Before I go on, I want to hedge a bet and couch my statement and sit on a fence and do everything that allows me to wriggle away from this opinion if pressed too hard. Okay, maybe it’s not that as much as player comparisons are tricky and just because I’m about to compare Whit to a player we actually know quite well doesn’t mean he’ll follow that career path. I really just thought the comparison was kind of interesting. Let’s take a look and then I’ll get into it.

Age-27 Season

Age-28 Season

Age-29 Season

So it’s obviously not a perfect comparison, but you see a similar progression. And just for fun, check out how both players fared in AAA at the age of 25:

Again, these players aren’t necessarily all that similar, but they’ve had a somewhat similar progression to get where they are today. By this point, you’ve probably realized that Player X is former Royals great, Lorenzo Cain. And at this point, you also probably know that Whit Merrifield changed his training regimen and became a bit of a different player after being passed over for a promotion during the 2015 season after Alex Gordon got hurt.

I’m not here to say that Whit Merrifield will age just like Lorenzo Cain, but it’s worth noting that in the following three seasons from his age-29 season, Cain hit .299/.368/.424 with his typically stellar defense. Upon his move to the Brewers, his walk numbers kicked up with a rate above 11 percent and his strikeout rate continued to impress. Athleticism tends to age pretty well, and Merrifield is a lot closer to the caliber athlete of Cain than many probably realize.

And while Cain has higher value, as you can see from his 11.1 WARP from his age-27 though age-29 season (and that’s 4.3 WARP/600 PA for him in that time) compared to Whit’s 7.9 WARP (2.8/600 PA), I think at least some of that gap can be bridged with Merrifield’s versatility. While Cain is an outstanding defender in center field, and maybe even better than that, Merrifield can handle second base and all three outfield positions well. I think we might even find out in the next few months how well he can handle third base as that seems to be an option for his near future.

You might be wondering if I have a point here, and the answer is that I don’t really. I was thinking that I bet Merrifield and Cain had pretty similar big league career paths, and so far, they do. Also, looking at the comparison made me think about just how athletic Merrifield is and while second basemen don’t tend to age well, I’m not sure classifying him as a second baseman only is really fair to him. He’s more of an athlete who happens to be playing second base. Maybe that’s looking through Royal Blue glasses, but I think there’s a distinction there.

I think it’s fair to make a bit of an assumption and say that Merrifield will be a productive player for the next year or two and maybe even all the way through his arbitration years. The only projection system currently released, Steamer, has Merrifield projected to hit .275/.329/.405. Prior to the season, PECOTA projected him to hit .254/.304/.393 in 2019, but that was before he followed up his breakout season with another very good season. I’d take the big time over on PECOTA and a general over on the current Steamer projection as well.

I do believe trading Merrifield is ultimately what’s best for the team in the long run, but I don’t think it necessarily has to be done tomorrow or even before the season. If the right offer comes, sure, pull the trigger, but I believe Merrifield has a good chance to be more like Cain and give a few more solid years. If the right offer doesn’t come right now, I don’t belief the risk is all that significant to wait.

• With this week’s deadline to add players to the 40-man roster around baseball, a new crop of potential free agents is now out there. Some haven’t reached the open market yet, but there are a couple new names out there. One of interest to me is Derek Dietrich. Now, he was just DFAed, so maybe the Marlins have a deal lined up, but if he reaches the open market, he might be a nice fit for the Royals to play third base for them. It’s not that there’s anything inherently wrong with giving Hunter Dozier and/or Cheslor Cuthbert a chance to earn their future spot on the roster, but I don’t think either one is so important that you don’t try to improve on them. Dietrich has been an above-average hitter for the last four years and recently completed a .265/.330/.421 season. Over the last four years, he’s hit .262/.344/.428 in about 1,700 plate appearances. No he isn’t a star and it’s not like the Royals are looking for someone to put them over the top, but Dietrich is a nice player who could be useful if the Royals end up moving Whit Merrifield at some point, even if that’s unlikely this offseason. And if you look around the diamond, there aren’t many spots where the Royals are likely to even look at outside possibilities. On a vaguely related note, it’s too bad the Royals aren’t looking to compete because now that CJ Cron is available, he’d be a hell of a nice fit with Ryan O’Hearn in a platoon situation, but I digress.
• As for the players the Royals did protect – Scott Blewett, Josh Staumont and Arnaldo Hernandez – I think those are interesting choices. Hernandez was one of the more interesting cases they had, and while I’m not surprised they did add him to the 40-man, I wasn’t sure they’d do it. I think Blewett was sort of on the bubble before his strong Arizona Fall League performance, but I am a little surprised Jecksson Flores didn’t get added. He maybe isn’t a true shortstop, but he can handle the position and broke through big time in 2018 offensively. I think the odds are that he doesn’t get picked, so it’s not that big of a deal, but I just thought he had a shot. In all three of the pitchers they did add, I think they all have an opportunity to impact the big league club. Staumont, in particular, seems like a decent bet to make the club out of spring training after he’s spent parts of the last two seasons in AAA. If the Royals are serious about using their bullpen differently next year, they’ll need a lot of pitchers who can ride the taxi, since they’ll need guys who can work multiple innings, which means they’ll need to find fresh arms wherever they can. After 2017 when they had so few pitchers with any options, it’ll be nice to be able to have some serious roster flexibility.
• I’m a little surprised that there wasn’t more hand wringing over some of the Royals decisions, but I think it’s worth noting that the Royals have a pretty darn good track record of picking the right people to add to the 40-man and protect them from the Rule 5. Even if players like Merrifield should have been picked, they had a great read over what other teams would do and haven’t really lost anyone of note. I’m talking more specifically about Frank Schwindel than anyone. I wrote during the season that Schwindel was probably the guy to earn the callup over O’Hearn, and that’s still true even after what O’Hearn did, but that doesn’t mean that he’s likely to be selected. Guys who are first base only and aren’t that great of a hitter aren’t going to be picked all that often. That’s not to say that a contending team wouldn’t see him as a bench bat who could do something for them, but I’d be surprised if he’s taken this year, just like I’d have been surprised if he was taken last year. As we saw in 2018, if he continues to hit, he’ll likely earn his shot at some point during the season, so I guess we’ll just see how that goes.
• I think it’s fair to be a little more optimistic about the offense heading into 2019 than we were prior to the 2018 season. Looking at the TAv metric on Baseball Prospectus, the Royals leaders (other than Ian Kennedy) were Ryan O’Hearn (.323), Jorge Soler (.291), Adalberto Mondesi (.284), Merrifield (.284), Mike Moustakas (.273), Jon Jay (.263) and Brian Goodwin (.263). Of those seven, you might notice that five of them will be back with the team next season and will likely all play big roles, if healthy. Maybe more important is that the vast majority of the bottom of the barrel won’t be back with the team next season. That’s a big reason why I think the Royals could easily jump 12-15 wins from last year. It’s no guarantee obviously, but they have a real strong opportunity to replace all the players from last season who were so far below replacement level with maybe guys who aren’t quite so bad. It’s at least a good thought that was a big reason why they showed improvement down the stretch. Eliminate the horrendous players and you can typically find yourself at least in the realm of respectable.

• Prospect lists are starting to come out, and it’s not a surprise that the Royals sytem isn’t highly regarded yet, but the prospect people out there are starting to come around on how the system is developing nicely. A BP subscription is required for the top prospect list on the home site, but the prevailing opinion is that the system has some serious potential. It’s no surprise to see Seuly Matias at the top of these rankings after he was the Royals only top-100 prospect prior to last season and then went out and showed off that prodigious power. What is a surprise is that John Sickels had him ranked number 11 after this season when he was number nine last year. If a guy with the power and potential of Matias is ranked 11th, the system is in pretty darn good shape, I think. And not that you asked, but here’s my top ten…for now:
  1. Khalil Lee
  2. Nicky Lopez
  3. Daniel Lynch
  4. Seuly Matias
  5. MJ Melendez
  6. Jackson Kowar
  7. Brady Singer
  8. Nick Pratto
  9. Yefri Del Rosario
  10. Kyle Isbel
  It should be noted that I’ve moved people around about 40 times here, which shows just how many interchangeable parts there are because the system lacks a true elite prospect. But there are some steady guys like Lopez, Isbel and Kowar in there and some potential star power like Matias, Lee and Melendez. It’s not there yet, but the system is definitely on the rise and will get the benefit of the number two pick in a few months.
• Yesterday, Clint talked about some minor league free agents who have ties to the Royals and a few they might want to look at. So I did some highly professional stat scouting and want to add a few guys to his list the Royals might have interest in as minor league free agents. Josh Martin has had some minor league success in Cleveland’s organization as a relief arm. He was a Padres Rule 5 pick prior to the 2017 season and didn’t stick, but he’s had success. He’d be worth a look. Johnny Barbato was horrible with the Tigers this year, but he was dominant in Toledo and carries a mid-90s fastball. Maybe he’d be horrible, but on a minor league deal, this 26-year old would be an interesting guy to look at to help shore up the bullpen. Tyler Higgins was in the independent league last year before the Mariners picked him up and he was fantastic for Tacoma down the stretch, throwing 35 innings in 28 games while striking out 38 and walking just nine. It’s not like there’s a ton of upside with any of these guys, but that’s why they’re minor league free agents. They’re certainly worth shots. And if you like the guys who have been there, done that, Jose Ramirez and Jake Petricka are out there and Zach Lee, a former top prospect, can be had as well. There are certainly some options for the Royals to sift through. Hopefully, they can find the next Ryan Madson and not the next Justin Grimm.
• The first group of projections is out as Steamer has been released, and there are some interesting ones for the Royals. I have a feeling most fans aren’t going to be pleased with projections for guys like Adalberto Mondesi and Ryan O’Hearn after their fantastic finish to the season. The issue for both is that they have a limited track record prior to this year and what they do have to look back on is unimpressive. Mondesi’s projection is to hit .252/.291/.434, which is actually pretty good considering what he did prior to 2018. O’Hearn’s is at .234/.309/.420, which is also pretty good considering his limited upper level minor league success prior to his callup. Some other notable projections are Whit Merrifield (.274/.329/.405, I’ll take the over on all that) and Jorge Soler (.243/.335/.437, yeah, that’s probably about right). The SLG leader is Salvador Perez at .451. Soler’s .335 OBP paces the offense. And 2.9 WAR is projected for both Perez and Mondesi. On the pitching side, it’s not pretty, but really why would it be? It’s based on past results, comparable players and aging patterns, so it’s no surprise that the projections are poor. Tim Hill and Richard Lovelady are the only two Royals projected for a sub-4.00 ERA and the next two projected are Jesse Hahn and Reid Redman, so yeah, there’s that.
• The AL Central is such a disaster. You’ve got the Tigers in the beginning stages of a lengthy rebuild. The Royals are right there with them. Both teams could pop up quicker with some surprises, but neither team is likely to be good until 2021 at the earliest. You’ve got the White Sox, who seem to have quite a bit of talent but are missing enough that they’re still no good. They might spend this year, or at least try to, but they’re not there yet. Then you’ve got the Twins, who are kind of in no-man’s land. They have some talent, though the building blocks they thought they had in Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano had such bad 2018 seasons that they have no idea if they really are building blocks. And then there’s the Indians with a stranglehold on the division, a Cy Young candidate, another pitcher on the fringe and a couple other really good starters to go along with two of the top 15 players in baseball in their infield and they’re talking about trading players to start reloading. The Indians will probably win 90 games even if they do deal Corey Kluber, but come on. I understand the economics of baseball and all that, but go for the damn kill here. The Red Sox, Yankees and Astros are all top top tier right now, but the Indians can go toe to toe with them and win a World Series. To even suggest they might tear it down now seems shortsighted and silly to me and annoys me way more than it should. I don’t really have a point here other than that, but I had to get it off my chest.

The Royals are in a position where they have a hard time fitting on the trade market. They’re not on the brink of a teardown. That’s already happened. They’re not on the brink of winning. That’s yet to come. They’re kind of figuring out what they have in their young players right now and are a year away at a minimum from supplementing that young group of players they have. Even so, that doesn’t mean they can’t play a key role this week. Plus, with all the GMs in one place, it’s easy to find rumors out there because they and the agents tend to be so easily accessible.

Who You’ll Hear About

There aren’t many players the Royals are going to shop this winter, but you never know when the right offer might come along. And aside from the idea that everyone is available for the right price, these are the players (in alphabetical order) who you’re most likely to see a rumor about this week.

Jorge Bonifacio - The Royals can’t be thrilled with Bonifacio after his 2018 season. He was decent offensively as a rookie, and I still think he got a raw deal with the Melky Cabrera acquisition. He came to camp in great shape and was the second best player on the field, but then got popped for PEDs. Maybe he was in such great shape because of them and that’s why he was playing so well too, but it was a big blow. Now the Royals have a bit of a logjam after they acquired both Brian Goodwin and Brett Phillips. Between Bonifacio and Soler, the Royals might very well just have too many players and they might be interested in jettisoning the one who they’re disappointed in. It’d be selling low if you believe there’s more to Boni, but a team like the Braves might be interested in him as they look to fill their RF spot via trade this winter. They’re not getting much back for him, but the roster space might be worth it. Personally, I’d hold on to him to see if he can rebound, but I think I like Boni more than most.

Danny Duffy - Speaking of selling low, the ship has likely sailed on the Royals trading Duffy, if that ship was ever even at the dock. A lot of people were clamoring for the Royals to move him last year, and I get why they didn’t. Even though he had a decent season, it had ended with another elbow injury and a legal issue, which probably negated his value. Given his standing with the team and in the community, I believe the Royals were right to not sell for pennies on the dollar. If he rebuilt his value with a good and healthy season, sure, explore trade possibilities this winter. With three years left on his deal, he’s still valuable. Unfortunately, he wasn’t really good or healthy this season, so they’re not moving him, but his name will likely be mentioned at least a few times.

Ian Kennedy - If the Royals could get out from under some of his deal, I’m sure they’d be ecstatic. It’s not happening, but he’s getting closer to not being completely impossible to move due to salary. He has $33 million left over the next two years, so the Royals would have to pay down probably two-thirds of that at this point, but if he pitches as he did after coming off the DL (25 IP, 18 K, 6 BB, 2.88 ERA, 2 HR allowed), maybe a team will get desperate in June or July and the Royals will only have to pay like 40 percent of what’s left. There will almost certainly be no deal this week or this offseason for Kennedy, but I bet his name gets out there, mostly by the Royals doing.

Whit Merrifield - Whit is the best trade chip the Royals have and the guy they honestly probably should move. But unless some team gets really stupid (and they might), it’s not happening either. With four years of team control left and a continuously improving bat and overall game, Merrifield is very valuable. He’s also about to 30 and the aging curve isn’t what it was during the steroid era. I’m personally torn here because I love Merrifield and would love to see him with the Royals for as long as possible. His two best positions, second base and center field, both have young solutions in the organization who are both at least close to ready. The Royals are likely going to want a top 30 prospect, top 75 prospect and two more for Whit. They’d likely get offered a top 50-60 prospect and two more, with one maybe being in the back of the top 100. I don’t think they’d jump at that, but you’ll probably hear about it starting this week.

Salvador Perez - They’re not moving Perez. That won’t stop him from being in rumors. Salvy is a free agent after the 2021 season, though I don’t see him going anywhere unless something happens in the next three seasons. Catchers across baseball hit .233/.304/.374, so even though Salvy is OBP-challenged, his bat is a breath of fresh air. His contract isn’t nearly as friendly as people make it out to be, but he’d have some really good value in a deal.

Jorge Soler - I’ve long thought the Royals should move Soler at the first chance they get, and it’s not because I don’t like him. I think he has the best chance to be a middle of the order masher of anyone in the organization right now. He smokes the ball, works walk and his prodigious power. We saw glimpses of it this year before the broken foot ended his season. But that’s just it. It’s always something. Either he’s hurt or he’s in a massive slump or it’s both. The times it’s all clicked for him have been few and far between, but the talent is so clearly there that he has value, especially considering he’s under a very reasonable contract and has three more years of team control. If I had to bet on a move being made from one of these six players, I’d bet on one of Soler or Bonifacio being traded. Soler might bring back a reliever the team actually covets, so he might be the better bet to go if teams are convinced he’ll be healthy.

If they make a trade from the big league level, the odds are that they’ll be targeting either a prospect who is about a million years away or a reliever. It’s so hard to say who they might look to get on that market, but the fact is that they are going to be looking for relief help this offseason and want to pay as little as possible. Of course, the good relievers who aren’t expensive and have team control are going to cost quite a bit in terms of trade equity, so I’m not sure anything will get it done, but it’s who they’ll look toward.

My guess is it’ll be all quiet for the Royals for most of the offseason. It’s easy to predict that. But you never know. The GM meetings are a great opportunity to lay the groundwork for something down the road, so we may not end up seeing the fruits of this week until July or even later. And hey, I love rumor season, so the GMs all in one place with agents not too far behind definitely works for me.

This year, people weren’t as upset with PECOTA. Hard to imagine. The Royals were projected to be one of the worst teams in baseball and lo and behold, they were. It’s no surprise given the exodus of talent. They actually underperformed their team projection for a lot of the same reason they overperformed in the past. It was about the bullpen. The projection was not for the bullpen to be a complete tire fire like it was, at least early in the year, and therefore accounted for a few extra wins. But I’ve gone on long enough defending PECOTA. I want to look at a few individual offensive projections of players who we expect to see big playing time in 2019 just to see how far off or close it actually was.

Hunter Dozier

Dozier is another player without much of a sample to go by, but given that, I think the projections were surprisingly good. He actually hit for a bit less power than projected, but he had a hand/wrist injury early in the year that a computer can’t account for. He walked at a better rate than projected, but he had the same contact issues the system believed he would and had almost exactly the XBH/PA ratio projected of him. He’ll be in his age-27 season next year, so I imagine his projection will show some improvement, but he’s going to need to best last year’s projection to have a spot in the future.

Alex Gordon

After a couple down seasons, Gordon’s PECOTA projection was actually predicting a bit of an uptick, but not a return to a top hitter. It was surprisingly close, though the power projection was a little much. As far as counting stats go, PECOTA basically nailed it. Really, I’d call this a big win for the projections. I mean look at that TAv. I’d expect something similar next season, though maybe a touch below what he put up this year as it accounts for aging.

Whit Merrifield

In some ways, they nailed it with Whit. In other ways (most ways?), not so much. He was only projected for 330 plate appearances, so some of the counting stats were pretty low, but some of it was pretty right on. It’s interesting in some ways to me that his ISO was basically nailed as was his strikeout percentage. The walk rate was way higher than expected and it probably didn’t hurt that his BABIP was a good 50 points higher than the projected. But even though he outperformed his xBABIP, his speed helps to give him a bit of an edge there. I’d expect a bit of regression in the average next year, but I’m guessing PECOTA will be more on board with Whit in 2019.

Adalberto Mondesi

I feel like Mondesi is one of those instances where critics of projection systems would point to its flaws, but for a guy who hit .181/.226/.271 in 209 big league plate appearances coming into the season, there’s reason to think the above projection was actually quite generous. It was banking on improvement with age and a strong showing in AAA translating to the big leagues a little more than previously, but instead, the projection missed on just about everything with the exception of projecting a high strikeout rate. The .299 BABIP projection seemed a little light give his speed and he bested that by a lot at a not crazy .335 (.322 xBABIP). The projections are going to be all over the place on Mondesi for a couple years at least as he gets some data on his side.

Ryan O’Hearn

This one is just sort of fun because he’s a guy who exploded sort of out of nowhere. PECOTA did believe in his power, but man he still way outperformed it. There’s not much I think we can glean from this since O’Hearn’s emergence was so crazy, but I just think it’s fun to look at the numbers.

Salvador Perez

The belief in the PECOTA system was that the power would decrease for Perez while the hit tool wouldn’t decline quite as fast as it appears it might be. In fewer plate appearances than projected, Salvy hit six more home runs and struck out 11 more times. The end result wasn’t too far off with the TAv being within just a few points, but the way he got there was definitely not predicted by the projections here.

Jorge Soler

His season was cut short by yet another injury, but this projection was pretty amazing in a lot of areas. Look at that ISO, walk rate and strikeout rate. He ended up just hitting for a better average than projected which bumped everything up a bit, but some of that is an elite BABIP of .340. He does hit the ball hard and runs pretty well, so he could be a guy to run a high one and it’s not that much higher than his career number of .321, but that appears to be the difference between reality and the projection. I think PECOTA will be quite bullish on Soler from a rate stat standpoint, though I could see him getting a big ding in playing time predictions due to injuries.

I’m a big fan of the projections because a) it’s something to talk about toward the end of a long offseason and b) it’s always fun to predict ahead of time which are bullish, which are bearish and which are right on. Plus, it’s fun at the end of the year to compare a few. And yeah, it’s nice when they’re outperformed by your favorite team too.

• Clint has written a couple really interesting pieces looking at the 2009 system vs. the 2019 system and the comparisons (pitchers here and hitters here). One thing that stands out to me is that I do believe there is additional depth in the system at the expense of star power right now as compared to a decade ago. But given the changes the organization has made in those 10 years, I’d actually bet on the depth coming through and maybe putting a more sustained winner on the field than what we saw from that last group that came from the best farm system anyone had ever seen to that point. You certainly can’t argue with a world championship and two AL pennants, but I think an argument can be made (and I’ve made it) that they still underachieved individually. Eric Hosmer never became a star. Neither did Mike Moustakas. They didn’t get an ace out of the system, though with the tragic passing of Yordano Ventura, maybe that was taken away too soon. I believe that their development is so different today than it was 10 years ago that they have an opportunity to turn their additional depth into more winning. Maybe they don’t have the marquee prospect right now, but they should after the June draft and likely should get another one in the 2020 draft with a relatively high pick. We’ve already seen the system working much better in churning out guys like Jakob Junis and Whit Merrifield. Maybe I’m wrong and nothing will be different, but they just do such a better job today in development than a decade ago that I’d actually bet on the depth maybe even putting up better numbers than the star prospects they once had. The biggest thing for me is the pitching development has gone from archaic to much more open-minded, and I will all but guarantee they’ll be rewarded for that in the near future.
• It seems like a lot of people are down on Brett Phillips. And I get it to some extent because he was underwhelming offensively after coming over in the July trade. That might be an understatement. He hit .188/.252/.313 and struck out an astonishing 50 times in 123 plate appearances. So yeah, it was bad. But I find it odd that some of what I’ve seen has people so sure that he can’t hit. He hit .279/.360/.475 in the minors in 2,760 plate appearances. He hit .276/.351/.448 in 98 plate appearances in the big leagues in 2017. He had a 10.5 percent minor league walk rate and is at 8.2 percent in his limited big league action. He swings and misses way too much, and that will be a problem, but I just think it’s pretty silly to write him off. He wasn’t exactly hitting well before he hurt his shoulder, but he went 3 for 23 with no extra base hits and 10 strikeouts after he came back and admitted he wasn’t playing at 100 percent. I honestly don’t know why they insisted on playing him when they had plenty of other outfield options available. I think all that last three weeks did was hurt the perception of him among fans and put him in a position to fail. I’m not saying Phillips is a surefire star or anything, but we have to remember the Royals picked him up in exchange for two months of a guy who had to wait until March to sign because there was so little demand for him. I still like him and if he can be a .240/.300/.410 hitter even, there’s a place for him in the big leagues. I get maybe being a little disappointed in his start with the Royals, but to write him off now seems pretty silly to me.
• As the Royals look to build back up to a World Series contender, one thing they’ve mentioned quite a bit is speed and defense, which I believe will be a hallmark of every good Royals team ever. They’ve got some work to do on the defense side. I did mention a few weeks ago that the outfield could be near elite next season with the right pieces in the right spots, but looking at Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA), there’s definitely room for growth. Mike Moustakas was the team’s best defender by that metric with Jon Jay third best and Lucas Duda amazingly eighth best. The positive is that Phllips was worth 4.6 runs while Whit Merrifield, Alex Gordon, Adalberto Mondesi (in half a season) and Ryan O’Hearn all rated positively. I’m a little surprised on O’Hearn as he looked stiff and indecisive at first base, but the metrics say otherwise. Alcides Escobar ranked near the bottom for the team, so him hopefully going elsewhere will help, but the big concern for me is Hunter Dozier. He was worth -13.3 runs last season between mostly first and third. You can’t be that rough defensively and hit .229/.278/.395. And even with the optimism over his last couple months, he still hit just .256/.293/.467 in his final 48 games. Dozier is in a big time important season in 2019 for him if he wants to have a big league career, with the Royals or elsewhere. He did look smoother at third as the season went on, but defense is very important to the Royals and their infield defense appears to be more important than ever before as they began getting more and more groundballs from their pitching staff. He’s in the crosshairs this year.
• And finally, just something a little quirky to look at. I wanted to see the Royals record by run differential to see if they had a winning record at any run differential this season. If you predicted they did not, you are correct. They were 1-1 when the difference was 10. You might recall they beat the Mariners in April by a 10-0 score back when they could only win when they threw a shutout. But, alas, the Blue Jays beat them 15-5, so there went that. The next closest they came to a winning record was going 11-14 when the margin of victory was two runs. So yeah. Just another way to look back at the 2018 club and realize just how bad they were.

Not a bad little idea Ned had. That’s actually the kind of Nedism that probably earned him at least one more year at the helm, as his extension was announced prior to game 162, Sunday afternoon. Rather than another start to put an exclamation point on an exemplary season for Brad Keller, who had nothing left to prove, Yost instead put Skoglund on the mound against the division champs and said, “Let’s see it.”

Even though it didn’t result in a win—and I can’t recount how many times I’ve typed something to that effect this year—it gave Skoglund a nice end to the campaign and provided another building block, however slight, as the franchise seeks to frame up the future.

‘Twas an auspicious beginning for the Royals. Skoglund booted a Francisco Lindor bouncer to open the game and of course, Lindor made him pay with a steal of second, a steal of third and of course, coming across to score when Alcides Escobar failed to haul in Meibrys Viloria’s throw.

Good old Esky, one more rancid play in a season full of them. There will always be 2015.

Lindor led off the third with a homer in the third but the Royals broke through in the fifth. Brian Goodwin led off with a single, stole second and moved to third on Escobar’s groundout. Brett Phillips walked and then Viloria singled to score Goodwin.

That’s more or less the things that happened, baseball-wise, that you probably care about—Ryan O’Hearn made a nice diving stop in the second inning—but two moments stood out. In the eighth, Whit Merrifield singled, swiped second and moved to third on a throwing catcher by Eric Haase. He locked up the MLB lead in hits (192) and steals (45)—the seventh player in MLB history to do that—and will enter next season with a 20-game hit streak intact.

In the ninth, with two outs and a runner on first, Escobar stepped to the plate. Hero, goat, All-Star, sub-replacement player—Esky has worn many hats over his Kansas City career. He received a well-deserved ovation and as I was thinking, “Boy, a walk-off homer would be the perfect cap to his career,” he hit a little dribbler to the mound and like that, his tenure—and the 2018 season for the Kansas City Royals—came to a close.

Your Tweet of Despair

About Esky’s last game as a Royal… anybody else able to confirm this? Because it’s too terrifying to contemplate.

Esky isn’t done. Dayton basically just said on #Royals radio in so many words there is an excellent chance Esky will be back in utility role.

— Chris (@bballkansas) September 30, 2018

The Bright Spot: Merrifield finished the season as the big-league leader in hits and stolen bases. Please stop the “Trade Whit!” narrative; he’s worth more to the Royals than to anyone else. Remember when he wasn’t an All-Star? That was stupid.

The Nadir: No Royals baseball for six months. While the losing got old after a while*, baseball is fun. Baseball is fun and good to watch and little moments like Whit Merrifield getting a standing O as much for surviving as anything else make the day-in, day-out drudgeries worth it.

*- It got old after about six games.

The Next Step: 2019. What will it hold? Promise, if September was any indication. Maybe they’ll lose 100 games again, but they won’t do it in the same soul-crushing fashion they seemed content to do in April, May and June. Until then, thanks for reading me roughly half the time. Clint, David and the other dudes will be around all offseason, and I’ll hop in from time to time to give my opinion about whatever happens. Adieu.

And they’ve been this underwhelming even while becoming the first team ever to have four pitchers reach the 200 strikeout mark. Their top four starters are top notch, but a struggling bullpen has led to some issues. The potential is there for true greatness with Brad Hand, Andrew Miller and Cody Allen, but it just hasn’t been there due to both injuries and poor performance. It’s worth noting that these four games will be tune-up games for the Indians, so their starters aren’t likely to go deep into games, though I guess you never know.

Indians Vitals

Royals vs. Indians

Offense

Pitching

Indians Projected Lineup

Projected Pitching Matchups

Thursday – 7:15 pm

This was pretty much inevitable for Tomlin at some point and the fact that it has held off this long says a lot about him. He doesn’t have good stuff and spends so much time in the strike zone, so eventually he was going to bitten by the long ball more than he had before and this season he’s allowed 24 homers in just 65.2 innings, a total that might make Chris Young blush (sorry, Chris). He still has phenomenal control, but he’s just not missing nearly enough bats and he’s getting hit awfully hard with a barrel rate of 11 percent, nearly double the MLB average. It’s bad. He’s been in and out of the rotation in September, so he’s only a few days removed from throwing 76 pitches in a game, which means if they decide to go awhile with him, he can probably do it. But that said, do you really want him to? He’s allowed a .365/.412/.738 line to lefties while Ryan O’Hearn has absolutely mauled righties. If you’re picking up what I’m putting down and you play daily fantasy, you’re welcome. Of course if you didn’t already know that, you probably shouldn’t be wasting your money.

Sparkman will get his third career start in place of Jorge Lopez who was shut down after his rib injury and bad start his last time out. I do believe Sparkman can be a worthwhile reliever and am doubtful of him long-term in the rotation, though, so I guess it’s similar to a Lopez start. He relieved Lopez in his last outing, throwing 55 pitches over four innings and generally being okay, though the lack of swings and misses has me concerned about his future in any role. Still, it’s nice to see the mid-90s fastball and you’d think a secondary pitch could emerge that we just haven’t seen yet from him in the big leagues. This will be his first time going against Cleveland, so it’ll be a nice test for him even if he does only get bits and pieces of the regular lineup.

Friday – 7:15 pm

I feel like a lot of people are surprised at the season Clevinger is having, but if you watched him last year, you shouldn’t be. The stuff plays, and now that he’s got his walk rate under control, it plays even better. He’s deceptive too, which makes him incredibly difficult to hit. So while it’s surprising that he’s gotten to this point, I don’t think it is based on last season. He’s also been hit harder by lefties than righties, though not to the extent of Tomlin. That said, 13 of the 21 homers he’s allowed have been to lefties and 33 of the 58 extra base hits. He’s had some first inning struggles, allowing six home runs and 17 runs in his 31 starts, and the Royals know all about that having scored three in the first against him a few weeks ago at home before getting shut down by him the rest of the way. Including that start, he’s faced the Royals four times this year and gone 2-0 with a 2.33 ERA with just two home runs allowed (to Alex Gordon and Salvador Perez). So my guess here is that the Royals will be happy if they do treat this as a shorter tune-up.

If we’re being honest, I’d have never guessed that Kennedy has thrown more than 100 innings this season. I actually forgot he existed while he was on the disabled list. All that said, it’s hard to argue with the results in his three starts since he’s been back. He’s gone 19 innings, allowed 17 hits, six runs (four earned) with 16 strikeouts and five walks and posted a 1.89 ERA. He’s generally actually been really good. Of course, he’s been facing teams with nothing to play for but the offseason, but still, it’s better to be good in your only sample than bad. He’s faced Cleveland once this year and was outstanding, going six shutout innings and striking out eight to pick up his first win of the season. It was roughly four degrees that day, so that helped, but again, good results are better than bad.

Saturday – 6:15 pm

Kluber probably isn’t going to win another Cy Young, but he definitely belongs in the conversation as he currently leads the American League in innings pitched and has some excellent results. For him, a mid-season funk of sorts probably cost him the award. He went 8-4 with a 3.94 ERA in 15 starts from June 16^th to September 18^th, which bumped his ERA from 2.10 to 2.93. Now, he was outstanding in his last start against the White Sox, going seven shutout inning with 11 strikeouts, but the overall numbers are probably a cut below the other candidates. The question that I think is fair to ask with Kluber is just how worn down he is. Since the start of 2014, he’s thrown 1,127 innings and faced 4,463 batters. That’s a lot. This year against the Royals, he’s 3-1 with a 3.24 ERA in four starts, but he’s been hit hard at Kauffman Stadium where he’s posted a 6.35 ERA and allowed eight runs on 16 hits in 11.1 innings. This game is, in fact, at Kauffman Stadium.

Junis had his first meh start of the year against the Tigers last time out, and it might be part of marring a really strong finish for him after allowing four runs on eight hits in three innings the time out before that one. But no homers allowed is a good thing, given the season he’s had, so he gets one last chance to go into the offseason on a high note. I’ll run the numbers as I do every start for him, but since coming off the DL, he’s gone 3-2 with a 3.38 ERA in 12 starts spanning 69.1 innings with eight home runs allowed. He’s struck out 66 and walked just 14. That’ll play. He’s been hit hard by Cleveland a couple times this year, but his last time out against them earlier this month, he allowed just two hits over seven shutout innings. More of that would be a nice way to finish his year.

Sunday – 2:15 pm

The 2018 season wraps up with the Royals seeing Carlos Carrasco somehow for the first time since April 6^th when he went six innings and gave up two runs on five hits. Now, think back to that time. Giving up two runs against the Royals then was basically like giving up five or six to a real team, so maybe that wasn’t such a great start. Of course, he is a legitimately very good pitcher and has found his way to another fully healthy, very good season. He strikes out a ton of hitters, doesn’t give up a crazy amount of hits and doesn’t walk guys. No, he isn’t an ace, but he’s a heck of a number two. If you’re looking for a weakness, he’s actually been at his worst when he’s first starting a game, though that’s if you can call that his “worst” as he’s given up a .253/.287/.406 line. Still, though, he’s allowed 10 of the 21 homers he’s allowed all season in just 35 percent of the plate appearances. He’s 10-6 with a 3.55 ERA in 23 games against the Royals in his career. Whit Merrifield has really enjoyed hitting against him in 16 plate appearances, putting up a .500/.533/1.000 line. That’ll play.

And the season wraps up with Eric Skoglund throwing the first pitch, so that’s…something. Though I should be fair to say that he’s been really good since he came off the DL and I was actually disappointed that his last start got cut short because of the rain delay in Cincy. In four games, he’s gone 15.1 innings and given up just eight hits and two runs to lower his ERA by 1.3 runs. He’ll be making his third career start against the Indians. The first two were both last year and didn’t go so well. He lasted 3.1 innings combined and allowed 11 runs on 11 hits with three strikeouts and four walks. So yeah. Happy last day of the season!

This is the toughest series of the year to predict because who knows how the Indians are going to play it? Do they want to stay completely fresh and everyone will play or do they want to take the opportunity to rest guys and play their bench a little bit before the postseason? My guess is we don’t see guys for too long unless they need the reps like maybe Josh Donaldson. I’m going to go out on a true limb here and say the Royals take three of four and give us some warm and fuzzy feelings to take into the offseason.

• 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.

As the launch angle revolution has taken root and baseball has evolved into a game more about hitting dingers and less about keeping the line moving, larceny on the bases has seemingly fallen out of favor.

That doesn’t mean the steal still doesn’t have it’s place in the game. Especially in Kansas City. And especially in the second half of the season.

Just like old times, speed in general and stolen bases specifically are working to their advantage. 

There have been myriad studies done on the stolen base and the success rate that is deemed the break-even point. It fluctuates from season to season and depends on a number of factors, but it generally resides around the 70 percent rate, give or take a few points. Using an equation developed by Bradley Woodrum at Fangraphs in a quest to more accurately peg the break-even rate, the Royals point for stolen base success rate so far this year is at 67.3 percent. 

This is positive news, given they are successful around 74 percent of the time. That means the Royals are using the stolen base to advance their offense, which is a very good thing, especially given their first half struggles to generate runs. 

For the Royals this year, the steal is largely limited to a couple of players. You know that Whit Merrifield is in the mix to lead the league for the second consecutive season. Alex Gordon has been running more, reaching double digits in swipes for the first time since 2014. Alcides Escobar hasn’t looked the same on the bases since he was taken out by Brett Lawrie at second base on a double play attempt back in 2015, but he’s picking his spots much better and is enjoying a strong success rate this year. Those three have experienced nice success on the bases, but as you are assuredly aware, those three were mainstays in the lineup during the first half of the year while the offense was sputtering. 

The most important thief was added to the roster in mid-June, although he didn’t ratchet up the stolen base pressure until the second half. Now, they’re running wild.

The addition of Adalberto Mondesi to the everyday lineup has been a high-octane speed injection the Royals desperately needed.

The Royals like to run, and since the All-Star break, Mondesi has formed one half of a dynamic duo of larceny along with Merrifield. Through games Sunday, they are the sixth-most aggressive team in baseball when it comes to taking advantage of their stolen base opportunities. (A stolen base opportunity is defined by Baseball Reference as a plate appearance where a runner was on first or second with the next base open.) By dividing a club’s number of stolen base attempts (adding successful swipes and caught stealing) by their number of opportunities, we can get a rate of how frequently they look to take advantage. This year the league average team is running in 5.12 percent of their stolen base opportunities and is successful 72 percent of the time. Currently, there are nine teams running in greater than six percent of their opportunities. 

Nearly every team at the top of the stolen base opportunity percentage leader board is converting those attempts into a solid success rate. The Royals have moved up the leaderboard in the second half, powered by Mondesi, who has been running with abandon.

Individually, there are 12 players who have attempted to swipe a bag in over 20 percent of their opportunities. It won’t surprise you those players are the current speed merchants in today’s game. All of these burners – save two – have stolen more than 20 bags. However, there is a massive gap between the player at the top of the leaderboard and the number two spot.

Mondesi is running as if his career depended upon it, lapping the field by 15 percentage points in taking advantage of his opportunities to steal. Fifteen percentage points! It’s an astonishing rate, even if his sample size is decidedly smaller than most of the group represented above. He’s stealing almost half the time he’s on base with the next bag open. (The list includes all players with more than 200 plate appearances. That seemingly arbitrary number was selected to include Mondesi, who has 231 PAs through games Sunday.) Merrifield, for reference, is 19th in baseball in utilizing his stolen base opportunities, running 16 percent of the time. 

In the first half of the season, the Royals scored an average of 3.5 runs per game. In the second half, they’ve upped their offense and their running game, plating 4.3 R/G. The Process 2.0 is still just getting started, but it’s easy to feel better about what we’ve seen since the All-Star Break. It’s not a coincidence that this run of moderate late season success has come as the team jettisoned some veterans and turned their attention to youth. And speed.

Mondesi is the primary motor of the moment. He’s hitting the ball hard, playing strong defense and running wild on the bases. This is the glimpse of the future we were hoping we would find in 2018. It’s amazing what some regular playing time and a little confidence can do. Along with his partner in base stealing crime, Merrifield, these speedsters are creating a helluva threat at the top of the order. Speed doesn’t slump and if the table setters at the top of the order can continue to reach base, the near future suddenly doesn’t look so bleak.