The spring training vibes are great

Jac is in camp, MJ shows off in the cage, and Quatraro names his starting pitcher for the Cactus League opener.

With the full squad in Surprise and working out, and with the first game still two days away, we’ve officially reached our first lull of the Spring Training season. With that, a few notes about what’s been going on around camp.

This has been our first opportunity to see the revamped swing of MJ Melendez truly in action. It looks, dare I say, excellent.

Anne Rogers, doing all the heavy lifting in Surprise, spoke to assistant hitting coach Keoni DeRenne about New MJ.

“Because he had his hands in front of him, it would travel, travel, travel back, along with the big leg kick,” assistant hitting coach Keoni DeRenne said. “Now all these moves, when you have [velocity], it’s hard to time up, [especially] because of the separation of the offspeed pitches.

“Timing, rhythm, balance is so important to be a successful hitter. And it’s hard when we don’t know what’s coming at us. MJ, because of the hyper-mobility he has, he can be in awkward positions and still be able to get the barrel to the ball, which is what we’ve seen over time. But at the same time, it sometimes works against him. Maybe the zone expands, and you’re thinking, ‘I can get to that pitch because of the way I move, I can find a way or a solution to get to that pitch.’ ... He’s got to be able to use the lower half to anchor himself. When he takes pitches and he’s not moving around, I know he’s in a good spot.”

I clipped the entire quote because it’s fascinating. (The whole article is worth your time.) We rarely get to hear a true expert talk about the science of hitting like this. And it’s about a player whose swing we’re intimately familiar with—because of how wonky it is. We’ve all watched Melendez these last couple of seasons and know the swing has been horribly out of whack. To hear how a hitting coach breaks it down—and the solutions—is just incredibly worthwhile. I read DeRenne’s comments to mean that, Melendez has been taking bad swings, against bad pitches, and making bad contact. I mean…that’s the Melendez offensive profile in a nutshell.

To me, in the videos from Surprise that I’ve seen, Melendez looks comfortable at the plate. It is an economy of movement, so that’s not surprising. He has taken something that was unnecessarily complex and distilled it into something simple.

I’ll remind you that Royals outfielders hit a collective .223/.281/.367 last season with an 81 OPS+. They also were unable to upgrade the position. They absolutely need Melendez to figure this hitting thing out.

Manager Matt Quatraro gave a sneak peek at the Royals pitching plans when they open Cactus League play against the Rangers on Friday: Daniel Lynch IV will start. He will be followed by Chandler Champlain and Noah Cameron in some order yet to be determined.

The high temperature in Kansas City on Friday is forecast to be 25 degrees. It will be a perfect day to stream the audio from Surprise.

Top prospect Jac Caglianone is in his first big league camp. As a potential two-way player, he’s focusing on hitting and fielding at the moment. After hitting .355/.447/.760 over three seasons for the Florida Gators, Caglianone hit .241/.302/.388 in his first exposure to the pro game at High-A Quad Cities.

Quatraro was asked about his first impressions of Caglianone:

(He’s) super talented. I mean, the physicality stands out. Obviously, he's a giant person. Great personality as well. But when you see him step on the field, he's athletic for being as big as he is…Moves around the bag well, throws well. I know he had a really good arm in college. And the power clearly stands out when he takes BP.

Here’s Caglianone on how he’s feeling being in camp:

Yeah, I mean the vibes are great. You know I'm with a great group of guys and still figuring out some things…trying to get into the flow of things, how hectic your first spring training is, everybody talks about it but you don't really know what they're talking about until you're in it. So now with the first few days it’s been really good, everybody's been super helpful.

Even though he’s still looking to get on the mound, Caglianone is happy with his current focus on hitting and defense.

Yeah, I was all for it (focusing on hitting and defense). You know the Royals have had nothing but great communication about the whole two-way thing and we have a plan in place and it's kind of one of those things where going in your first spring training the last thing they want to do is, I guess, overload. So they're like get your feet underneath you and then as the season gets going we'll pick up from there and see what goes on.

Phil Hecken at Uni Watch reports the Royals will be wearing the full powder blue uniform on Opening Day.

Looks like the Kansas City Royals are finally going to go full powder blue with their home alternates for 2025, if the MLB Style Guide is any indication. A few years ago, the Royals did go full powder for a couple of games, including Opening Day, but they predominately wore their light blue tops with white pants.

My source has shared with me the Royals 2025 Alternate Home uniform from the SG, and — unlike the Orioles (who are going to have a mono-orange option) — the style guide shows only powder blue pants paired with the powder blue tops.

For a moment, I thought I had gone insane. Didn’t they say they were going to go full powder blue a couple of years ago? They did, but for whatever reason, they quickly scrapped that look. I’ve wondered what happened…why did they shift back to the old, unsatisfying uniform combo of power blue tops and white pants at home?

My thoughts—since I have embraced my position as A Uniform Guy—the Royals have to always wear the full powder blues. Otherwise, what’s the point? And I agree with Hecken, who writes these need to be in the mix for road games as well.