Letters from camp: Matheny awarded with another year
The Royals extend manager Mike Mathney, there are some new rules and some old ones for 2022 and we are less than a week away from real baseball.
Sign him up for another year!
On Thursday, the Royals announced they extended the contract of manager Mike Matheny through the 2023 season. His deal, which he signed when hired at the end of October in 2019, was for three years with a club option for the fourth.
Such moves are commonplace for clubs like the Royals that crave stability. By extending Matheny now, it affirms that the Kansas City front office has full and total faith in their skipper. As if there was any question.
Matheny has been a bit of a revelation since he assumed the helm from Ned Yost. He seems to have a firm grasp on the rhythms of his players, an essential skill for any manager. His management of the starting rotation and bullpen has been, dare I say, exceptional. The way he rotates the key innings amongst the relief corps has been solid. There’s a flexibility there that is nice to see. Eight Royals relievers recorded a save last year. Five of them aren’t with the club this year. Matheny will have to master a new bullpen all over again.
The lineups are conventional, yet solid. The Royals used 133 different lineups last summer and all of them had Whit Merrifield leading off. I’ve written about this a lot, but I really liked how he handled Nicky Lopez, keeping him at the bottom of the order for most of the year before bumping him up to second over the season’s last month and a half. The challenge this year could be how long Merrifield stays rooted to the leadoff spot if his decline continues. He’s lost 50 points of OBP over the last three years.
To get a glimpse of Matheny’s in-game managerial strategy, Baseball Reference has a 2021 Managerial Tendencies board. It normalizes certain situations to adjust for league average. For example, Matheny and the Royals attempted to swipe second 30 percent more than the average team. That made them the fifth-most likely team to try to steal second. When it comes to third…Lordy. The Royals were a whopping 174 percent more likely than the average club to try to steal third in 2021. They attempted 37 steals of third. No other team tried more than 24 times. (Full credit of course goes to Mr. Merrifield who was 16 out of 17 in swipes of third.)
The proof is in the results. Matheny took over a team coming off back-to-back 100-loss seasons. His club went 26-34 in Covid-shortened 2020 (a .433 winning percentage). He followed that up with a 74-88 record, good for a .457 winning percentage. Expectations will only grow from here. Seven years removed from a World Series title, patience in a rebuild is waning. The next wave of hitting prospects will be joining the young arms that have been lurking around for the last couple of years.
But!
Ahhh, yes. There had to be a negative, didn’t there? Let’s talk sacrifice bunts. The Royals attempted 26 non-pitcher sac bunts last year, second-most to the Angels’ 29. That meant the Royals and Matheny were 87 percent more likely than the average team to order a sacrifice. Why, oh why would you decide to give away an out?
Really, that’s just picking nits. An annoying strategy that is maybe leftover from his days piloting a National League club.
Where it really matters is in the clubhouse. Matheny seems to have the respect of his players and he, in turn, respects his players It’s a good atmosphere that, as we saw in the middle part of the last decade, matters in a huge way.
Is Matheny the guy to lead this team back to October? I believe so. But we’re entering a new point in the rebuild, where expectations will grow and with the increasing expectations, the pressure increases in step. The lights will shine just a little bit brighter these next couple of seasons. How Matheny handles that will go a long way to answering questions about the future. What happens when it’s time to move someone with a contract, like say, Michael A. Taylor, to make room for a more promising younger player? If you’ve been reading along this spring, you know that I believe that time is now. Most managers seem to have certain, let’s just say veterans they rely upon. The ability to move quickly is seriously important when a club is rebuilding. Along with sticking with the unproven player during the major league learning process.
Based on the early returns, he’s worth keeping in the dugout over the next couple of seasons to see if he can make it happen.
Before we go any further, I’d like to again point out that you can now read Into The Fountains in the new Substack app for iPhone.
I’ve been test-driving it for a few days and I have to say I’m really pleased with it. There’s a dedicated Inbox for Into The Fountains and any other newsletters you subscribe to. New posts will never get lost in your email filters or stuck in spam. Comments, and most importantly, gifs, all work seamlessly. Several readers have approached me about an app in the past and now it’s here. It’s a nice upgrade to the reading experience.
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Major League Baseball officially announced some new rules that will be in place for the 2022 season. There’s the Shohei Ohtani rule that allows him to become the designated hitter after he leaves the game as the pitcher. That’s fun.
There’s also, as expected, roster expansion from 26 players to 28 for the first month of the season. Well, at least through May 1. One of the new angles of the fresh CBA is that players are now limited in the number of times they can be sent to the minors to five times each year. But the rules for 2022 say that if a player is optioned prior to May 1, that won’t count against the five. I suppose that’s mildly interesting and figure teams will take advantage by shuttling players back and forth for fresh arms. Maybe the Royals can squeeze a few trips up and down I-29 for Olivares.
The rule that’s returning that I absolutely abhor is the zombie runner on second base in extra innings. I’m just not sure that helps things. It sure as hell doesn’t help the rhythm the game once had. Personally, I enjoy a well-pitched, low-scoring ballgame. Put these free runners on second base to start an inning and a game that was 1-1 through nine suddenly balloons to something ridiculous like 9-7 two innings later.
We love and enjoy the game because the game itself, at the root, is good. Ginning up late-inning “excitement” does a disservice to everyone involved. I understand the players were for this, and with the pace of play slowing down such that it can take close to four hours to play nine, I get it. But extra inning games aren’t that common. Just play ball.
My friend and sometimes collaborator Colby Wilson had the Royals preview this week at Baseball Prospectus. If you’re a subscriber, make sure you give it a read.
And he can’t help himself from imagining a best-case scenario!
An optimistic projection for 2022 involves Bobby Witt Jr. being what he’s alleged to be–a generational talent who can step right into a role near the top of Kansas City’s order and contribute. It also involves a healthy Mondesi, a bounce-back Dozier season, one more vintage Whit Merrifield season and Perez not cratering after a career year few believe him able of replicating.
Real baseball next week. Can’t wait.