Royals Spring Training: What we've learned so far
They're playing exhibition games and we're gaining knowledge. A fair trade.
Through one week of Cactus League games, the Royals are dominating. Thanks to Kelvin Gutierrez and his ninth inning bomb to the batter’s eye in dead center, the club has six wins against two losses. That’s good for first place, a full game ahead of the Cubs and the Rockies! As we like to say, flags fly forever!
I’m probably getting a little ahead of myself. Especially with the exclamation marks on a Monday. Apologies. To paraphrase the newest Royal in camp, that’s what caffeine do.
So with a handful of mostly successful exhibition games in the books, what have we learned about this 2021 Royals team so far?
Adalberto Mondesi looks good
It’s such a simple statement, one that will be repeated throughout various camps in Florida and Arizona about random players, but for the Royals, it’s so, so important.
Healthy this offseason, Mondesi’s spring debut was delayed thanks to a sore foot. He saw his first action on Friday against Clayton Kershaw and stung the ball in his first plate appearance—a line out to first. Mondesi followed that with a double down the right field line against Mike Kickham. Then on Sunday, he singled in his lone plate appearance against Yu Darvish.
Look, it’s just three hits, but it’s good to see the shortstop looking more like the hitter who was dominating at the end of the 2020 season rather than the one who struggled at the start.
Damnit, Mondesi is going to continue to be my key player I guess until the end of his career or something. You just can’t shake the feeling that with the way the top half of the lineup is set, having a healthy and productive Mondesi hitting somewhere around seventh in the order will be a massive boost to the overall offensive production of this team.
Yep, I’m doing it again. Mondesi is my key player.
This talk about the Junis cutter is legit
It’s difficult to watch spring training and keep what you’re seeing in perspective. It’s a combination of the stories that filter out of camp about what Player X worked on over the offseason, combined with the small sample size, factored in against the sometimes weaker than the usual competition. Beware of the conclusions you draw from what you see in Arizona or Florida. The equation can be tricky.
Still, it’s difficult to not be intrigued by what’s going on with Jakob Junis. He made his second start of the spring on Sunday and once again looked sharp. In both appearances, his new cutter was looking polished. And confounding.
He’s thrown five innings so far (most on the team as we are now on the second turn through the rotation for the starters) and has struck out seven while not allowing a free pass. He’s also given up just two hits. Yes, one of the hits was a leadoff home run on Sunday, but damage is going to happen. Eyes on the prize as they like to say.
Junis is currently ticketed for the bullpen, but if he can give the Royals quality innings from a spot in the rotation, you absolutely have to make that happen. And with the start of the Triple-A season delayed at least a month and supplanted with alternate site camps once again, it will be interesting to see how the Royals work with their young pitchers. There figures to be an opportunity for Junis—there’s no way the Royals are going to let Brady Singer or Kris Bubic or any of their prospect arms start 30 games—so the question is, can he cash in with that cutter and become a rotation mainstay?
If that happens, it truly opens up myriad possibilities for this pitching staff.
The young Royals are making their case
Yes, it is a very limited number of plate appearances, but count Nick Pratto, Kelvin Gutierrez and Erick Mejia among those who are off to good Cactus League starts. All three have made strong contact and have collected multiple extra-base hits. And the three are in the top five Royals currently in OPS.
As I said previously, it’s very difficult to calibrate what’s happening in limited action in spring training, especially late in games. But if the alternative is say, the bottom five Royals in OPS, where would you rather they reside at the moment? I thought so.
Nothing that I’ve seen at this point would make me alter a roster projection. The team was pretty well set coming into camp. But it’s still nice for the players to perform well, no matter where it comes. If anything, they can build on this performance once the alternate site camps open.
There could be a lefty battle brewing in the bullpen
As I’ve noted in my two previous roster projections, the Royals are light on left-handed options coming out of the bullpen. In fact, in my first projection, I didn’t have any lefties in the pen. In my second, I added Richard Lovelady because it just seemed like the Royals would break camp with at least one southpaw in relief.
While Lovelady has looked good in his three appearances and drawn praise from his manager, don’t sleep on Jake Brentz.
Brentz has scattered five base runners through his two innings of work, but damn…can the Royals resist the allure of a lefty who tickles triple-digits coming out of the bullpen? As you would expect with any flamethrower coming out of the bullpen, it’s all about hitting his spots. Brentz has struggled with that in the past but did exhibit improvement in 2019. If he can show continued progress with his control, why wouldn’t the Royals be serious about using him? The only thing it would cost right now would be a 40-man roster spot. Stay tuned on this…
Bobby Witt Jr. remains must-see
Only Jorge Soler has more plate appearances than young Witt Jr. in camp, and it feels like every time the young infielder steps into the box, the MLB app on my phone should be giving me an alert. Even if it’s not on TV, I want to hear what he’s doing. And after the game, we should get a supercut of the action with him as the centerpiece.
Get on all of that, MLB.