My ballot for the Royals 2023 player awards

It's hardware season!

This was the fifth year I had a ballot for the Royals postseason award extravaganza. (It’s not really an extravaganza per se, but I feel like anything with an award attached should be elevated to extravaganza status.)

It’s a fun exercise that I enjoy probably more than I should because who thought some crank with a newsletter could be trusted with such an important task? It’s an extravaganza, remember? It’s not like they’re going to let me vote for AL Manager of the Year, so I’ll take whatever scraps I can find.

Before I disclose who I voted for, here are your winners…

For the second year in a row, this wasn’t a contest. For the second year in a row, it was an easy decision for me. And for the second year in a row, Bobby Witt Jr. claimed my vote and the hardware for Royals Player of the Year. He’s the best player on one of the worst teams in baseball. That’s just a fact. The good news: he’s here, he’s real and he’s damn spectacular.

I still think about this walkoff grand slam far too much to be considered healthy. The way he pulls in his hands to stay inside a 101.7 MPH fastball is completely bonkers.

The ball went 414 feet. Again, far too much time obsessing over this. But so worth it. It’s going to keep me warm this winter.

You know the details. The first 30-30 season in Royals history. He was one measly steal short of going 30-50, which is just insane. He led the club in hits, doubles, triples, home runs, total bases, runs, RBI, steals, batting average (among qualifiers), slugging, OPS, wRC+ and OPS+.

If I said I had more than one Bobby Witt Jr gif, would that be of interest to you?

Just a random dinger in a random May game against the Orioles. On a hanger. Punished.

He did all of this while flashing much-improved defense at shortstop. This was a moment early in the season, but it’s becoming his signature play at shortstop. I can’t remember anybody who can go back and get a popup like Witt can from his position.

If anyone in the Royals front office is reading, I have one more gif…

A brief Bobby Witt Jr. award interlude…

As you are aware, our man at shortstop was not among the finalists for the Gold Glove awards. He is, however, a finalist for the Silver Slugger award at the position. (The term “finalist” is relative here as the award tabulation has already been conducted. He’s among the top three.) As noted last week, World Series MVP Corey Seager is the prohibitive favorite here.

In the true spirit of “finalist,” on Wednesday, Witt was revealed as one for something called the All-MLB team. He’s among the ahem, nine nominees for the first or second-team nod. The competition:

Orlando Arcia, ATL
Bo Bichette, TOR
J.P. Crawford, SEA
Gunnar Henderson, BAL
Francisco Lindor, NYM
Corey Seager, TEX
Dansby Swanson, CHC
Trea Turner, PHI
Bobby Witt Jr., KC

Just for fun, here are the top nine shortstops as ranked by fWAR:

Corey Seager - 6.1
Francisco Lindor - 6.0
Bobby Witt Jr. - 5.7
Dansby Swanson - 4.9
J.P. Crawford - 4.9
Gunnar Henderson - 4.6
Xander Boegarts - 4.4
Bo Bichette - 3.8
Trea Turner - 3.8

I carry on about how great Witt is, but it’s a bit jarring even to me to see him in the top tier of shortstops in 2023. That’s some really heady company at a premium position.

So how is this All-MLB team thing decided? I’m delighted you asked!

Fan voting will account for half of the selection process, with the other 50% coming from a decorated panel of media members, broadcasters, former players and other officials throughout the game.

This is my favorite note about the process:

When casting their ballots, voters are asked to consider only performance during the regular season.

Hilarious. Voters are just going to ignore Seager going bananas in October. Right. I mean, he’s deserving of the first-team selection, but still. I expect Trea Turner to get some hefty fan consideration given how he finished the season and performed in the playoffs for the Phillies. And the Philadelphia fanbase is “Vote Omar” kind of nuts.

Anyway, the Royals’ PR machine was ready and you can expect a steady stream of encouragement over the next 10 days to turn out the vote. As you are undoubtedly aware, it can be difficult to generate national notoriety when you’re on a Central Division club that loses 100 games on the regular. I think Witt is a worthy finalist and one who deserves plenty of consideration.

Thirty-six players threw at least one inning for the Royals this year, a staff that can best be described as a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

As I have previously written, when I look at a pitcher of the year award, the first thing I look at is innings pitched. Workload counts for quite a bit with the increasing micromanagement of pitches delivered and times through the order. Remember a few years ago when Dayton Moore said he wanted to get 1,000 innings from his rotation? The Mariners and Astros were the only staffs who topped 900 innings this year. And even then, it was just barely. They totaled 901.1 innings and 900 innings respectively. The Royals starters provided 785.2 innings, good for 25th place among the 30 teams.

To that end, the Royals had just three starters top the century mark for innings pitched. Jordan Lyles led the staff with 31 starts and 177.2 innings pitched. I did not consider him for my selection for Royals Pitcher of the Year. Brady Singer threw 159.2 innings. I thought about him for a total of two minutes before he joined Lyles in the discard pile. Zack Greinke was the third at 142.1 innings. As much as I love Greinke, I couldn’t justify a vote for him, either.

When I wash out with the starters, I turn to the bullpen. It’s my bias against relievers. I make no apologies. So Alec Marsh? Carlos Hernández? Taylor Clarke?

No. No. And god no.

Ryan Yarbrough, Jose Cuas, Scott Barlow and Aroldis Chapman were shipped out of town. Daniel Lynch IV spent most of the year on the IL. Kris Bubic had the Tommy John back in April after three starts.

The last man standing was Cole Ragans.

It seems strange that the team’s Pitcher of the Year would go to a guy who wasn’t even in the organization until June 30, didn’t make his debut for the club until he was an emergency starter in the second game of a doubleheader on July 15 and wasn’t on the 26-man roster until the first of August.

It simply underscores how dreadful the Royals’ pitching was in 2023. Which shouldn’t take anything away from Ragans, who was stellar in his 12 starts, posting a 2.49 ERA with an 11.2 SO/9 and 3.4 BB/9.

Profiled by Eno Sarris at The Athletic, Ragans worked out at Tread Athletics in the offseason and the dividends were obvious while he was still with the Rangers. His average fastball velocity jumped from 92.1 MPH to 96.5 MPH. Normally, we would attribute most of that gain from working out of the bullpen as Ragans did with Texas. But then he was throwing just as hard for the Royals in their rotation.

It’s an impressive gain for a pitcher who always had the prospect pedigree but was perhaps lacking the edge to tilt the advantage in his favor. I mean, the guy hit triple digits (99.5 MPH officially) on his 99th and final pitch in a start against the A’s on August 23.

What Ragans was lacking was an out pitch to left-handed batters. Working with the crew at Tread, along with Royals assistant pitching coach Zach Bove once he joined the club, he developed a new slider that was all kinds of filthy.

Opposing batters hit just .180 against the Ragans slider with a .200 slugging percentage. It had a whiff rate just north of 40 percent. He struck out 24 batters with the slider being the final thing those poor hitters saw. It accounted for 21 percent of his strikeout pitches despite being used just 10 percent of the time overall. Yeah, I’d say Ragans’ slider is a weapon.

In a season where not much went right, full credit to the front office in flipping Aroldis Chapman to the Rangers for Ragans, especially given that it was a full month ahead of the deadline. The trade brought the Royals their Pitcher of the Year. Even though he spent just half the year in the organization, Ragans was an easy selection for me.

The special achievement award is kind of odd to me. But I get it. Sometimes a player needs to be recognized if they do something exceptional, even if they weren’t necessarily “the best” player or pitcher on the club.

While this year’s winner was Makiel Garcia, who played exceptional defense at third after moving off his natural position at short, I opted for Freddy Fermin.

Ultimately, I was impressed by Fermin’s overall contributions to the team. A backup catcher is generally a defense-first guy who is really an offensive liability. Not so with Fermin who brought solid defense and pitch framing along with a bat that provided production at a .281/.321/.409 clip, good for a 108 wRC+.

He also provided one of the more memorable wins for the team.

Fermin just quickly became one of my favorite guys to watch. The ultimate gamer. I wanted to acknowledge that with my vote and I hope he sticks around the organization for a while.