• I think I may have talked about this before, but it’s probably worth going over again. There are a few guys the Royals have who will be out of options in 2019 that might things a little complicated. Cheslor Cuthbert is the most obvious because he’s been out of them for two years and stuck on a roster where he really doesn’t fit, but there are others joining him now. Paulo Orlando cannot be sent down again, which makes him a prime DFA candidate (along with his poor play obviously). Rosell Herrera is also out of options, so he might struggle to last the year, especially once Nicky Lopez is brought up. Two others who are interesting are Ramon Torres and Bubba Starling. Given the makeup of the likely 2019 roster, I actually think Torres makes more sense than Herrera, but the Royals love the infield/outfield versatility Herrera brings. Starling, to me, should be the first guy DFAed. I don’t care where he was drafted, where he was born or who he rooted for growing up. That time has passed for him. On the mound, it’s less cumbersome as Brian Flynn and Jorge Lopez are the only pitchers of note out of options. Flynn, to me, is a solid but easily replaced reliever (of course last year’s bullpen might say otherwise on the easily replaced part), but Lopez’s options mean he has a big league role somewhere in 2019. My guess is he opens as the fifth starter but ends the year in the year in the bullpen. If you’re looking ahead to 2020, Samir Duenez will be out of options and with Ryan O’Hearn’s emergence, he might be a candidate to be removed at some point in 2019.
• The Wily Peralta deal makes a lot of sense to me even if you don’t believe he can repeat what he did last year (and I don’t). They were bringing him back no matter what because he was one of the few relievers last season who didn’t turn everything he touched into garbage. So instead of paying him $3 million in 2019, they cut that salary by $750,000 and for his troubles added an extra quarter million to what he would have taken home by giving him a $1 million option buyout. The great thing about that contract is that it doesn’t stop them from doing anything else and if he’s good, they can move him, but if he’s bad, they can move on from him very easily. With all those walks, my guess is that bad is the bet here, but it’s nice to have a guy who at least had some success. Plus, Dayton Moore hadn’t given out a contract with a mutual option in a minute, so he had a chance to scratch that itch. Everybody wins.
• I’ve spent a lot of time talking about bargain-type relievers who the Royals could look to in order to shore up their bullpen. And while I think that’s the direction they’ll go, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a few starters who could fill the role of the final starter in the rotation. What that would do is push all the candidates for that spot to the bullpen to help that unit out. I’ve talked a lot about my thoughts on Jorge Lopez and how I think he’s ultimately a reliever, but Heath Fillmyer fits well there as well with how good his slider was in the big leagues. No, the Royals aren’t going to be in on Patrick Corbin or anything (though they did talk about him in a trade a couple years ago), but a look at the bottom of the barrel of free agent starters could lead them to a veteran on a small enough deal that you figure why not. Some options are James Shields, Miguel Gonzalez (if he’s healthy), Josh Tomlin (woof), Hector Santiago, Jaime Garcia and maybe even a Drew Pomeranz if he ends up cheap enough. One other name to keep an eye on is Erasmo Ramirez. I don’t have any inside information here, but he seems like a Royals target and the reports indicate the Mariners are moving on from him and will be DFAing him shortly. I wouldn’t like that move much, but it does seem like a Dayton special.
• This isn’t Royals-centric, but I keep thinking about Manny Machado’s free agency and I can’t wrap my head around why any team would give him $300 million or more. He’s a fantastic player. At third base, his defense is in the top three in baseball and he can really hit. Maybe he can handle shortstop for a few more years too as he did look better there once he went to the Dodgers. But I feel like there’s too much of an emphasis being placed on his age when he hasn’t really shown that he’s a “best player in baseball” sort of guy for very long. I’ll say it again so that I don’t hammered for saying I don’t think Machado is good. I think he’s truly great. But he’s a real piece of work and even though he’s entering just his age-26 season, I’m just not sure I’d commit that kind of money to him. He’s a year removed from hitting .259/.310/.471. Maybe I’m underselling his age here and it probably won’t matter because he’s going to get 10 years and $326 million or something (so he gets the biggest contract ever), and it’ll have an opt out after three years that he’ll take, so the team will “only” give him $90 million or whatever, but I’m just struggling with the idea that he’s a guy you’d want your team to give that kind of money to. I’m going to repeat this one more time for the people in the back. He’s a truly fantastic player, but he has too many red flags for me to want to give him that money.

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.

• I think it’ll be a really boring offseason, but also strangely fascinating, if that makes any sense at all. I expect a ton of rumors to swirl around the Royals with regard to Whit Merrifield and Salvador Perez while nothing really ends up happening unless a team gets desperate and gives a franchise changing return for either of them. But I don’t really see a whole lot happening in terms of the roster outside of the bullpen, which we’ve talked about quite a bit throughout the season. I think we have a real good idea that Dayton Moore’s focus is going to be on bringing in relievers. My question is if he goes for veteran reclamation projects like he did this year in the hopes that it’ll work better and he can flip them in July or if he looks for guys who maybe didn’t fare well as starting pitchers and could benefit from a shift to the bullpen. Those guys might be able to be around for some good baseball in Kansas City if the rebuild goes as expected by the front office. I’m not sure who that would be, and they’re harder to find now that the role of the bullpen is important enough that teams don’t typically discard starters who might work in that role, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the route they take in trying to fix this unit. I’m also very curious to see how Jorge Lopez would look in a fireman role out of the bullpen, but I’m thinking the upside he’s shown as a starter with a few very good starts (you know, last night not withstanding) will mean he starts the year in the rotation next year. Either way, that part of the offseason will be very interesting to me.
• In thinking about next year’s defense, I believe it has a chance to get back to truly elite levels relatively quickly, but it all depends on how the Royals align. And some of that depends on what they think they can get offensively out of the guys who look to be excellent defensively. Think for a moment about an outfield of Alex Gordon, Brian Goodwin and Brett Phillips. And then a potential infield of Whit Merrifield, Adalberto Mondesi, Nicky Lopez and Ryan O’Hearn. Okay, O’Hearn isn’t the elite defender, but if Merrifield can pick up third base as quickly as I feel like he can, that could be one salty group. The issues start to come if they decide to make room for Lopez by moving Merrifield to center or if they hope to get extra offense and play some combination of Jorge Bonifacio and Jorge Soler in the outfield. But there is potential for a fantastic defense next season, which won’t do anything but help the pitching staff just like it did during the championship seasons. I know it was a different offensive climate, but Jeremy Guthrie put on 303 base runners in 2013 and still ended up with league average ERA. That takes some serious defensive help.  
• I saw an article by Bob Nightengale going over some of the changes to the game that John Smoltz would like to see happen. Ignoring the fact that some of the changes are just silly, I just want to talk for a minute about how ridiculous it is that one of the game’s ambassadors (and yes, that’s what he is a national announcer) is constantly ridiculing the game he’s supposed to be helping to promote. The fact is that things change in every sport and those involved either adapt or get left behind. I completely understand why some people don’t like what the game as become with the shifting and so many teams openly accepting being uncompetitive, but that doesn’t make it bad. It just makes it different. There are always ways to improve the game, and I’m not saying it’s perfect, but Smoltz is a tired act in my opinion.
• One underrated aspect of the Royals offense next season is that they might actually see a few more pitches than previous iterations of the Royals. The league average in pitches per plate appearance is 3.9 this year, and five players who look like at least decent bets to be on the 2018 roster have been better than that – Brian Goodwin, Ryan O’Hearn, Jorge Bonifacio, Hunter Dozier and Brett Phillips. Two more – Alex Gordon and Whit Merrifield – are right around that average. And a couple of the guys who are way below that – Adalberto Mondesi and Salvador Perez – have value offensively in ways outside of plate discipline. I can’t promise you the offense is going to be good, but they might be a little tougher on opponents next season. That’s especially true when you talk about adding Lopez to the lineup later in the year if he can continue to work counts at the next level.

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.

Note: All advanced stats through action on Tuesday.

Twins Vitals

Royals vs. Twins

Offense

Pitching

Twins Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Thursday – 7:15 pm

A quick look at the ERA and DRA difference for Gonsalves shows he’s been a little unlucky in his 12.1 innings at the big league level. Okay fine, so he’s been terrible either way. The royals had their way with him in Minnesota, but unfortunately his opponent then and in this one couldn’t hold a big lead after the Royals got to him in the third. In his big league career, he’s walked 13 and struck out six. I don’t care if you have talent, that doesn’t play. The sample is obviously tiny, but in 16 plate appearances against lefties, he’s allowed a ridiculous .429 ISO. Righties have hit him hard too, but yikes. The stuff just isn’t there for him. He throws his midding fastball a lot and of his secondary pitches, only his slider has been even close to being worth a damn. He didn’t last long last week, so nobody has more than two plate appearances against him, but the hits came from Jorge Bonifacio, Adalberto Modnesi, Alex Gordon and Whit Merrifield. I sort of have a hunch that if Hunter Dozier plays, he’ll have a big game against Gonsalves too.

Fillmyer continues to never allow me to either buy in or sell on him. For the second time in just 10 starts, he was given a big lead that he coughed up relatively quickly. This time, the Royals plated six in the third against these very same Twins and he promptly gave up four and couldn’t escape the third. It was reminiscent of his start against the White Sox where he had a 6-0 lead and couldn’t get out of the fourth before giving that up. The Twins have proven to be a struggle for him with nine runs allowed in just 5.1 innings. Luckily this game is in the comfort of Kauffman Stadium where he’s 2-1 with a 2.54 ERA in seven games and has allowed just 31 hits in 39 innings and only two home runs. Maybe that’ll help him get over the hump against the Twins.

Friday – 7:15 pm

The Royals just saw Berrios a few days ago and he was very good, going six innings and allowing just a run on three hits. Expect to see Alcides Escobar in this one as his .353/.353/.706 line against him will make him a must-start for the Royals…for some reason. Berrios has continued his success against the Royals this year after struggling his first two seasons. He’s now 2-1 with a 1.80 ERA in three starts this year. His last bad start against the Royals was July 1^st last year, so maybe he’s due.

Lopez gets to make his next start following his near-perfect game against the team he almost threw it against. He was magnificent last week against the Twins, obviously, and following that game was one of the greatest highlights of a terrible season. I’ve long been a believer that Lopez is a reliever long-term, as I’ve said before, but he seems to be doing everything he can in his last two starts to get me to change my mind. The big thing for me in the past has been that he just begins to struggle a bit at 50 pitches or so. In his last two starts, opponents have hit .174/.208/.174 against him after the 50^th pitch. Sure that’s arbitrary and it’s a small sample, but it’s encouraging. Now let’s see him do it again.

Saturday – 6:15 pm

De Jong had his first start since last season against the Royals last weekend and looked pretty good, giving up just one hit in four innings, though he walked four. He uses a four-seam fastball that doesn’t have much zip quite often and then mixes in a slider and changeup, both of which were quite effective against the Royals last week. The sample is tiny, but his fastball has been hit around in his career, so if he lives on that too much, a young lineup like the Royals that hunts mediocre fastballs should be able to do some damage. He’s allowed a .300/.394/.483 line to lefties in his career, which seems to be a good sign for guys like Ryan O’Hearn, Alex Gordon, Brian Goodwin and Adalberto Mondesi.

Like it or not, Kennedy is signed up for two more years and will at least be part of the rotation to start next season, so his performance against the Twins on Sunday was really encouraging. I loved the six innings with one run on four hits, but I really loved 14 swinging strikes in just 93 pitches. His fastball, which is so important, was absolutely outstanding. If he’s going to provide value again, he’s going to need that fastball to be doing its thing.

Sunday – 1:15 pm

It’s been a nice season for Gibson with the most strikeouts of his career while his walk rate has remained mostly steady. Between the extra swings and misses and the lack of hits allowed, he’s looking like he might have made some sustainable changes to keep him as a solid number three starter for the next couple years at least. If we’re being honest, given his affordable salary and inconsistent track record, the Twins would probably be wise to shop him this offseason. Gibson has been dynamite when ahead in the count, allowing just a .168/.176/.284 line to opponents with just 12 extra base hits in 194 plate appearances. If you’re looking for a reason to not believe, he’s allowed a .244/.332/.420 line with the bases empty and .191/.258/.255 with runners in scoring position. That bases empty line is pretty much in line with what he’s allowed on the whole in his career, so there’s a decent bet that’s who he is and he’s had some strand luck. I guess we’ll see next year if it can carry over.

Junis is going to earn himself a reputation as a second half master. In 123.2 innings after the break in his young career, he’s 10-3 with a 3.20 ERA. This year, he’s 3-2 with a 2.83 ERA since coming off the DL, which also coincides with the break ending. The 58 strikeouts and 12 walks in 60.1 innings are really encouraging and he’s now gone four straight starts without issuing a walk, with the streak reaching 116 batters. That’s pretty good. He’s been a horse in his last three starts too, going 24 innings with 15 hits allowed and 18 strikeouts. The home runs crept back in a little bit in his last start with two in the third, so that’s something to keep an eye on, but he’s just been so good recently that we’re back to anxiously awaiting each Junis start.

Four game sets are often split, and four-game sets between two teams with nothing to play for probably are even more so (don’t look that up). So yeah, I’ll say a split. I know, I know…boring.

It’s been a difficult year, but the last month hasn’t been so bad. A number of Royals have started hitting, including surprises like Ryan O’Hearn, and a couple of pitchers have been great.

It makes for a more entertaining second half and an encouraging finish to the season.

We discuss Jakob Junis, Adalberto Mondesi, Brad Keller, and O’Hearn as well as the very fun near-perfect game by Jorge Lopez.

Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes and BlogTalkRadio. You can also download this episode here (mp3).

Follow the Vault at @KCBaseballVault. Follow host Jeff Herr at @TheJeffReport, co-host Michael Engel at @michaelengel. You can also email feedback to KansasCityBaseballVault@gmail.com.

Twins Vitals

Royals vs. Twins

Offense

Pitching

Twins Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Friday – 7:10 pm

Gonsalves came into the season as one of the top 100 prospects in baseball according to both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline and had a really nice minor league season, posting a 2.76 ERA in 23 games and 120.2 innings with just 76 hits allowed. The big leagues have been a bit less kind to him as he’s allowed 19 hits and 10 walks in 10 innings while striking out just five. He’s a big guy, standing at 6’5”, but isn’t really a power arm with his changeup leading the way for him. His fastball is low-90s and his breaking stuff has a chance to be good someday. The control issues are curious and might just be a bit of nerves combined with maybe some fatigue as he’s now thrown 21 more innings than last season, though it’s not a career high for him, so who knows really? As a big leaguer, the sample is miniscule, but he hasn’t been able to get out lefties or righties with a .333/.429/.750 line allowed to lefties and .429/.545/.600 to righties. He had a reverse split in the minors this season, which is often a result of the changeup being the best pitch since they don’t throw it left on left as much.

Fillmyer just keeps sucking me back in. After he imploded against the White Sox a couple weeks ago and lost a six-run lead, I figured that was it. Then he went out and threw 13 innings in his last two starts with three runs allowed and a 3:1 strikeout to walk ratio. Yes, one of those starts was against the Orioles, and yes there are still underlying issues with Fillmyer, but I’ll repeat what I’ve said a million times this year. Why not see what he is? He started against the Twins in Minnesota at the beginning of August and lasted just three innings during that weird rain delay game and was hit fairly hard and only had four swinging strikes in 70 pitches. He’ll need to be better in this one for the Royals to get a win, even if the offense supports him.

Saturday – 6:10 pm

I mentioned Berrios has been disappointing, which seems odd to say for a guy who is having a solid enough season, but after last year’s step forward, it really just seemed like another one was coming and it hasn’t. He has increased his strikeout rate and decreased his walk rate, so that part is good, but he’s also been more homer prone this season, which has given back some of the gains from the better strikeout and walk numbers. Really he’s just giving up a little more hard contact in general, and for a pitcher with the stuff he has, you wouldn’t expect that. Still, his curve is outstanding and has been even better this year than last, and when his fastball is on, he can be nearly unhittable with those two pitches. And, like Gonslaves, his changeup is a plus pitch as well, so really you’re talking about a guy who should be an ace, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the breakout was just delayed a year and he’s incredible next season. He has a 4.99 ERA in seven career starts against the Royals, but a lot of that was damage done during his terrible rookie season and last year. This year, he’s 2-0 with a 1.93 ERA in two starts with 14 strikeouts in 14 innings.

Again, the Orioles caveat applies here, but Lopez had the best start of his career his last time out, going seven innings and allowing just a run on five hits with eight strikeouts and no walks. He had 14 swinging strikes in 99 pitches, which is truly amazing, and very encouraging no matter who he was facing. I think his curve was talked up quite a bit, but his slider was insane last week with six whiffs out of 17 pitches and outs were recorded on all four put in play. If he can bring that slider and that curve to this game, he’ll be just fine against the Twins. Personally, I still have my doubts that he’s a starter in the long run, but please refer to Fillmyer, Heath regarding why not. In his career as a starter, he’s held opponents to a .220/.278/.320 line the first time through before that balloons to .413/.500/.543 the second time. The sample is tiny, but it’s a trend that isn’t promising. But again, let’s see if he can do it again against a team not as bad as the Orioles, but certainly not good.

Sunday – 1:10 pm

After back-to-back matching 5.07 ERAs for Gibson, he’s finally doing what he did in 2015 for the Twins, just in time for his final year of arbitration before free agency. The biggest difference is that he’s just getting more strikeouts and more swings and misses in general. How has he gotten there? His slider has always been a great swing and miss pitch, but it’s been even better this year, so that’s one. Another is that his curve has been outstanding for whiffs with a 47.3 percent whiff rate, compared to 36 percent last year. And with that, I think his changeup has played up too and he’s allowed a .114 average on it, compared to .271 last season. He still throws his sinker quite a bit to get those worm burners, but the swings and misses have made him a truly different pitcher. And the Royals have seen quite a bit of him over the years. This will be his 18^th start against Kansas City, and it seems like he’s almost always annoyingly good with a 3.40 ERA in 106 innings. This year has been more of the same. In 12.1 innings, he’s struck out 13 Royals, walked three and posted a 2.92 ERA. Alex Gordon has done well against him, and Hunter Dozier has two doubles in seven at bats against him, which isn’t a sample worth noting other than the fact that Dozier has been a doubles machine lately, so maybe he can carry that over.

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. He’s faced the Twins twice this year and once since coming off the disabled list (his first start off). He’s gone 10 innings, allowed four runs on 10 hits with 13 strikeouts and five walks. He was solid against them last year too, so maybe this is just a good matchup for him.

The Twins are looking to next season and maybe they’re just figuring out a way to get through the season with some of the Rays “opener” strategy or maybe they’re looking to next season, but either way, it’s at least interesting. Hopefully, Salvador Perez can come back for this series given his crazy numbers at Target Field. If he does, I say they win two of three. If not, I say they win two of three.

To say that as one who has spent hundreds of hours watching the Royals this year, it’s really no small feat to make me consider a team to be bad, but the O’s are so much worse than any team I’ve seen, including the Royals, perhaps ever. Friday, they made Brad Keller—a fine pitcher having a good season by most any measure—look like modern-day Sandy Koufax. Saturday, they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by surrendering the walk-off bomb by Whit Merrifield.

Sunday, they just plain old-fashioned sucked. Jorge Lopez is, I think, going to be good pitcher. But he may not enjoy a better start than his outing against a punchless Orioles lineup in the series finale.

Jonathan Villar, who has to be wondering what he did to deserve going from Milwaukee and a pennant chase to Baltimore and a surefire march to 110 losses, homered with two outs in the first inning. That and the five outs they were able to record before surrendering Kansas City’s first run represented the halcyon part of Baltimore’s day.

A one-out Jorge Bonifacio single and back-to-back two-out knocks by Brett Phillips and Alcides Escobar (don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger) scored Rosell Herrera, who reached on a fielder’s choice in the second inning. That tie the game—an inning later, the Royals hung up a crooked number and Baltimore never recovered.

Sunday’s effort was aided by the fact that Baltimore continuously shot itself in the foot at the worst possible time. Take the third inning, for example—after back-to-back singles by Whit Merrifield and Alex Gordon, a pickoff attempt by David Hess went hilariously awry and ended with Merrifield scoring and Gordon standing on second.

After Jorge Bonifacio doubled to score Gordon, Hess tried (and failed) to pick him off at second. Hess’ low throw trickled into the outfield under Breyvic Valera’s glove, and Valera made a bad situation worse by trying (and failing) to throw Bonifacio out at third—his toss got away from Jace Peterson at third and Bonifacio trotted home for another run.

The Good Guys tacked on another in the fourth, and it was started by a heads-up Brett Phillips. The rookie checked his swing on a potential third strike in the dirt and didn’t even wait for third-base umpire Greg Gibson to confirm whether he had held up or not—he streaked down the first base line and beat out Caleb Joseph’s throw. He moved to second on an Escobar single and scored when Whit tagged a liner into left.

And through this, Lopez kept right on cruising. He had at least one strikeout through his first five innings of work, including sitting down the side in order in the second. And when he wasn’t sitting down the Orioles on his own, he was getting help from some great defense behind him—in the seventh, Herrera made a tremendous dive-and-flip to Escobar to force Chris Davis out at second, then turned a 4-3 double-play by snaring a diving liner off the bat of Valera.

To add insult to injury for the Orioles, the Royals poured in four more runs in the bottom of the eighth. Rosie was hit by a pitch and Escobar walked; making his MLB debut, Meibrys Viloria rocketed a double off the fence in right to clear the bases, then came in to score two batters later on a Gordon double. Gordon then scored on Hunter Dozier’s first pitch triple into the left field gap. 9-1 your final; the Royals outright drubbed the O’s. Viloria got a Salvy Splash. Time to add the best photo in the history of the world.

Unusually Happy Tweet of the Game

This is really, really fun baseball to watch. #Royals #RaisedRoyal #ForeverRoyal

— Emily B (@emilyreadsalot) September 2, 2018

The Bright Spot: Three hits for Gordon and Escobar. Two each for Merrifield, Dozier and Bonifacio. But Lopez (7.0 innings, five hits, eight strikeouts, one earned) has to take the nod here. I don’t know what the kid will become in his career, but Sunday was a good omen.

The Nadir: Ryan O’Hearn was 0-for-5.

The Next Step: The Labor Day matinee in Cleveland will pit Jakob Junis, fresh off his first career complete game, against Adam Plutko, who I have no opinion about one way or another except, “Hey, at least he’s not Corey Kluber, Mike Clevinger, Carlos Carrasco or Trevor Bauer.” First pitch is scheduled for 3:10 p.m. (CT).

Orioles Vitals

Royals vs. Orioles

Offense

Pitching

Orioles Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Friday – 7:15 pm

I saw what the Orioles were doing when they signed Cashner to a relatively modest deal this winter, but I didn’t like the move. He seemed prime for regression given his ridiculously low strikeout rate and his too high for it walk rate. He’s struck out more this year, but still not enough and he’s just been a little less fortunate on batted balls, so he’s allowed more hits, more runners and more runs. Plus, his home runs are up slightly, and when you have zero room for regression, you can’t regress anywhere. Still, on the whole, he’s probably been their best starter left standing, though Alex Cobb has been great of late. Cashner has been brutal in August with a 6.59 ERA in five starts. He’s struck out 12 and walked 12 in 28.2 innings. That’s…well not good. There’s not really a scenario where Cashner truly excels, but he’s especially bad a third time through the order, which he’s left in for quite often. He allows a .336/.424/.543 line when he’s facing the lineup a third time. Given his repertoire, I feel like Adalberto Mondesi staying hot is a safe bet here.

Keller didn’t really have it in his last start against the Indians, but against that good team, he still gutted it out through five and allowed just two runs while striking out five. After a bit of a performance dip heading into the break, he’s made seven starts and averaged six innings per start since. What’s really encouraging, and we’ve talked about this before, is that he’s striking out 21 percent of batters faced and is walking just eight percent. Neither is elite or anything, but he does seem to be getting better. He’s given up a few more home runs, but he’s still at a reasonable level there as well, so he’s working his way out of an Andrew Cashner 2017-type season and into a conversation as being able to sustain this. Keller didn’t pitch against the Orioles in May, so this is his first time facing them.

Saturday – 6:15 pm

The last time the Royals saw Dylan Bundy, he faced seven batters and all seven scored. That was his third consecutive bad start after a quick start in his first five, and it hasn’t really gotten a whole lot better since. He did have a really good June, but since then he’s made nine starts with an ERA of 8.87 and allowed 16 home runs in 44.2 innings. He’s allowed 65 hits in that time! In those nine starts, he’s allowed at least five runs six times. It’s just been a rough go for Bundy. If there is a bright side for him, it’s that the season is almost over. Lefties have absolutely mauled him this year with a .316/.377/.550 line, so look for the Royals to load up in this one. The key against him (and all pitchers really but especially Bundy) is to get ahead in the count. When the hitter has the advantage, he allows a .336 average and .694 SLG. That’s crazy. And just to show how insane his start against the Royals was with four homers allowed in seven batters, here was the line – 1.000/1.000/3.400. That’s really amazing actually. Alex Gordon and Salvador Perez each have homers against him, but I’d look for some damage from the young guys like Mondesi, Ryan O’Hearn and Brett Phillips in this one.

It seems like every time I’m about to write off Fillmyer, he performs well. He handled the Indians pretty well on Saturday night last weekend, giving up just a run on three hits in six innings. Maybe more encouraging than the numbers were 10 swings and misses, which ties his career high that he had set against the Tigers and White Sox previously. He threw a career-high 105 pitches, so two extra days of rest may not hurt him for this one. The Orioles could be a sneaky tough matchup for him because if his slider is hanging, they still have enough power to make him pay and get some quick runs against him. But if it’s working, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him set a new swinging strike career high.

Sunday – 1:15 pm

Hess has pretty steadily climbed the minor league ladder for the Orioles since he was drafted in 2014 and has shown a couple decent things in the big leagues in spite of the rough numbers. The home run has bitten him more than it did in AA last year or AAA this year, but he’s still allowing less than a hit per inning, which is nice to see from him. That said, there just isn’t enough there stuff-wise to be successful, especially in an organization like the Orioles. He throws a 92-93 MPH fastball, which isn’t really impressive these days and he throws it a lot. His slider is probably his best strikeout pitch, and it’s similar to Fillmyer in that when it’s good, he’s quite good, but when it’s not, look out. Like Cashner, he’s a guy you can wait out as he really starts to tire at about 50 pitches and then when you get even deeper, he gets in some big trouble. He hasn’t exceeded 100 pitches yet, but he did get to 99 in his best start of the year his last time out against the Blue Jays.

So far, Lopez hasn’t done anything to make me believe he isn’t a reliever, but, again, this is the time to find out. His first time through the order in three starts, he’s allowed a .269 average and two runs. He’s walked just one in that time. His second and third time through, he’s allowed nine runs in three games and walked seven while striking out six. There’s no shame in being a reliever, but I’m pretty confident that’s what he is. That said, the Orioles do their share of flailing at the plate and Lopez has a great curveball when he’s on, so I would say this is an opportunity for him to gain some confidence if he can get that pitch working and recover from his rough outing against the Indians on Sunday.

I’d have to care to look more, but I have to assume this is the first time the Royals have had back to back weekends with all three starters coming into the game with a season ERA under 5 since like April or so. Maybe I’m wrong. It doesn’t matter. This is going to be a slap fight all weekend, but I think the Royals come out victorious in two of three given how bad the Orioles are and how bad they are especially on the road. Nothing would really surprise me this weekend other than good baseball.