Dumpster fire at the quarter point
The front office got the Royals to this point. Should you believe in them to get them out?
We made it. We officially passed the magical 40-game point of the baseball season that Royals president Dayton Moore emphasizes as the moment where he can accurately assess his squad and make the necessary adjustments going forward.
Allow me to provide an accurate assessment of these now 42 games from the Royals: They stink.
They have lost an American League-high 28 games and are currently riding a six-game losing streak. The fact this is their first losing streak of that many games with so many losses already in their account is somewhat amazing. As Rany Jazayerli tweeted out, this is the longest they’ve gone since 2016 with a losing streak this long. Most seasons they don’t get out of April without at least a six-game losing streak. This year, they made it almost to the end of May. Progress.
Speaking of progress, what exactly was I thinking heading into this season? I want to say that I saw this coming, but sadly, I was too busy adjusting my blinders. It feels like I have failed as an analyst. I have to wear this. This was a club that finished 11th in OBP, 13th in slugging percentage and 13th in runs scored in the AL in 2021; their lone move to bolster the lineup was the promotion of Bobby Witt Jr. to the big leagues. Don’t get me wrong…Bobby Witt Jr. is going to be a successful ballplayer. But the dude alone is not enough to pull this offense out of the abyss.
Isn’t that wild? Moore and general manager J.J. Picollo looked at the roster and thought that Salvador Perez at age 32 would probably slug .540 again, Carlos Santana would bounce back from a hip injury to provide above-average offensive production and Whit Merrifield could outfox Father Time. Oh, and Ryan O’Hearn is a major league hitter.
The reality is this: before Perez was injured he was one of the worst hitters on the team with a 79 wRC+, suffering through a severe power outage. Santana most decidedly has not rebounded and has been worse than Perez with a 75 wRC+. Merrifield, after an awful start, is showing signs of life, collecting at least one base hit in 15 of his last 16 games. The statistical hole he dug for himself in April means he will need to stay hot in June if he’s going to claw back to league average production overall.
And O’Hearn is O’Hearn.
Over the last couple of weeks, the Royals’ offense hasn’t been all that bad. It’s still bad, just not that bad. Their collective 97 wRC+ in the last 14 games is a tick below average. Merrifield has supplied plenty of the juice, but he’s had help from Witt Jr. (140 wRC+ in the last 14 days), Emmanuel Rivera (154 wRC+) and the ever-steady Andrew Benintendi (168 wRC+).
They’ve averaged 5.2 runs per game in the last two weeks. They were scoring 3 R/G just ahead of this stretch and ranked 29th in the majors in run scoring. Today, they’re up to 3.7 R/G, ranked 24th. For this club, that counts as an explosion.
It’s the pitching that’s torpedoed their chances at victory.
Those numbers encompass the entire season and they’re awful. The pitchers don’t strike out anyone, walk everyone and basically act as a machine-pitch staff for an eight-year-old C team.
We saw this on display over the last three games. In each contest, the Royals at one point had a win expectancy greater than 80 percent. Including a 99 percent win expectancy on Sunday in the seventh inning against the Twins. We know how that ended. Sorry for bringing it up.
The Royals changed their hitting coach yet continue to employ an arsonist as the pitching coach. Watching a mound visit followed by a home run is a helluva thing.
The bullpen kept this team in so many games in April where the offense couldn’t muster a thing. So the hitting starts to come around and the bullpen runs out of gas. As you were.
The Royals, as a franchise did not make any moves on their day off Wednesday. Vinnie Pasquantino, however, continued to make a statement.
In 180 plate appearances in Triple-A (his first turn through the league) Pasquantino has walked 24 times against 26 strikeouts. The rates mirror what he’s done at stops in the complex leagues, Single-A and Double-A. The dude has elite plate discipline and a rock-steady approach. With the two dingers he crushed on Wednesday, he now has 12 on the year for the Storm Chasers. That surpasses the 11 he bashed for Double-A Northwest Arkansas in 237 plate appearances last year. He’s making a mockery of the league.
When I’m asked, “why isn’t Pasquantino on the team?” my rote reply is that he isn’t on the 40-man roster and there really isn’t room the way the Royals have constructed their roster and that patience is probably the way to go. What the hell? I’m not on the Royals payroll. That’s a ridiculous answer. Can you believe I’m allowed to have a newsletter?
The real answer is, the Royals haven’t got a clue what they’re doing when it comes to building a roster. They’ve boxed themselves in with veterans they are too stubborn to release, or players who should be journeymen have found a home in Kansas City and are clogging the roster.
We are now five years into the rebuild. The question shouldn’t be “Why isn’t Player X on the team yet?” It should be “If they ever get back to contention, who will be contributing?” Carlos Santana is not going to be in Kansas City past his contract expiring at the end of this year. His presence is only robbing younger players of plate appearances and he’s the Royals’ sunk cost fallacy. His spot should go to those very younger players who should be part of the future, like Pasquantino. Or Nick Pratto, who after a slow start, is burning up Triple-A. Again.
But then, ever since returning from the IL, Santana has played first base basically every other day. The other reps at the position have gone to Hunter Dozier, who is one of the few Royals in this lineup who actually has shown improvement over the previous season. Dozier is hitting .266/.325/.455 with a 125 wRC+. If he can maintain that production, it would be the best season of his career by wRC+.
Fine. Santana goes. So does O’Hearn. Dozier really shouldn’t be on the field—his best position is DH. If you bring up Pasquantino and Pratto, only one of those dudes can play first at a time. (I’m fairly certain this is in the rulebook.) And then what about when Perez returns from the IL? Where does Melendez play on days he’s not behind the plate? Pratto has been working in the outfield at both corner positions, but that’s currently the domain of Benintendi and Merrifield. How have we made it this far without mentioning Kyle Isbel, who has been scorching the baseball of late?
The Royals have somehow created a roster log jam where mediocrity seems like the best-case scenario. Play the kids! But how do you shoehorn Pasquantino, Pratto and Melendez into a roster with Perez, Benintendi and Merrifield? Moore has talked about being “transactional” and by damn, it’s time to actually put up, you know? Skim back four paragraphs to my question about who will be around when the Royals are actually ready to contend. It won’t be Benintendi, who is a free agent at season’s end. Time for some transactional transactions. He has to be shopped and shopped now. Sure, it’s early and the Royals won’t get what they think they should, and removing him from the lineup will weaken the club in the short term, but these kids need to play.
The front office needs to figure out the best way to make that happen. Given their track record, do you trust them to make the right decisions? This should be a time of hope and anticipation. Instead, it’s just all too familiar.
There’s an institutional rot around this club. Sure you’d love to see changes, but they’re not forthcoming. We’re stuck. Firing a pitching coach so soon after dismissing the hitting coach smells of panic and panic isn’t in Moore’s playbook. It’s also something of an admission of administrative ineptitude. Not happening with this crew.
Moore isn’t in danger. Same for Picollo. They were just promoted to their current positions less than a year ago. I’m not sure what the purpose is of the ownership group, but they’re not pulling the plug when they’ve sat on their hands for the three years they’ve had control of the club. Pandemics and labor wars aren’t an excuse when every team is dealing with the same issues. Charge $30 for parking and cry me a river. Sherman’s group will make their money back when they get that downtown stadium built on the taxpayer dime.
The print wags will breathlessly extoll the new power structure, telling us that without the prodding from Picollo, the hitting coach move wouldn’t have been made, but come on…The reality is, it’s the same as the old structure. They’re responsible for the current mess and they’re not going anywhere. I don’t believe in their abilities to get the Royals out of it. It’s a rather grim cycle.
Their .333 winning percentage calculates to a 54-108 record over the full season. It’s year five.
Dayton Moore is the world champion at moving the goal posts. I expect he'll announce they're building for 2024 any day now.
Like the rest of Royals fans - I have no faith in Royals Management. It is truly amazing how they can continue to make the most obvious of moves - truly amazing!