The Royals’ greatest on field challenge of 2020, and the strategy they’ll employ
Relatively speaking, the challenge of ushering young pitching prospects through a baseball season disrupted by the coronavirus is approximately as important to the world right now as as whether you make dinner tonight or order takeout.
But it’s much more interesting to talk about!
The Royals have disproportionately pushed resources into their starting pitching prospects. That’s always a risk, because position players are more projectable, and it’s a fascinating one as the sport increasingly values relievers and power hitters.
The idea of the Royals zigging while others zag isn’t new — they won the 2015 World Series by pioneering the emphasis on bullpens, and valuing contact hitting over power.
It is, somewhat ironically given their (outdated) reputation as analytically averse, a very Moneyball approach: Find the market inefficiency.
This is a bold move, then, using the industry’s decreasing value on starting pitchers to load up on the sport’s most unpredictable commodity. That was always going to be true, but then here came an additional and historic challenge — how to develop, manage the workloads and maximize the value of those pitchers through an awkward break, canceled minor leagues and 60-game major-league season.
It’s an enormous problem, with potentially long-lasting consequences, the solutions made on the fly.
“This is part science, part just instinctual,” said J.J. Picollo, the Royals’ vice president and assistant general manager for player personnel.
The Royals walk this tightrope without a safety net. Their top prospects are loaded with pitching — Brady Singer, Jackson Kowar, Daniel Lynch, Kris Bubic, Jonathan Bowlan, Austin Cox, Alec Marsh, Grant Gambrell, Asa Lacy, Ben Hernandez, Christian Chamberlain and Will Klein have all been taken in the top five rounds in the last three drafts.
This is not an oversimplification: If at least some of them don’t become reliable and productive big-leaguers, their current rebuild has virtually no chance.
If that group proves loaded with future stars, the Royals will likely find themselves in championship contention.
Baseball’s last shortened season was in 1995, when big-leaguers had an expedited, three-week spring training. That’s similar to what’s now in front of a July 23 opening day (July 24 for the Royals). Data is difficult to find, but baseball insiders believe pitching injuries spiked 25 years ago.
“Pitchers are harder than position players, no doubt,” Picollo said. “Because they break down. They break down more frequently, and that’s the last thing we want to happen to a guy.”
The Royals’ part-science, part-instinct plan is the franchise’s defense shield. Pitchers have not spent the 16 weeks since spring training closed on couches. Some have faced live hitters and all have worked in some form — many with simulated three-inning outings once or twice per week.
The team will take that workload, add whatever comes during the regular season and (for some) potentially more in a fall developmental league. To account for the competitiveness of real games, pitchers will earn half credit for simulated innings.
The total will give the Royals a guideline on each pitcher’s 2020 workload, a base to make a plan for 2021 that won’t violate the industry’s general rule against increasing innings more than 20 to 30 percent.
The goals are different for established big-leaguers like Brad Keller and Jakob Junis, because conventional baseball belief is that once a guy goes 150 innings or so he can get back to that level without heightened caution.
Purely in terms of workload, the same logic applies to Singer, Kowar and Bubic — who, interestingly, each pitched between 148 1/3 and 149 1/3 innings last year.
But for others — Lynch threw 96 1/3 innings last year; Lacy threw 88 2/3 at Texas A&M in 2019, and 24 more this spring — this will be an interesting balance.
For whatever it’s worth, the Royals’ plan is approved by Glenn Fleisig, research director at the American Sports Medicine Institute, which has long been at the forefront of understanding, preventing and treating pitcher injuries.
“That’s a really good idea,” Fleisig said. “There’s no guarantees. I don’t know all the answers. But what you just laid out to me of what the Royals are doing, and probably similar to what other teams are doing, I think that’s a very good idea. The best I could think of.”
Fleisig said the key in preventing injuries will be in the level of shape pitchers begin summer camp, and how quickly they push to prepare for the regular season. He also said it’s possible that the break itself will prevent injuries, because damaged ligaments and tendons will have had extra time to heal.
An interesting note on Lacy, the highly regarded No. 4 overall pick this year who was left off the Royals’ 60-man major-league pool. The Royals had a lot of discussions about him and believe in the value of having top prospects around big-leaguers and big-league coaches during spring training.
But two points swayed them away from putting him on the 60-man: diminished benefits from a camp vastly different than traditional big-league spring training, and, the virus willing, the potential to work in a developmental league this fall.
The loose plan is for him to continue to train and then pitch 30 to 40 competitive innings after the regular season. Add all of his work this year together, and the Royals believe he’d be in line for 120 or more innings in 2021.
“(Placing him in the 60-man pool) just felt like we’re jumping the gun,” Picollo said. “What do we really expect Asa Lacy to do this year? We didn’t think it was the right thing to do, and nothing to do with his ability.”
Last thing here, and in keeping with baseball’s reputation as a game of adjustments, the Royals have been diligent about making the most of this situation.
They believe they’ve found some positives in it. Most notably, in communication. The Royals have done many continuing education-type presentations, with Zoom calls on everything from changeup grips to maximizing the benefit of Rapsodo machines to injury prevention.
In normal years, this information is buried by the workload of the season and the desire to disengage when it’s over. This year’s break has allowed the Royals to fast-track this type of learning and record presentations to use in the future.
“We’ve had a lot of great dialogue with pitchers, better than it’s ever been,” Picollo said. “Because we had the time to take it slow and implement things.”
This is all uncharted, so much so that merely pointing that out is now cliche. Fleisig wondered if mental and emotional stress from playing through a pandemic could lead to injuries. Picollo believes fastball velocity and relief pitching in particular will suffer without the adrenaline of playing in front of big crowds. He expected veterans to have an advantage there, but rookies to perhaps enjoy an easier transition without fans, particularly on the road.
Just like everything else right now, these are all guesses.
“It’d be a neat thing to do some sort of case study on it from a psychological point, right?” Picollo said. “But on the other hand, I hope we’re never in this situation again so we won’t have to worry about it.”