If you’re interested in the financial aspect of it, the Royals will add about $1.6 million to their 2017 payroll number by paying the salaries of all three new acquisitions along with Cahill’s $250,000 assignment bonus. He also has $250,000 incentives for starting 15, 20 and 25 games. It’s unlikely he reaches 25 starts at this point, but he could get to 20, which would earn him and cost the Royals an additional $500,000.

Let’s get back to the trade and look at the new Royals.

Cahill has made 11 starts this season, going 4-3 with a 3.69 ERA over 61 innings. He’s struck out 10.6 per nine and walked 3.5. He allows less hits than innings pitched and his 2.75 DRA indicates there might be more to what he’s done this season than the raw numbers show. In front of the Royals defense, he should be able to put up even better numbers. And, as I noted in my preview of starting pitchers the Royals might acquire, he can shift to the bullpen in the postseason relatively seamlessly as a late inning arm. Cahill was signed to a $1.75 million deal with incentives this season, so he’s not owed much in terms of base salary. Health is an issue with Cahill, but if he’s healthy, he’s a very good pickup.

Brandon Maurer has had a rough season, but he’s been serving as the Padres closer. He’s struck out nearly a batter per inning with excellent control but a 5.72 ERA. Like Cahill, his DRA is much better at 4.24, but unlike Cahill, it doesn’t change his performance from good to potentially great. He has a big-time fastball that averages 97 MPH plus to go along with a slider and changeup. If he can put it together, he has a chance to be an elite late inning weapon. In his career, that hasn’t happened, but the stuff is outstanding. Maurer is earning $1.9 million through arbitration and has two more years of team control.

Ryan Buchter is a lefty who is nearly impossible to hit (5.5 hits per nine the last two seasons) who gets a ton of strikeouts and walks more than you’d like. The home run has bit him a bit this season, but that wasn’t an issue last year. He throws his fastball a lot at about 93 and it really moves and it’s really good. He has a 3.05 ERA this season but a DRA that says that might be a bit misleading. The issue with Buchter isn’t the quality of his pitches, it’s where they go. If he has it under control, he might be the best pitcher in the deal, though he’s already 30, so the success could be fleeting. The best part about Buchter is that he isn’t even arbitration eligible yet and won’t be another season after this one, so the Royals have him through the 2021 season.

Now let’s take a look at what they gave up.

To me, the biggest name they’re trading is Matt Strahm. The lefty burst onto the scene with the Royals last season and was a key part of their August push back into the playoff ace. As we all know, he struggled this season early before finding his groove and then struggling again in his shot in the starting rotation before a knee injury ended his season. I love Strahm, so it hurts to have to give him up, but a lefty who can strike out batters like Strahm can and could potentially be a big league starter is tough to give up.

Travis Wood has been mostly terrible for the Royals this season, but he had come around in the bullpen prior to his entrance into the rotation over the last few weeks, but even if the Royals are still paying him, it’s good to be able to get away from his lackluster performance. I personally think Wood have been useful next season after getting away from the nightmare that was 2017, but I’m definitely not broken up about losing him.

While Strahm is the biggest name, Ruiz might be the one that hurts the most when it’s all said and done. He’s still in rookie ball, but as an 18-year old, he’s hitting .419/.440/.779 in Arizona in 91 plate appearances. He has speed, pop and the ability to play the middle infield for now. I’ll let Clint evaluate the Ruiz portion of this deal further, but his inclusion is the only part of this deal that makes me stop and think for a minute, but at the same time, an 18-year old in rookie ball isn’t something you should avoid dealing in a trade to make you better today.

My Analysis

I think the Royals did well here, but I don’t think this is a slam dunk win or anything. The goal is to make the playoffs in 2017 and the Royals improved their pitching staff in both the rotation and bullpen with one big move. I love Cahill if he can stay healthy, and I believe Dave Eiland can help to unleash the great stuff Maurer has. Add Buchter from the left side to go along with Scott Alexander and Mike Minor and the Royals bullpen is now deep and incredibly balanced with some serious power arms.

The Royals are in a bit of a tough position now because I think they could still use another bat to be considered favorites to make the postseason, but I’m not sure where they put that bat with Brandon Moss now hitting. This trade, though, makes them legitimately formidable in the playoff race and, I think, gives them a leg up in the Wild Card race at least and might be able to get them over the hump in the AL Central as well.

White Sox Vitals

White Sox vs. Royals

Offense

Pitching

White Sox Projected Lineup

The Matchups

Friday

The decline of James Shields has been rapid and, honestly, a little difficult to watch given what he did for the Royals in his two seasons in Kansas City. His once very good control is gone. His ability to get the swing and miss and get strikeouts is gone. His ability to keep the ball in the ballpark is gone. It’s hard to imagine him pitching in the big leagues after this season.

The reason Shields isn’t good anymore is that his stuff has deteriorated. His four seam fastball now only averages around 90 MPH. He hardly throws his once great changeup, throwing it just 8 percent of the time. He uses his cutter and curve quite a bit, but given that Shields has allowed a .278/.394/.646 line against lefties, I think that Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas and Brandon Moss can all have huge games. Whit Merrifield’s .519 SLG on cutters shows that he might have a big game too. Basically if the Royals offense can’t break out here, it’s going to look awfully dark. What’s crazy is that Shields probably should have worse numbers than he does, although his 7.27 DRA tells that story. He’s allowed a .289/.391/.527 line with the bases empty, but with runners in scoring position, he’s allowed a .125/.243/.219 line. Something’s gotta give and I’m guessing it’ll be the RISP line.

Kennedy has bounced back really nicely from his rough patch after returning from his hamstring injury. It’s totally arbitrary, but he’s gone 37 innings in his last six starts with 33 strikeouts, nine walks, 26 hits allowed and a 2.68 ERA. He will always allow home runs, but his ability to keep runners off base helps to mean they hurt less. Kennedy was hit pretty hard by the White Sox earlier this year in the game he was injured. Hopefully he can handle their depleted lineup this time.

Weather: 97°, Wind SSW 5-10 MPH, Sunny/Clear, 0% Precipitation

Saturday

The fact that Pelfrey is still in the big leagues is a mystery to me, and the fact that he’s performing relatively decently is a bigger mystery. It’s not that he’s good. He doesn’t get deep into games. He doesn’t strike batters out. He walks too many. But he isn’t as bad as I’d have expected him to be, which is…something.

Pelfrey relies heavily on a sinker, and he gets a decent number of ground balls, but probably not as many as you’d expect from a guy who throws that pitch more than half the time. He also features a splitter, slider and curve. Inexplicably, all his secondary pitches have actually been really effective this season. The sinker has been the big issue. Batter vs. pitcher numbers are hardly worth mentioning because of the tiny sample size, but I’m going to mention them anyway because that’s what I like to do. Moustakas, Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain and Alex Gordon have all had their way with Pelfrey with a 1.000 OPS or better against him. None of them have more than 24 plate appearances, but they’ve clearly seen him well. Most pitchers have third time through the order issues. Pelfrey has third time through the order nightmares, allowing a .425/.489/.850 line, albeit in just 47 plate appearances when facing hitters for a third time. So either the Royals get to Pelfrey then or he’s out of the game and they get a chance to face a bullpen without its two best relievers this season.

Vargas is coming off two of his worst starts of the season, which has led people to assume he’s injured for some reason that I can’t understand. Ned Yost said on MLB Network Radio that he believes he had a mechanical issue that they’ve fixed, but we’ll have to wait and see on that. The reality is that regression was inevitable, but I don’t think anyone expected it that fast. The big concern for me is that he’s only gotten 10 swinging strikes over his last two starts. If he can get his changeup back working, he’ll be just fine, but not if he can’t.

Weather: 98°, Wind Light and Variable, Partly Cloudy, 30% Precipitation

Sunday

There was a point early this season when Holland looked like one of the best free agent signings of the season. It’s been going on even longer than this, but since the start of June, Holland has gone 1-5 with a 9.82 ERA in eight starts spanning just 36.2 innings. In that time, he’s allowed 56 hits, which is just 15 less than Kennedy has allowed in 93.2 innings. And oh yeah, he’s allowed 13 homers in that time.

Holland’s fastball and sinker haven’t actually been as bad as I expected. They haven’t been good, though. He’s allowed a .307 average on them with a .476 SLG, which is bad, but not horribad. On his changeup, he’s allowed a .283 average and .544 SLG. On the slider, it’s .246 and .600. On the curve, it’s .246 and .523. It’s almost worth it to let him get ahead in the count after getting a couple guys on to see the changeup, slider or curve to be able to hit for power and drive those runners home. He’s actually handled lefties pretty well, but right-handed bats have crushed Holland to the tune of a .292/.370/.551 line. It’s also worth noting that when he’s been on regular rest, he’s put up a 1.87 ERA in seven starts, but on five or six days rest, he’s posted a 7.83 ERA. He’ll make this start on six days rest.

This is very likely to be Wood’s last start, if he even makes it. I imagine the Royals will move on to either Jake Junis or a pitcher they acquire in a trade. He was pretty okay in his first start, but the Tigers lit him up in his start. It’s not that he looked that terrible, but the Tigers just crush bad lefties. The White Sox are bad and have a bad offense, but they hit lefties well, to the tune of a .282/.341/.438 line. Wood might struggle in this one too.

Weather: 90°, Wind W 3-6 MPH, Mostly Sunny, 10% Precipitation

The Royals have every opportunity to put a sweep together in this one, but they haven’t come out of the gate playing so great. Hopefully their offensive outburst last night will get them going. It worries me a little what might happen in this series, but I do think they take two of three and keep hope well alive.

Tigers Vitals

Royals vs. Tigers

Offense

Pitching

Tigers Projected Lineup

The Matchups

Monday

That Zimmermann contract looks more and more like a disaster every day. After starting off so strong last year, he’s just been an absolute mess. He’s given up 114 hits in those 95 innings and isn’t striking out enough batters while he’s walking more than in any full season in his career. And to think there were some who preferred that contract to the Ian Kennedy deal.

His fastball velocity took a dip in his free agent year and then fell even farther last season. This year, it’s rebounded a bit, but his four-seam fastball is averaging 93 MPH now after being up more than 94 MPH previously. He still throws a very good slider, but his curve has been hit pretty hard with a .340 average against it and a .623 SLG. Lefties have been even better against it, so just a hunch, but I think Mike Moustakas catches a mistake and gets back on the Balboni chase. In general, lefties have hit him well. Okay, everyone has hit him well, but lefties have a robust .324/.365/.562 line against him with 11 home runs in 201 plate appearances. If you wanted to predict that Brandon Moss might find a good game, it wouldn’t be the craziest thought. It’s hard to pick out one split that stands out the most when looking for ways to get to Zimmermann, but the .463 average and .778 SLG on the first pitch is one that’s pretty telling.

Vargas gets his first start after the break and his first start since getting roughed up by the Mariners. I think the odds are pretty good that Vargas regresses some in the second half from his Cy Young placement pace, but I’m also not dumb enough to completely bet against him. He hasn’t faced the Tigers yet, but they’ve hit .268/.331/.477 against lefties, so that’s kind of scary.

Weather: 91°, Wind SSE 3-6 MPH, Sunny/Clear, 0% Precipitation

Tuesday

I really thought this would be the year that Boyd put it all together. Turns out, not so much. His strikeout rate that jumped up last year has dropped. His walk rate that was more than reasonable last year is up into dangerous territory. And, oh yeah, he’s given up 74 hits in 55.1 innings. If you believe in FIP, he’s the same pitcher as he was last year, but I think that’s another notch on the belt of reasons that FIP is probably the fifth or sixth best predictive pitching stat.

Boyd throws a four-seamer and a two-seamer with the four-seamer coming in at a bit more than 92 and the other a bit less than that. His curve has been his money pitch with opponents hitting .143 with no extra base hits against it. Of course, it’s only in 14 plate appearances, but the facts are the facts. His changeup has been the problem. It’s not that it’s been terrible, but it hasn’t been good enough to help make his fastball effective and those have been knocked around pretty good. Jorge Bonifacio and Lorenzo Cain should theoretically have a field day in this one. What might be most amazing to me about Boyd is that he’s allowed an .867 OPS when behind in the count, .923 OPS when even and an .817 OPS when he’s ahead. The moral of this story? You don’t need a plan against him. Basically anything has worked this year.

This could be a game where runs are not at a premium with Wood opposing Boyd. He looked good in his first start of the year against the Twins before wearing down, which was understandable. I mentioned this in Friday Notes a few weeks ago, but since using his two-seam fastball more, he’s allowed just those two runs in the fifth inning of his start since June 6 with nine strikeouts and only two walks. I’m not confident in him in this start for any number of reasons, but I do think the turnaround is real once he gets back to the bullpen.

Weather: 94°, Wind SSW 4-8 MPH, Sunny/Clear, 0% Precipitation

Wednesday

The story of Verlander’s season has been base runners. He has a WHIP of 1.5 on the dot. He’s allowing more than a hit per inning for just the second time since his rookie season with more walks than ever. Add in that his strikeout rate has dropped again and it’s easy to see why he’s posted a 4.66 ERA.           The 3.98 DRA tells a slightly different story, but not enough to make him worth his deal. Not this season at least.

I mentioned this during the last Royals/Tigers series, but the fastball velocity is back. Well, not back back, but back to closer to his top form. He’s averaging 95.6 MPH with it and throwing it more than half the time. It’s a slider and a curve to round out the repertoire and that’s it. The fastball control has been the real problem with 38 walks allowed in 247 plate appearances. More than anything, though, he’s been killed on pitches he uses sparingly, his two-seam fastball and changeup. Verlander has been weird this year. The first time through the order, opponents struggle with a .669 OPS. Then the second time through, he’s allowed an OPS of .855. Then it’s like he makes another adjustment if he gets to a third time through and has allowed a .706 OPS. Basically get him in the 3^rd through the 5^th or so and you’ll be fine. If not, not so much. By law, I’m required to tell you that Salvador Perez has hit .414/.410/.655 against Verlander in 61 career plate appearances.

Hammel was cruising in his last start…sort of, before losing his no-hitter and then the lead in a matter of three batters. So it goes for Hammel. He’s definitely not a workhorse, but I think if used correctly, he’s a more than serviceable number four starter. He isn’t a guy you’re going to get seven shutout innings from, but since the start of June, he’s gone 3-2 with a 3.83 ERA in 49.1 innings over eight starts. You definitely take that from your four.

Weather: 96°, Wind SSW 4-8 MPH, Sunny/Clear, 0% Precipitation

Thursday

Fulmer is really good. His strikeout rate is down, but so is his walk rate and he’s been even better at limiting home runs than he was in his rookie season. I find year to year numbers fascinating sometimes, and the fact that he ended last year with a 3.06 ERA and has that same ERA this year is pretty amazing to me. He’s been the subject of a few trade rumors over the last couple weeks, and, as a Royals fan, I’d like very much if they dealt him to the National League.

He has a four-seamer and a two-seamer and he throws both very hard, 96 MPH plus for each. Mix that with a slider that can be especially nasty and a changeup that keeps getting better and it looks like he’s going to be good for a very long time. In a bit more than a year in the big leagues, Fulmer has stymied most Royals, but Whit Merrifield’s 3 for 6 stands out a bit, I guess. The sample is small, but it’s important to cling to something. There is very little encouraging for Royals fans in the stats for Fulmer, so I’ll give you this. He’s allowed a .193/.248/.270 line with nobody on, but .289/.321/.405 with runners on and .306/.351/.388 with runners in scoring position, so I guess figure out how to get someone on and then hope and pray.

Duffy is coming off a fantastic outing that would be seen very differently if the Royals could have gotten anything going offensively. He only had nine swinging strikes, but it looked like his game plan was getting some weak contact from the Rangers. Obviously you want swings and misses, but I think there’s something to that, and he still had nine in 91 pitches. Since coming back from the DL, he’s just 1-2, but he’s gone 21 innings and posted a 3.43 ERA with 17 strikeouts and two walks. That’ll play.

Weather: 97°, Wind SSW 4-8 MPH, Sunny/Clear, 0% Precipitation

I really don’t like the way the Royals played during that series with the Rangers. A lot of things we saw in April crept back up and that makes me nervous for a repeat. I really want to say that they’ll take three of four, but I just can’t do it. I think they split, but it would be nice if the June offense would find their way back to the stadium.

• There has been a lot of talk about the unwritten rules of baseball this week. It stems mostly from Jarrod Dyson laying down a bunt in the sixth inning of a game where Justin Verlander was throwing a perfect game. You didn’t ask for my opinion, but that’s the great thing about Friday Notes. You’re going to get it anyway. I’ll quote Herm Edwards here. You play to win the game. Jarrod Dyson’s game is speed. He puts the ball on the ground, he runs real fast and sometimes he’s safe at first. The Mariners were down 4-0 in the sixth inning to a pitcher with an ERA in the mid-4s as a team scoring about 4.8 runs per game. Is a four-run deficit game over? Not in my eyes it isn’t. There is no time in which an opposing team should stop trying to do everything they can to create runs for their team. Okay, that’s not true. I did have that opinion until Hunter Samuels made a good point in the BP KC break room about it being like a 12-0 game or something. At that point, don’t bunt, there’s no need. But what Dyson did on Wednesday night is not only okay in my book, it’s encouraged.
• Travis Wood has an ERA of 6.51 this season, which is just terrible, but if you’ve been following this team for more than a couple weeks this season, you’ll know that it’s pretty impressive given where he was not too long ago. At the end of April, he had an ERA of 18.56. At the end of May, it was basically cut in half to 9.17. After allowing two runs in 1.2 innings on June 4, though, Wood has thrown 8.1 consecutive scoreless innings over six outings. And maybe more importantly, he’s walked just one while striking out six. So the question is what’s different. I don’t know if this is making a huge difference, but prior to his recent stretch, Wood had thrown four-seam fastballs more than half the time and very few two-seamers. He was throwing his cutter a little more than 20 percent of the time and throwing some changeups and breaking balls. Since, he’s reduced his four-seam fastball usage to about 33 percent and thrown two-seamers a bit more than 25 percent of the time. He’s also thrown his cutter a bit more while pulling back a lot on his changeup. Opponents haven’t gotten a hit on his cutter, slider or changeup and have hit just .167 against the two-seamer. Prior to that game on June 6, he’d allowed a .342 average and .463 slugging percentage on his fastball while his slider and curve were destroyed (in admittedly limited samples). Look, it’s just a few games, so we’ll see if he reverts, but he appears to have moved away from what wasn’t working in search of something else and he’s found a solution.
• On the flip side, Jorge Bonifacio has had some tough times since moving to the number two spot in the lineup. He’s still getting his home runs with three in 15 games, but he’s been striking out quite a bit. He’s been beaten with fastballs lately, but I had a hunch he was being pitched away with breaking stuff more. Strangely enough, that hunch was wrong. Pitchers have actually been more over the plate with the curves and sliders lately and stopped going to the spot low and away that they tried to attack in his first 40 or so games in the big leagues. I’m not entirely sure yet if that’s a good sign or bad, but I feel like part of why they stopped going to that well is because he just wasn’t swinging. My hunch is that he’s just going through a bit of a slump, but watching young players try to adjust is always really interesting because you can learn quite a bit from them. The guys who can’t adapt aren’t long for this league. The ones who can usually can find their way to a nice career. I think Bonifacio is a smart enough hitter with a good enough plan at the plate that he’ll adjust and get through this, but it’s worth watching, especially while Jorge Soler is raking in Omaha. Note: I am not suggesting they demote Bonifacio and bring up Soler right now. I’m just making the point there are alternatives if it should come to that.
• As Jeffrey Flannagan noted on Twitter the other day, a decision will have to be made on Brian Flynn by Sunday as that’s the end of his 30-day rehab assignment. That means he will need to be activated from the 60-day DL and placed back on the 40-man roster. Now, Flynn has had a rough go of it in Omaha with two especially bad outings, but he still needs a spot and the Royals currently don’t have one. I see a couple options. The first is that Hunter Dozier with a broken hamate bone could be transferred to the 60-day DL and Flynn can take his spot. The second is that Nate Karns could be transferred to the 60-day DL. At this point, he’s been out since May 20 anyway, so he likely won’t be back within 60 days. That would delay the decision. And the third is to just drop someone from the 40-man. Miguel Almonte having a nice season probably saves him, but the obvious choice is Chris Young, who does provide a valuable service of pitching innings so other people don’t have to, but let’s be real. You’d still rather have a better pitcher on the roster than that. I’m not sure Flynn will be in the big leagues since he has an option left, but he’ll definitely need to be added to the 40-man, so it’ll be interesting to see what the move is.

• That brings us to the month of May. I think you can make a reasonable argument that May is the most important month this team has had, in regards to the future, of this organization in nearly a decade. They’ve obviously had far more important months overall, but the Royals performance as a team this month will determine so much. They play 30 total games this month. They entered it at a grotesque 7-16. If they win 22 of 30, let’s say, they’ll be 29-24 and nobody’s talking about selling. If they win 12 of 30, let’s say, they’ll be 19-34 and nobody is talking about anything but selling. The middle, though, is what’s sort of scary. If the Royals finish May at 18-12 and are 25-28, does anybody believe the Royals begin to pull the trigger on trading off their pending free agents? I just can’t imagine it. The worst thing this team can do in May is be sort of good but not great. If they’re going to start to win some games, they need to win a lot of games. And if they’re not going to win a crazy number of games, the best thing for the franchise is probably for them to struggle to make the decision for them. That doesn’t mean I don’t root for wins every night, but sometimes it’s best when the choices are made easy.
• The Royals really can’t hit lefties and if you believe there’s something to play for still, that’s going to be a problem. The Royals are hitting .184/.255/.267 against lefties and .202/.262/.289 against left-handed starters. They’ve scored just 18 runs in eight games started by southpaws, and even that number is a little inflated because they scored seven in that one game started by Dallas Keuchel when they went crazy after Keuchel left the game. I don’t know the answer to fix it. I do know that adding Jorge Soler back to the roster can’t hurt, though he hasn’t necessarily been especially great against left-handed pitchers in his career. One big issue is that Cheslor Cuthbert is supposed to be the platoon partner for Brandon Moss, but he just hasn’t hit at all this season. I think the vast majority of that problem is that he doesn’t really know how to not play regularly, but that’s an issue. Again, the way they’ve started means it probably doesn’t really matter, but it’s difficult to watch when a lefty is on the mound. It will just get worse as they get into games with the Indians and their lefty relievers, and the Tigers with their lefty starters.
• Speaking of Soler, we’ve been wondering for awhile how it is he makes his way back to the roster. I keep suggesting Travis Wood goes out with an “injury” to clear a spot, but maybe Ian Kennedy is the one who will create the opening. We’ll see if he needs a DL stint, but I could see the Royals stretching out Mike Minor or even Chris Young for a couple starts while Kennedy recovers from his hamstring issue. That creates the initial roster spot for Soler and might allow the Royals to delay the decision on Bonifacio for a couple weeks or however long it is that Kennedy finds himself on the disabled list (if he does). They could look in another direction if Kennedy has to go on the DL and bring up a starter from Triple-A. In that event, the Royals have some options as the Omaha rotation has done some nice things, but Jake Junis seems to be the likely choice given his status on the 40-man roster. I guess maybe we should wait to really discuss this until we get news on Kennedy, but it sure beats talking about why this offense is so terrible.
• Keith Law was on Sports Radio 810 the other day and predicted the contract Eric Hosmer signs as a free agent would be for two years and $20 million. That’s a ridiculous statement. You can argue all you want about whether or not Hosmer is worth a mega deal, but I don’t see a scenario where he signs that contract. A big reason why he wouldn’t is that I can’t imagine Hosmer would sign for two years. In my mind, it’s either a deal for four-plus years or it’s a one year deal. His career numbers don’t indicate that he’s a superstar, but he’s seen that way around baseball (to fans), and he’s going to be marketed that way by Scott Boras. To me, the guy to look at is Adrian Beltre. He spent a few seasons in Seattle that were largely underwhelming. He ended up signing a one-year deal with the Red Sox to establish value and then signed a long deal with the Rangers and he’s still there today. I just don’t buy Hosmer signing for only two years. Plus, the odds are that he ends the season with respectable numbers and some team sees his postseason experience and other big game work and probably gives him too big of a deal. I hope it’s not the Royals. He has been hitting the ball better of late. His ISO is still under .100, but he’s at least been driving the ball a little better. At least it seems that way. He’s notoriously streaky. Maybe he’s about to get hot and get his season numbers back to his typical levels.

• That’s where I’ll start, I guess. Personally, it’s too early in the season for me to have lost all hope for a team that I actually really liked coming out of Surprise. I’m looking for something, anything, to hang my hat on with this offense. The problem is that it’s pretty hard to find. They’re not hitting the ball especially hard or especially far. They are hitting into some bad luck, but they’re creating some of their bad luck by not hitting the ball hard or far. So I’m not really sure where to look. The approaches of Whit Merrifield and Jorge Bonifacio have been welcome additions to the lineup. They carry the second and third best OBPs among Royals hitters now, though their sample is much smaller than everyone else’s. So that’s encouraging. Mike Moustakas has looked really good in the early going. I guess I’ll have to stick with knowing that these guys can’t possibly be this bad. All of these players have been no worse than slightly below average in the very recent past. I find it hard to believe that they’ve become garbage big league hitters in the blink of an eye, especially some of the players supposedly in their primes and looking toward big pay days. Yeah, I’ll go with that. I guess it’s also somewhat encouraging that they at least had runners on base to leave on base in Wednesday’s game. That’s better than what we’d seen.
• On the subject of Bonifacio, his solid play in his first five games makes me go back to the offseason trade of Wade Davis for Jorge Soler. I wasn’t a huge fan of the deal at the time because I believed the Royals could have gotten more for Davis. What I hadn’t thought about was the implications on the future of the Royals by acquiring Soler. Think back to December of 2012 when the Royals traded for Davis and James Shields by sending Wil Myers and company to the Rays. The rationale at the time was that the Royals could afford to trade Myers because they had Bonifacio in the pipeline. Four years later (admittedly some not great minor league seasons for Bonifacio), they traded for a guy to block his path to the big leagues. If Bonifacio continues to hit well in what limited time he has left with the big club before Soler returns, I think that makes the trade look even worse in hindsight. Then when you factor in Hunter Dozier as a corner outfielder now, it’s fair to question the deal even more given that they now have Alex Gordon, Dozier, Soler and Bonifacio as corner outfield pieces who are all under team control through at least 2019. I’m not saying the trade is now a disaster or anything, but it certainly makes you think.
• I feel like we should talk about something positive, so how about Joakim Soria? Nine games and 10 innings into his season of redemption and he hasn’t given up a run and he’s struck out 12 while allowing only five hits. He’s allowed one inherited runner out of three to score, which was unfortunate at the time, but he’s been really, really good. I felt like when I saw him in spring training that his slider was snapping much better. It has looked better, though the only at bat that’s ended on it has been a hit. What’s been different is that he’s using his fastball a little bit less, and, like so many other Royals pitchers, he’s using his changeup more. This season he’s used it 29.2 percent of the time compared with just 18.1 percent of the time last year. He allowed a .173 average on it last season, so I’m not sure why he didn’t go to it more, but he’s definitely using it more now. And it’s made his fastball even better with no hits in 15 at bats against it during the regular season. I’m sure he’ll give up a run at some point and some people will throw a fit about it, but Soria has been really, really good this season and it’s been great to see.
• Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Travis Wood as he’s looking like one of the big swings and misses by Dayton Moore this offseason. Truthfully, all three of his late offseason signings (Wood, Jason Hammel and Brandon Moss) have been misses, but Wood seems like the worst so far. He’s given up 11 runs on nine hits with eight walks in just 5.1 innings. He’s already lost two games and has an ERA of 18.56. If you’re looking for optimism, BP does believe he’s pitched worse than the numbers indicate as his DRA is a much more manageable 14.52. I didn’t love the Wood signing from a baseball perspective because he doesn’t miss bats and his control isn’t elite, so I was worried that might be a bit of an issue. I did love that the Royals went out and signed one of the better available pitchers on the market. I loved what that represented. I also didn’t expect it to be this bad. There almost has to be something wrong with him to have this kind of trouble with the strike zone. Don’t be surprised if he has a back injury or some other muscle ailment that puts him on the disabled list for a little bit so they can work to get him right without having to continue to use him on the big league roster. They need to do something because he has been an absolute train wreck.

Today, though, a big question with the Royals is something they didn’t really have to worry about until last season. But when they did, it may have cost the team a playoff spot.

How in the world does this team stay healthy?

There was a misnomer a few years ago that the Royals were a young team. They had young players at their core, but they also had quite a few veterans on the roster. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but was just the reality. Now, they are unquestionably not a young team. Sure, there are some younger players around the roster, but even guys like Eric Hosmer and Salvador Perez are now in their age-27 seasons. In fact, if you project Whit Merrifield as the winner of the second base job, the average age of the Royals nine offensive starters in 2017 is just a shade over 29 years old. No, that’s not old, but it’s certainly not young.

Shift over to the pitching staff. Danny Duffy is now in his age-28 season and he’s joined by a 32-year old Ian Kennedy, a 34-year old Jason Vargas, a 34-year old Jason Hammel and either a 30-year old Travis Wood, a 29-year old Nate Karns or a 38-year old Chris Young. So they’re not young there, either. The bullpen is a little younger with Kelvin Herrera and Matt Strahm, but even that unit figures to be filled with veterans. So no, this team is no longer considered young.

So after a season in which their third baseman, left fielder and center fielder all missed significant time and they lost two-fifths of their starting rotation to injury early, how will that get better?

Some of the plan is just to have better health luck. I would wager the odds of Mike Moustakas and Alex Gordon going out for a popup and colliding, resulting in long-term injuries is pretty slim. But luck won’t be able to account for everything.

Look around the diamond. The Royals projected starters in left field, center field, right field, third base, first base and catcher have all missed more than a couple days to injury over the course of their careers. You might also notice that all five of those positions are home to very important players for the Royals during the 2017 season.

So now flexibility is the name of the game. The Royals simply have to be more giving with their days off than they have in the past. I know that Alcides Escobar wants to play all 162 games, but wouldn’t you think he’d be more productive if he played in 145 games instead, and actually got some rest? We all know that Salvador Perez plays too much. I don’t care what the offensive drop-off from him to Drew Butera is. He needs to sit more. He’s a big catcher who already has one major knee injury. I’m not necessarily saying he’s a ticking time bomb, but I’m also not saying it’s something we shouldn’t think about.

Moustakas is coming off that major knee surgery. He could use some rest to stay off that, especially in the early-going. Gordon has had a couple big injuries the last two seasons. Both were kind of freak plays and he’s in impeccable physical condition, but wouldn’t he benefit from an extra day off here and there? And then there’s Jorge Soler. I mentioned a couple weeks ago that he’s a big key to me if the Royals want to put a potent offense out there, and if he’s hurt, he can’t produce. I looked it up. Players who aren’t on the field don’t do anything to contribute. It’s a fact.

That flexibility will be incredibly important, and I think the Royals roster has reached a point where they have the flexibility they do desire. Brandon Moss can play first and both corner outfield spots. There are some days off for Gordon, Soler and Eric Hosmer. And yes, Hosmer could probably use some more rest as well. Whit Merrifield can handle second, third and all three outfield positions. Truthfully, he can probably hold his own at first and stand at shortstop for a few innings if needed too. Christian Colon can play second, third and shortstop. And hey, Cheslor Cuthbert was in the lineup as a second baseman for yesterday’s game. I still have huge doubts that he can handle that position enough to play it regularly, but maybe you can stick him there with a fly ball pitcher on the mound just to get a little extra pop in the lineup.

On the pitching staff, the Royals seem to have the requisite depth in the rotation that they didn’t have last year. Their top three starters look strong and Jason Vargas could surprise now that he’s a year and a half removed from Tommy John surgery. Beyond that, Young, Karns and Wood all are legitimate starting options. If any get hurt or struggle, there are two more players ready to step up. That’s not to mention guys like Zimmer and Jake Junis who could either be in the big league bullpen or the Triple-A rotation. Even an A.J. Puckett could step up as he’s made some revisions to his delivery, it seems.

In the bullpen, a lot of the rotation depth translates to the bullpen with the “losers” of the fifth starter battle heading there. Plus, Zimmer and Junis also look like they could be bullpen depth for the 2017 team. Add in the slew of minor league free agents the Royals signed, some of whom don’t have opt-out dates until June and it looks like the Royals should be able to withstand any one or two injuries pretty decently this season.

But still, health is the key. With a couple exceptions, I don’t think any of the depth options are good bets to be even near as good as the starters. For a manager who likes his every day lineup and is reluctant to give days off to his regulars, Ned Yost needs to change his ways. Given the flexibility of the team, he should be able to mix in these days off without hurting the lineup too badly. I’d be interested to situations where players are given a “half day off” to DH, followed by a full day off and not play before or after an off day to give them ample recovery time.

I think this Royals team has a chance to be very, very good, but if their stars aren’t on the field, it’ll all come crumbling down quickly. Health is a big question with this team.

• I didn’t see the discussion on MLB Network, but I saw the fallout on Twitter between Ken Rosenthal and Brian Kenny. What I surmised is that Rosenthal was talking about how important chemistry is while Kenny seems to believe that it sounds like something that would have and should have been written 40 years ago. I like stats. I think stats are extremely important. I like to study even the most complex ones to try to gain a better understanding of the game. Maybe eight to 10 years ago, I was basically only about the stats. Sure I watched the games intently, but I was all about citing OPS+ or whatever was cool at the time. I still love stats and I love digging into ones like DRA and TAv and I really enjoy diving into the PECOTA rankings, as wrong as I think they are. But stats aren’t all there is. I’ve learned that. Chemistry matters way more than I used to think it did. I probably would have gotten to this conclusion anyway, but following the 2013-2015 Royals and getting a chance to be in that clubhouse a few times taught me the lesson even quicker. Yes, it takes talent to win. I don’t care if all 25 guys love each other if they aren’t especially good at baseball, but if you show me two teams with honest to goodness talent and one has so-so chemistry and one is the Royals, I’ll take my chances with the Royals. It’s not that the statistics of the game aren’t important, boy they are. But these are human beings playing a game and that’s easy to forget sometimes. There is a human element.
• I’m going to say something here that I’m not sure I’ve ever actually written. I’m intrigued by Christian Colon. Prepare yourself for a reference to him being in great shape, maybe the best of his life. He apparently worked with Alex Gordon this winter. I think we can all agree that was something of an issue for Colon before. While he will never be confused for a gold glover, he did do some very solid work at second base last season in 247 innings and I think there’s more in his bat than he’s shown at the big league level. In his first 168 plate appearances, he hit a solid .303 with a .361 OBP. What intrigues me is the walk rate – 8.3 percent – for a guy who isn’t playing every day. He’s never shown much pop in the minor leagues, but he has shown more than we’ve seen in the big leagues. He has a .100 career ISO in the minors, but does at least have 132 extra base hits in 561 games at the minor league level. Maybe with a new physique, he can keep up the plate discipline (he swung at 28.5 percent of pitches outside the zone last year), add a little pop and continue to play solid defense at second base. I know a lot of people loved Merrifield last year. He was fun to watch. But I wonder if, given his age, pedigree and physical condition, we might be in for Christian Colon’s career year. I hope he gets a legitimate shot to win the job.
• I haven’t really given my thoughts on the Travis Wood signing yet, so I’ll get them out of the way here. I think Wood is an average big league pitcher, but I do believe he makes the 2017 Royals better, and probably the 2018 team as well, though that’s of less importance. He doesn’t strike out enough hitters and he walks too many, but he provides versatility to the pitching staff that they greatly need. I know you could argue that Chris Young does the same thing, but I’m not exactly counting on anything from Young this season. What Wood can do is be a really good bridge guy in the middle of that bullpen to get to the back end, no matter who it is in there. He’s going to be given a shot to win a job in the rotation. I hope he doesn’t win it because I don’t think he’s that good as a starter. I also believe that if the Royals are going to win, they’re going to need some pitcher to step up and provide middle of the rotation or better numbers. I don’t think Wood can do it. Nate Karns would be the guy he’d beat out if he does make the rotation, and I think Karns is a far better option to give that. So I like the signing. The money makes sense. But I also hope he doesn’t start many games for the Royals this year.
• I feel like I talk a lot about payroll in this space, but it’s interesting to many, so I guess that’s okay. We all know that the Royals have stretched the payroll in 2017 already to what will be a level never before seen on opening day. They’re now projected to be over $140 million, and that’s an awful lot of money. What I find interesting is that after this offseason’s activity loaded with backloaded contracts, the Royals 2018 payroll is shaping up to be actually somewhat similar to this year’s. As it stands now, the Royals have $80.75 million guaranteed to nine players. There are a couple tricky situations here. Jorge Soler is guaranteed $4 million in 2018, but he can opt in to the arbitration process. I’m betting he does that because I think he can earn more. And Ian Kennedy has an opt-out in his deal, but if he doesn’t opt out (and I don’t think he will), he gets paid $16 million. So in my mind, I’m taking Soler out and putting Kennedy in and getting to $92.75 million for nine players already committed. Kelvin Herrera, Jorge Soler, Nate Karns and the aforementioned Colon are in the arbitration process, so with those 13 players, I have payroll estimated at $111.25 million with 12 spots needed to fill. Obviously things could change. Players could be dealt and all that, but the idea of a payroll collapse after the 2017 season doesn’t seem as likely as many had believed when this offseason began.