Baseball is back

The break was relaxing, but it's time to get back to business.

Doesn’t the All-Star break feel like it just drags on forever? The Home Run Derby is a decent enough distraction. The All-Star Game is a nice morsel of an exhibition. Then you have the baseball black hole of Wednesday and Thursday.

A good time to recharge the batteries as we collectively prepare for what should be a wild and potentially spectacular second half of the season.

Let’s take stock of where things stand as the season’s defacto second half gets underway on Friday. The Royals are hanging tough in the AL Central, currently in third place, seven games back from the Cleveland Guardians.

If you’re focused on the divisional battle, there’s perhaps some good news as far as the schedule goes. I stumbled upon this from BrooksGate the other day. It’s a graphical visualization of the remaining strength of the schedule for the entire league. I cropped the image to allow us to pay closer attention to the teams that matter.

A quick reminder that in baseball, the “strength of schedule” statement is a nebulous thing. A couple of good or bad weeks can skew this, although, with just about 100 games played for most teams, those swings will be less extreme than, say in May. As far as the Central goes, the Guardians have the third-hardest remaining strength of schedule. Cleveland still has their NL series to play with all three divisional leaders—and all three of those series are on the road.

Meanwhile, the Royals and Twins are hovering around the middle of the pack. The Tigers aren’t on the portion of the image cropped above, but they’re 26th easiest overall. At 12 games back in the standings and under .500, they’re less of a threat at the moment in the division.

What about that Wild Card?

That Boston series before the break was a bit of a drag. At least after the Cole Ragans start on Friday. But revisit that strength of the schedule graphic above. The Red Sox and Rays both have the most difficult remaining schedules. At least at the moment.

I write this not as something to hang your hat on going forward. Rather, it’s just something to keep in mind as the remainder of the season plays out. While the Royals stumbling in June and so far in July was an unfavorable development to be sure, the playoff race is far from settled.

This is a perfect spot to drop the All-Star Break playoff odds from FanGraphs. At least as it pertains to the teams currently in the Wild Card race.

The above are the odds to make the playoffs. That’s either through the division championship or the Wild Card. I customized the graph to include only teams currently in the mix for the Wild Card. The Royals’ odds (according to FanGraphs) is hovering around 35 percent. It’s not great, but given where the Royals finished last season and the expectations going into 2024, wouldn’t you take those odds at this point?

To better position themselves for the upcoming stretch run, the Royals acquired reliever Hunter Harvey from the Washington Nationals. The deal, which went down last weekend, saw Kansas City ship prospect Cayden Wallace along with their Competitive Balance Round A pick to the Nats.

Harvey is that hard-throwing, bat-missing reliever the Royals’ bullpen has been missing all season. The right-hander brings a four-seamer that averages 98 MPH. He compliments that pitch with a spitter, a curve and an occasional slider. The fastball is the premium pitch here, generating a whiff around a quarter of the time. The other pitches Harvey features get more misses on swings and allow him to post what’s an above-league-average ground ball rate with fantastic command.

The stats that I would pay attention to are his strikeout rate of 10 SO/9 and his walk rate of 2.4 BB/9. But his ERA! you’ll argue. Yes, I get that. At 4.20 over 45 innings, it’s not something to get excited about. Yet the argument can be made that Harvey has been a bit unlucky to this point of the season. His opponents are posting a .325 BABIP against him to this point, which is about 40 points above his career .288 BABIP. Also, his strand rate of 66 percent is well below his career mark of 73 percent.

Throw all these numbers into your statistical blender and you come out with 3.16 FIP which is a full run less than his ERA. Harvey has been worth 0.9 fWAR thus far in 2024. That makes him the best reliever on the Royals.

So in one move, JJ Picollo didn’t just upgrade his team’s bullpen. He added the pitcher who should be their top relief option going forward. Harvey may not close—he hasn’t saved a game this year—but he will definitely be an eighth-inning guy at a minimum. Harvey did save 10 games for the Nationals last year, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he finds himself taking those save opportunities from James McArthur at some point.

To make room for Harvey on the 40-man roster, the Royals designated reliever Nick Anderson for assignment. He refused a minor league assignment and is currently on release waivers. It just never worked out for Anderson in Kansas City’s bullpen. Acquired from the Braves last winter, Anderson was earning $1.575 million this year. He pitched to a 4.04 ERA, but his 7.3 SO/9 and 3.8 BB/9 is more emblematic of the Royals’ relief corps to this point. Not enough velocity and not enough swing and miss. He owns a meager 10 percent whiff rate and also surrendered six home runs in 35 innings.

As for Wallace, Baseball America had him as the Royals’ fifth-best prospect in their recent midseason update. He joined the organization as a second-round pick in 2022 and was hitting .282/.350/.427 in 140 PA’s for Northwest Arkansas. He’s dealt with injuries this season with an oblique strain and a current stay on the IL stint with a broken rib. 

Yeah, shipping out a team’s fifth-best prospect for a reliever isn’t usually what you want, but I think it’s worth remembering that the Royals farm system remains on the weak side. There’s more depth in the system than impact prospects. Wallace was the cost to get a reliever with a better-than-solid track record and who has a year of club control remaining beyond this season. I’m fine with the cost involved.

In other transaction news, the Royals announced over the break that MJ Melendez sprained his left ankle in their first-half finale against the Red Sox and would go on the 10-day IL. Drew Waters takes his place on the roster.

Melendez had been playing a bit better of late, hitting .255/.320/.521 over his previous 103 plate appearances. Waters seems like the guy the Royals are keeping around at this point as the emergency outfielder.

If the 2024 season isn’t exciting enough for you, the Royals dropped their 2025 schedule on Thursday.

The season starts on March 27 against those Cleveland Guardians. There is an extreme lack of Central Division matchups in September. Just in case the Royals are back in the postseason mix next year. And yes, it is amusing that ATH is on the schedule. Oakland’s situation continues to be a mess.

Back in the present, the Royals open up the season’s second half with a nine-game homestand. Three against the Hapless White Sox this weekend, followed by series with the Diamondbacks and the Cubs. It’s an opportunity to solidify themselves as contenders.

Here’s to an exciting second half of the season.