Daniel Lynch IV optioned to Omaha

The lefty will open the year in Triple-A as the roster continues to take shape. Just one week until Opening Day.

The MLBPA is in revolt against their leadership. Shohei Ohtani is looking for a new interpreter after allegedly settling some gambling debts. And you may not have noticed as you’ve been distracted by all these exhibition games, but the regular season started halfway around the world.

Welcome back, baseball!

The Royals rolled out the following lineup on Tuesday night in Surprise:

Maikel Garcia - 3B
Bobby Witt Jr - SS
Vinnie Pasquantino - 1B
Salvador Perez - C
MJ Melendez - LF
Hunter Renfroe - RF
Nick Loftin - 2B
Nelson Velázquez - DH
Kyle Isbel - CF

That lineup has a very Opening Day vibe. Especially if Michael Massey’s lower back tightness develops into something that causes him to miss a little more time.

I’m extremely interested to see how these last few exhibition games go as it relates to how the Royals shape their roster. Loftin had been a fringe guy for me entering this spring, just based on all the options the team has at their disposal. He has two things going for him at the moment: A strong spring performance where he’s hitting .344/.462/.563 and opportunity.

It’s difficult to parse all the options the Royals have at their disposal for the bench. We know that Freddy Fermin will be there as the backup catcher. If they roll with the above lineup, Adam Frazier and Garrett Hampson figure to be on the pine as well. That leaves one spot. Will Massey be healthy enough to go in the opener? If he is, Loftin would surely open the year in Omaha. What about Nick Pratto who has hit .412/.474/.765 with just seven strikeouts in 37 plate appearances? He’s been much more aggressive at the plate this spring. There’s also Drew Waters who could be a fourth outfielder/platoon partner for Isbel. Then there is Dairon Blanco who has seen limited action due to a calf strain earlier in camp. Both Waters and Blanco have performed reasonably well.

Does spring training performance matter all that much when it comes to this final bench spot? Ultimately, it will tell us where the Royals’ front office and field staff is at as to how they will deploy their roster. We know that Matt Quatraro will use his entire bench as he mixes and matches his lineups. Will they decide Pratto, Waters and Loftin need more reps than they would ostensibly receive in the majors so it makes more sense for them to open the year in Omaha? Or have one of those players forced their way into a heavier rotation? Does Waters profile more as a fourth outfielder on this team? Is Blanco a guy they would keep around in that role?

Goodness. That’s a lot of questions. I don’t think even the Royals have the answers at the moment. It will all be settled within the next week.

Anne Rogers has a solid breakdown of the looming roster battles as the Royals prepare to head north.

As an addendum to Rogers’ roster battle story linked above, she dropped this note about the competition for the fifth starter role:

That fifth starter competition gained even more focus following Wednesday’s game when the Royals announced they optioned Daniel Lynch IV (along with Anthony Veneziano) to Triple-A.

Lynch had a solid, if unspectacular, spring for the Royals with a nine strikeouts and five walks in 13 innings of work. Opponents hit under .200 against him in the Cactus League. However, the velocity he showed last year when his fastball was routinely in the mid-90s still hasn’t returned. According to Rogers, Lynch has been between 91 and 93 mph this spring. She also noted that Lynch has been working on getting whiffs with his secondary pitches.

Lynch will now work on that in Omaha. I would imagine that when he shows improvement, he will quickly be back in Kansas City at the first opportunity.

I touched on this in my last edition about the Royals going with Cole Ragans as their Opening Day starter; the team is a bit more process-oriented these days with Picollo at the helm. And that’s a very good thing.

I think everyone who follows the team figured Jordan Lyles had the inside track for the fifth starter role but there was a hope that a strong spring from Lynch would force that competition. That’s sort of what’s happened, with Lyles missing some time with back tightness and then providing his expected performance when he took the mound this spring (eight hits in five innings of work, four of which left the yard). Now, Lynch has been removed from that competition and Marsh has stepped into his place.

Rogers notes that Marsh has probably been the Royals’ most impressive pitcher in camp. The raw numbers would certainly back that up. Marsh has thrown 14 innings with 17 strikeouts against just four walks. Opponents are hitting .163 against him.

Honestly, I’m not sure Marsh versus Lyles is much of a competition. Marsh is miles ahead both in readiness to pitch deep into games and in the stats he’s posted in the Cactus League. The pitcher who doesn’t slot into the rotation will report to the bullpen. If anything, the Royals should see how Lyles performs in a relief role. Give him a clean inning and nine batters. It couldn’t hurt.

While we await the outcome of Lyles versus Marsh, Matt Quatraro settled one other question surrounding the bullpen on Wednesday when he announced Angel Zerpa had made the squad and would be pitching in relief.

Again, Quatraro and the Royals are setting themselves up to have all the options coming out of the bullpen. With Zerpa and another pitcher like Lyles in the pen, the Royals have a luxury of having a couple of guys who can go multiple innings should the starters take a couple of hits. They also could act as the bulk guys in a situation where the Royals would decide to go with an opener. There’s just so many ways to mix and match.

There’s bad luck and then there’s whatever Asa Lacy is experiencing. The lefty announced on Instagram this week that he underwent Tommy John surgery and will miss the 2024 season. Since joining the organization in the 2020 draft Lacy has thrown a grand total of 87 innings. He’s walked 89 batters.

While the Royals have confounded with some of their more recent draft selections, it’s worth remembering that Lacy was a safe pick at number four in the 2020 as a college pitcher who featured three plus pitches along with a fourth that held above-average potential. From Baseball America ahead of the draft:

Previously, scouts had wondered about the quality of Lacy’s slider and whether he could shape develop it into a true swing-and-miss pitch. Lacy answered those questions this spring by unveiling a powerful, 87-90 mph version of the pitch. In fact, some scouts say it’s the best slider they’ve seen from a college lefty since Carlos Rodon in 2014. The pitch doesn’t have quite that depth, but it is a true wipeout offering now. His changeup has long been a reliable weapon, and while he hasn’t thrown it as much this spring, most scouts believe it’s a plus pitch. Lacy’s curveball gives him a fourth pitch that’s at least average and has above-average potential.

The report went on to extoll his delivery (“fluid and clean”) and his demeanor on the mound (“no-nonsense”). While we generally accept there is no such thing as a pitching prospect, Lacy was probably as close to a sure thing as you could get coming out of Texas A&M. He was widely regarded as the top pitcher in the draft class.

Since then, Lacy has battled recurring back issues and his control has completely abandoned him. The stuff still plays when he locates—he’s recorded 129 strikeouts and has held opposing hitters to a .192 batting average. It’s just that he can’t locate. Or stay healthy. Something tells me that those two issues are probably related.

I feel horrible for the kid. It’s truly been one setback after another since he’s been drafted. Here’s hoping that somehow, some way, he makes it back to a mound in 2025.

It’s akin to an addiction but I cannot help myself. Every year, I buy a pack (or several) of Topps baseball cards. I am not a hardcore collector in that I don’t have any graded cards but I do have a few nifty individual ones that I bought way back when. I’ve spent the last couple of years trying to complete sets from the 1970s.

Anyway, as I was preparing to tear into my first pack of 2024, I was thinking about Bobby Witt Jr and how nice it would be to snag one of his cards. Reader, it was as if I willed it into existence. Witness:

I will refer to this pack as the Bobby Witt Jr pack, fully aware Bryce Harper and Mike Trout are also present. My pack, my rules.

I kind of…like this design? Topps has leaned really hard into overdoing the HDR on their photos, which is just kind of bleh. But the overall look of these cards is strong. The black at the top of the card that falls off allows the team name to pop a bit more. The names are nice and large. Team logos are present, as is position of the player. I’m more on the fence about the neon tube style of font, but given how the cards have looked in the last 10 or so years, readability is a huge issue for me. This may be my favorite Topps design in quite some time.