Splash Hits: Talkin' lockout blues
The lockout has put the start of the season in jeopardy & threatens to hamper the development of some key players to the Royals' future. Plus, another prospect list, new stadium talk and more PECOTA!
I’d really love to write about meaningless exhibition baseball. Instead, we have to talk about this:
I figured this would go down to the wire, but with four days remaining before major league baseball’s deadline to start the season on time, things are looking dire.
The last week has been good in that the sides are actually sitting down and talking. It’s been bad in that there seems to be zero progress on the core issues. Reports on Thursday were the union made small moves to ownership on service time manipulation and they did make an honest-to-goodness proposal on a draft lottery with penalties for teams that continually tank based on whether or not they pay revenue sharing. The owners have not made a move on the competitive balance tax.
It’s a staring contest at this point. The owners have dreamt of breaking the union for decades. They have historically seen every collective bargaining session as an opportunity to, if not break the union, to hobble it. The players, knowing they gave a ton of ground in the last two CBAs are attempting to claw some of what was lost back. This dislike and distrust of Rob Manfred continues to motivate and they’re holding the line.
This leaves little room for compromise. When the owners issue threats that canceled games won’t be made up, it’s a little unnerving. And it leaves baseball fans on the outside.
Baseball simply cannot afford a work stoppage of any duration. I come from a position of that, while the game is still good, it could certainly be helped. This isn’t some “back in my day” screed (at least I don’t think it is), but I’m firmly in the camp that the game desperately needs to evolve. Strikeouts are up. Hits are down. And while I prefer a good pitchers’ duel over a slugfest, with pitch counts approaching triple digits in the fifth inning, we don’t really get those anymore, either.
The foundation is still strong. The walls just need a little paint.
There’s a lot of competition for attention, and our attention spans aren’t so hot anymore, either. If baseball is missing in April, fans will need to find something else to do. Will they be there when baseball returns? I’m not so sure.
Major League Baseball is walking out onto a sheet of very thin ice.
And now it’s probably time to start to worry about what the lockout is doing to players like Nick Pratto, MJ Melendez, local product Nathan Webb and Angel Zerpa among others. Those are the guys who, due to minor league service time requirements, needed to be added to the 40-man rosters in recent winters or the Royals would risk losing them to the Rule 5 draft. Pratto, Melendez and Webb were placed on the roster last November. Zerpa was the surprise selection to the roster after the 2020 season and made his major league debut last year.
Because these players are on the roster, they’re in the union. And because they’re in the union, they’re locked out. Doesn’t matter if they’ve ever set foot in a major league stadium as a player. If you’re on the 40-man roster, you are a dues-paying member of the MLBPA.
We know the Royals were proactive ahead of the lockout in formulating plans for their young players who would be affected. But you have to think those plans ran through the end of this month. “Here’s a weight training regimen to get you ready for camp.” “This is a list of hitting drills you should be doing to prepare for spring training.” “Here’s a throwing program to keep your arm sharp.” The idea is that if camps opened even a little bit late, the youngsters would still be prepared upon arrival. Yes, they would be in the best shape of their lives.
But as we are in the final days of February, now what? These guys have already lost one minor league season due to the pandemic. Now, they’re in some sort of baseball purgatory. They’re not experienced in any way at the major league level, yet they’re not allowed to further develop.
FanGraphs released their Top 100+ prospect list this week with four Royals. It’s the usual suspects. At this point, let’s just anoint Bobby Witt Jr. as the number two prospect in baseball. He was joined by Melendez at 21 and Pratto at 47. The guy who was knocking on the door of some of the other lists, Asa Lacy, made the FanGraphs list at a cool 100.
“He’s ranked here acknowledging the probability that he becomes a great reliever, though we’d still put Lacy’s chances of starting in the 20-25% range and think his career arc would be similar to Rodón’s if he does, where he’s really good for fits and starts and otherwise frustrating.”
The evaluators agree…Lacy’s stuff can be electric. The ability to throw strikes is inconsistent. Can he master his control? That’s the variance the prospect hounds see. If he can find the zone with regularity, he’s in the rotation. If not…it’s the bullpen.
Lacy’s fastball showed improved life in the Arizona Fall League, but the control wasn’t there. In 7.2 innings he walked six and struck out 15. You start to get the picture FanGraphs painted above.
News from this week that could be relevant to the interest of John Sherman, Kansas City and the Royals. A bill was introduced in the House of Representatives that would end federal subsidies for stadium construction for professional teams.
The impetus behind this is the toxic culture surrounding the Washington professional football team. It just so happens they have their hand out looking for a new stadium. The bill would eliminate the tax-exempt status of municipal bonds that are often used to fund the construction of said stadiums.
It’s difficult to gauge the legs of this bill at this stage. It was introduced by three Democrats which suggests there isn’t much bipartisan support. And we all know that money is the ultimate decider in politics these days. Still, if it makes progress, it could certainly impact what the Royals are thinking regarding a new stadium downtown. If anything, it’s a talking point that could—and should—generate some healthy discussion within the Kansas City area about who should be funding such a project.
And I’ll just leave this here as a refresher that this bill still has quite a way to go.
I know I sent out a tweet on this at the end of last week, but didn’t really discuss it within…Baseball Prospectus wrapped up their annual PECOTA week with a locked-out version of the projected standings. I know, I know…The Royals are projected for 68 wins and a last-place finish in the AL Central.
My advice is always to take these projections with a grain of salt, and that goes in at least triplicate for this year. The uncertainty of projecting prospects (the Witt Jr. projection is not what you want to see), along with the sheer quantity of players on the free agent market waiting for the lockout to end so they can find teams, and it adds up to a very basic snapshot of the moment.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t a takeaway that can be unearthed from the circuitry. For me, that’s how little separates the teams in the AL Central. The White Sox are still the prohibitive favorites and there’s a reason for that. The rest of the division though? It’s kind of tight with the Twins and New Guardians a tier above the Tigers and Royals. Everything beyond first place feels within the polling margin of error.
If the lockout ever ends and if somehow we get a full slate of 162 games, this summer could be an interesting one. IF!