now he might be one of their two or three best relievers. He’s only struck out one hitter in five innings, but he’s already been used in some big situations early and hasn’t walked anyone unintentionally while allowing just two hits. The double play he induced in Wednesday’s game was a key moment that would have seemed even bigger after the game had Justin Grimm not hung a curve to Kyle Seager in the eighth. Keller doesn’t turn 23 until the end of July, and I think he might have a nice future ahead of him. I’m not completely sold on him starting, given his last two minor league seasons as a starter, but that stuff plays in the bullpen. I don’t think he’s a future closer or anything (though I’ve been wrong before), but a 93-96 MPH fastball along with a really effective slider can be a nice weapon in the bullpen. People liked Kevin McCarthy because he was able to get some ground balls, but I think Keller is just a much better version of that, and that’s valuable.
• Jorge Bonifacio’s suspension was a real killer for this offense given the role he was expected to play, but the amount of time he’ll be out will give the Royals a really nice opportunity for some evaluation. The person I’m thinking of here is Cheslor Cuthbert specifically, who looked like he might be without a role when Mike Moustakas was signed and then found one when Bonifacio was given his vacation. The Royals really like Cuthbert, though that may have waned a bit from a few years ago. Still, they think he has a big chance to be a part of the future. That said, on the heels of a .231/.275/.322 season, he needs to make good on the potential the Royals once saw in him. And he has that opportunity now, which I think is meaningful because when Bonifacio comes back, the logjam will return as well. A lot think it’s a foregone conclusion that Moustakas will be shopped at the deadline, and while that seems likely, another conclusion could emerge. If Cuthbert doesn’t show enough to convince the Royals that he belongs, I think there’s a chance they take a different approach and cut bait with him and look to sign Moustakas to an extension. Yes, Hunter Dozier is still in the system, but other than him, there isn’t a potential third baseman especially close to the big leagues. Cuthbert has looked good to me in spring and at times in the early part of the season, so this isn’t a prediction, but if he does struggle, I do think that’s a direction the Royals could go.
• Okay, I waited as long as I could, and I don’t have anything especially groundbreaking to say about Jake Junis, but wow. As good as he looked at the end of the year and as well as he pitched in spring training, his first two starts have been even better than I think anyone could have imagined. Two scoreless starts spanning seven innings each is pretty impressive. It’s not that the Tigers are especially good, but the Mariners offense isn’t bad. Personally I’m interested to see what he does in some better weather, but it looks like he’ll be pitching in the cold again tomorrow, so we’ll have to wait a little longer to find out and then he’ll get the Tigers again, so maybe he can start on a crazy roll for his first four starts and let him carry that through his season. According to Brooks Baseball, he’s been throwing his sinker a lot more so far this season, and in a small sample, his ground ball numbers have gone up by four percent, which isn’t nothing. He’s also thrown first pitch strikes to two out of every three batters he’s faced. That’s not a bad way to live given how good his stuff is when he’s on. He hasn’t struck a ton of guys out, so that’s worth keeping an eye on, but he’s lived up to the billing and then some.
• When Nate Karns was placed on the disabled list prior to Opening Day, it really put a dent in one of the ways the Royals could have found their way to respectability this season. I mentioned before the year that if you could tell me that Danny Duffy, Karns and Junis would combine for 85 to 90 starts, I’d tell you that the Royals had a shot to maybe potentially be within shouting distance of .500. Well we know that’s not happening, and I don’t think anyone can actually believe Eric Skoglund is the answer. The answer that I think we’ll see sooner than later is Clay Buchholz, but I’m honestly not sure how to feel about it. On one hand, does it really matter? On the other hand, Clay Buchholz? The positive of it is that he actually has been pretty okay in relatively recent history. The downside is that he’s also been plenty bad in recent history. Either way, the starting pitching has been a bright spot, but that fifth spot looks like it’ll be a revolving door for awhile.

Fundamentally, the Kansas City Royals were no different offensively in game two of their series against the Detroit Tigers than they were in Monday’s matinee. The offense sputtered, and that’s probably an insult to sputtering offenses. They eked out a meager run against noted human being Matthew Boyd and it felt like a Herculean effort just getting that. Bad. The offense is bad. Very bad. Don’t like.

Ahh, but where Monday featured Jason Hammel and whatever it is he’s trying to do out there, Tuesday was all about Jake Junis, who is good and young and everything Hammel is not. Including successful, as he picked up the win in a 1-0 decision at Comerica Park.

Junis was everything on Tuesday. He scattered three hits, allowed no runs, walked one and struck out six. He worked around a first-and-third with two outs situation in the third inning but aside from that was never really challenged. He retired 12 straight at one point. And he did all this on 87 pitches, as economic a showing as you’re really gonna find.

He got a little help, of course. After Nick Castellanos reached via Mike Moustakas error in the fourth, Whit Merrifield did this to get out of the inning and alleviate all chances of a threat being mounted.

@WhitMerrifield! WHAT A DOUBLE PLAY! #RaisedRoyal #Royals pic.twitter.com/IVMga3JuVl

— Jun-hong Kim (@corby4542) April 3, 2018

Whitley David Merrifield is a treasure.

And look, it’s April 3 and the bullpen is going to be a tire fire at times, but today things held up okay. Justin Grimm handled the eighth with aplomb, entering after Junis was pulled following a Mikie Mahtook single and mowing down Jose Iglesias (flyout), Dixon Machado (groundout) and Leonys Martin (flyout) on six pitches.

In the ninth, Kelvin Herrera came in and threw smoke for the second day in a row, consistently sitting at 95-96 mph as he locked up the Royals first win and his season’s first save. Whether he finishes out the season in KC or if he’s merely biding his time before a contender swoops in to get him for the stretch run remains to be seen, but these kinds of performances boost his stock and raise his profile; Justin Grimm is Justin Grimm, but if Kelvin Herrera is firing on all cylinders in July, somebody is going to make a Godfather offer and Dayton Moore would do well to listen.

The day’s lone run was manufactured in the second inning. Clean-up hitter (!!!!!) Cheslor Cuthbert roped (ahahahaha, it was the bloop to end all bloops) a double over the head of an impossibly slow-moving Miguel Cabrera at first, scooted over to third on a Paulo Orlando lineout and then scored on a Jorge Soler sacrifice flyikghoikghoikghoikghoikghoikghoikghoikghoikghoikghoikghoikghoikghoikghoikghoikghoikghoikghoik (Sorry … I briefly lost consciousness and fell asleep on my keyboard.) Fortunately, there are no style points for wins and the Royals can safely put any fears of overtaking the 1988 Baltimore Orioles for longest losing streak to begin a season to bed.

Bright Spots: Aside from the pitching, Cuthbert is hitting .400 after a 1-for-4 day at the plate. He looks … competent. The offense continues to put the bat on the ball (just three total strikeouts), although I’d feel a lot better if they were to do it against a real-life pitcher and not against Boyd, Francisco Liriano and whatever else passes for pitching in Detroit.

The Nadir: Tough to gripe about a 1-0 win. Although the crowd shots of a lifeless Comerica in which it looked like everyone in the stands had been kidnapped and forced to be there at gun point were pretty grim. And hey, a 1-0 game in 40 degree weather is probably a tough watch in person. A bracing shot of whiskey for all in attendance would’ve livened things up considerably.

The Next Step: The Duffman returneth for his season’s second start; Danny Duffy hopes to shake off a difficult Opening Day stint against Chicago as he closes out the series against Daniel Norris aka Van Man, who will make his season’s first trip out to the hill.