Bronx bombed

The hapless Royals are swept out of New York. They are 2-8 since the All-Star break. Staying the course is no longer an option. They have to do something big.

After Maikel Garcia grounded out, dooming the Royals to their 73rd loss in game 101 of this imminently forgettable season, I promptly switched over to watch the Oakland A’s. It’s not because I have some unquenchable thirst for losing. It’s just that the A’s—a team so awful because ownership is purposefully sabotaging it so they can escape to the supposed fan-friendly environs of the Nevada desert—at the start of their game on Sunday, have the exact same record as the Royals through their first 101 games.

The Royals aren’t trying to lose on purpose like the A’s. They are, after all, evaluating.

With former Royals Esteury Ruiz (with a league-leading 43 steals!) on the shelf with a shoulder subluxation issue, Richard Lovelady shut down for the season with a forearm strain, Manny Piña on the IL with a wrist contusion and Brent Rooker on the bench, I didn’t recognize many of the nomads populating the Oakland roster.

JJ Bleday homered in the first for the A’s and later scored on a Tyler Soderstrom single in the sixth. Houston countered with a Yanier Diaz home run and tied the game in the eighth on a bases-loaded walk because of course that would happen when you’re facing the A’s. (This mini-recap feels all too familiar.)

Houston’s Mauricio Dubón un-tied the game on a 1-2 pitch with two down in the top of the ninth, launching one 404 feet to left-center. A last-minute reprieve for Kansas City! The Astros keep the Royals out of the MLB cellar for another day.

The beat goes on.

It’s breathtaking how awful the 2023 Royals are and how they are hell-bent on racing as far to the bottom as fast as possible. The 72 losses are the most in franchise history through 100 games. Here are the worst records through 100 games along with the final record for a little perspective.

The Royals have lost 100 games six times in their history. Five of those six are represented above. (The sixth was the first time they lost 100, back in 2002. They lost 57 games through their first 100 that season.) They are a dead-certain lock for 100 this season. The only question that remains is how low can they go?

Personally, I think 120 losses are in play. They’re pacing for 117, figuring to trade away a couple of their better players in the next week and are showing absolutely no inclination or ability to go on any kind of extended hot stretch. I’m defining a hot stretch as three games or more. As you know, their next three-game winning streak will be their first of 2023.

It’s that bad and threatening to get worse.

I’ve been firmly on the side of letting this play out without any kind of major organizational shuffling as a consequence. The rot runs deep and no front office executive or field manager can work miracles in just a few months. Having said that, I wouldn’t blame Royals Chairman and CEO John Sherman if he decided to make some drastic moves as the season mercifully draws to a close.

Personally, I feel the talk of “organizational DNA” is a bunch of garbage, but it is true the Royals are a conservative franchise when it comes to the day to day operations of the club. They don’t like to make major moves and never really have, going back to the very early days of the Glass family running the team. Hell, you can draw the line back to Ewing Kauffman although if he decided you were done, you were done. Sherman continued that “slow and steady” philosophy with the firing of Dayton Moore and the subsequent handing over of the keys to JJ Picollo. Firing Moore was necessary and a couple years too late, which was basically Sherman playing it safe. The elevation of Picollo and keeping the promotions in-house was a continuation of that, even if Picollo has his own ideas and ways of building an organization.

In 2023, the Royals were always going to be bad, but this? What bugs me this season is that I still feel as though the Royals are on the right track as far as development and their use of metrics and advanced evaluations. That’s incredibly difficult to say when you can’t point to a single success story on the big league roster, especially when it comes to pitching. Yet it’s the first time we can say that in almost a decade. We have seen some progress on the farm, even though the system remains bereft of consensus top 100 talent. It’s entirely possible the foundation is in place. I think I believe that. I want to believe that. I want them to have time to make a difference.

It’s the personnel that’s letting the team down.

That, on some level falls on Picollo. I write “on some level” because he’s still cleaning up the mess Moore left behind. And believe me, it is a mess. The front office has been somewhat transactional cleaning it up, but not transactional enough. Picollo and Sherman ultimately rolled the dice with the players already in the fold. It’s not working.

On the flip side, it was the right move to sign and then ship off Aroldis Chapman, even if that meant weakening an already wobbly bullpen. The low risk signings in the early spring (Franmil Reyes and Jackie Bradley Jr.) were jettisoned faster than they would have perhaps in the past. They finally moved on from Hunter Dozier. This next week is vitally important for the front office. Can they get creative on deals where they could eat some salary and basically buy some prospects? Do they have the guts to trade Salvador Perez? What kind of return will Scott Barlow bring? (More on that in a moment.) Do they trade some prospects from an already thin farm system to bolster a deal?

Picollo and his staff have to make something happen. It can’t be one of last year’s deals where they’re netting a couple low-level pitching prospects. It has to be larger. They need to figure out a way to maximize returns. They need to show a willingness to be brutal. They need to show this season is an unacceptable indictment of transactions past and get aggressive to fix it. No one should be safe. Everyone should be available. Sure, it would be painful if the Royals shipped Perez to, let’s say Miami, but it’s going to take several years to dig out of this mess and, if we’re being completely honest, the odds are long that even if Perez finishes his career in Kansas City he would be part of the next Royals playoff team. Can you improve your team in the long term with a Perez trade? If the answer is yes, you have to do it.

I look at this roster and while there may be one or two players around for that next decent Royals team, I don’t think anyone is truly untouchable. Everyone needs to be on the block. Including The Captain.

With 28 wins through 101 games, Picollo should be feeling the pressure. Every single person who works at One Royal Way should be feeling it. In an evaluation year in this division, those results are beyond awful. Something has to happen to improve this team and it has to happen now. Otherwise, I’m writing the exact same newsletter this time next year. That would be unacceptable. Hell, this is unacceptable. Even in an evaluation year. The stakes have really never been higher. Picollo has been in his position without Moore looking over his shoulder for less than a year, but absolutely has to be on the hot seat with Sherman and the ownership group. If you were going to tear the organization down to the studs and completely reboot, the best time would be when you’re losing close to 120 games.

Sunday marked the 28th time since 2016 the Royals have clubbed four or more home runs in a game. Their record over those games is a tidy 23-5. I think it’s safe to draw the conclusion that when the Royals decide to get their dinger on, they are a good bet to come out on the victorious side. Of course, you know that on this fateful Sunday, our Royals did indeed hit four home runs into (or around or whatever) the jet stream that cruises through the corporate club boxes at Yankee Stadium. Alas, the four bombs accounted for just five runs. It was loss number five as noted above.

Fun fact! The Royals have hit four home runs in a game just twice this season. They have lost both games. Of course.

Of the Royals most likely to get traded ahead of the deadline, Barlow, with his closer’s pedigree, figures to be the guy and to possibly net the largest return. The problem is that while his Statcast metrics like whiff and barrel rates remain strong, he’s getting knocked around. His walks are up and the velocity on his four-seamer is down a tick from last year. It’s that pitch that the opposition is feasting on, hammering it for a .478 batting average and .739 slugging percentage.

In the eighth on Sunday, Barlow lost the battle against Anthony Rizzo in a 10-pitch PA when he left a four-seamer middle-middle that Rizzo hit for a single. DJ LeMahieu saw six pitches, didn’t swing the bat and walked. That’s 16 pitches for the first two batters and no outs. It got weird after a sac bunt, an intentional walk and a squibber to Nick Pratto that he reversed course to field and then threw to…no one. These are your Royals.

A sac fly ended his afternoon. Ultimately, Barlow was touched for three runs, two earned. It was another in a string of subpar outings for the closer. Since June 10, he’s made 13 appearances with an ERA of 8.52 while the opposition is hitting .327/.422/.423. He’s walking 15 percent of the batters he’s faced while striking out just 18 percent. It’s not like these numbers are skewed by the small sample. He’s pitched a clean inning just once in those 13 appearances and allowed runs in six of them.

Barlow isn’t untradeable like Amir Garrett. However, I do think the potential return on him has diminished over the last month or so. How much? We should find out in a few days. It takes only one desperate team to meet an elevated asking price. It’s just a little less likely that desperate team agrees to a trade involving Barlow.