Royals making most of chance to work with their minor-leaguers, build toward future
The Minor League Baseball season is in full swing. Well, in a manner of speaking.
On Monday, some of the Royals’ minor-league players began their third week of fall camp at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City while others started their second week of camp at the club’s complex in Surprise, Arizona.
Excluding players currently on the Royals’ 40-man roster, nearly all of whom appeared in MLB games this summer, the Royals have 120 minor-leaguers who initially reported to the two separate camps.
The camp at Kauffman Stadium began the week after the big-league club wrapped up its season. The Royals assigned 50 players to that camp in Kansas City, which is scheduled to conclude on Oct. 23.
Another 70 players were sent to Arizona and went through COVID-19 intake testing, then had a week of workouts before they began games last week. The camp in Arizona will extend until Nov. 20, though games are expected to wrap up Nov. 13.
“It’s paramount to their development,” said Royals assistant general manager/player performance J.J. Picollo, who oversees the organization’s player development system. “Usually this time of year we’re in a typical Instructional League where we’ve had a year to observe and now is our time to start making some adjustments, giving the players sort of a clear plan of what we want them to accomplish in the fall and into the offseason.
“Because we didn’t have a season this year, we’re really using these two months as their season.”
Throughout the pandemic-shortened MLB season, Royals general manager Dayton Moore spoke passionately about the critical need for clubs, particularly those in small markets, to have access to their players in order to continue the development process.
Moore boldly and bluntly voiced frustration when MLB seemingly dragged its feet late into the summer without solidifying its plans for minor-league players until early September.
Following the August trade deadline, Moore said, “We have to develop our own players. We’re not getting the opportunity to do that. There’s ways to do it that we can do in a healthy manner, in a very structured manner. There’s ways to do it. Kids played summer ball all over this country, all over the world. They did it fine. If you’re a minor-league baseball player who is getting paid, you’re not allowed to play baseball right now.”
Picollo also continually preached how crucial it would be to have some form of hands-on coaching as well as competitive games.
“The purpose of it is the innings and the at-bats,” Picollo said. “We’re trying to play as many innings as we can, get as many at-bats as we can. Just because that’s something we missed out on during the season. It’s really important from a reps standpoint and a game situation standpoint, trying to fill in the gaps of things we didn’t have earlier this year.”
Developing hitters
Since the end of last season, the Royals restructured their player development staff, bestowed the title of director of hitting performance/player development upon Alec Zumwalt, hired a new hitting coordinator in Drew Saylor as well as a new assistant hitting coordinator in Keoni DeRenne, and tasked Zumwalt with overseeing a more all-encompassing and streamlined approach to hitting development.
The shutdown of the minor-league season potentially jeopardized any momentum made in hitting development as players scattered around the globe uncertain when or in what form they’d reconvene.
“The big thing was when the guys got home and things started shutting down, the hitters were at a disadvantage because some of the academies they would go to or facilities, some of the colleges started shutting it down and they had nowhere to hit,” Zumwalt said. “Public fields were closed. Parks were closed. High school fields, you hear stories from some of our guys about getting kicked off their own high school field.”
During the quarantine period, players hit off tees in backyards and driveways. Some of the club’s international players sent in videos of themselves hitting into makeshift nets.
Zumwalt credited the Royals’ minor-league coaches as well as the players for their dedication and daily commitment to staying involved through sending in and breaking down video, constantly text-messaging and taking part in webinars.
MiLB officially announced the cancellation of the minor-league season on June 30, but all along Picollo conveyed the message that the Royals planned to make up for missed time the best way possible when they received the OK to hold camp and instructional league.
“(Picollo) came through with that,” Zumwalt said. “It was amazing. Once the minor league season ended and we were rolling with the alternate site, we knew our goal was the fall.
“Dayton had said we were going to do everything we could for our minor-leaguers to have some games in the fall even though it was more than likely going to be in an instructional league or a fall league or something kind of like what we’re doing now in Kansas City.”
Loftin and Pena in KC
Of the position players in Kansas City, former Baylor shortstop and 32nd overall draft pick Nick Loftin is the lone draft pick or undrafted free agent from this year’s crop of newcomers.
Outfielder Erick Pena, 17, still hasn’t played in a minor-league game. Pena, a native of the Dominican Republic, signed last summer as an international free agent. MLBPipeline.com ranked him the fifth-best international prospect in that signing class.
Both were selected to take part in the camp at Kauffman and will finish out the fall season in Arizona.
The Royals expect, based on evaluation from their scouting department, that Loftin will jump to a higher level in the minors “sooner rather than later,” Picollo said.
They included Loftin in camp in order to see him against high-level pitching, and also because they felt like maturity level and age put him in a peer group with players in the upper levels of their farm system.
Pena will benefit from the tutelage of former minor-league outfield coordinators Rusty Kuntz and Mitch Maier at the Kansas City camp. “We wanted him to get that one-on-one attention,” Picollo said.
The fact that he’s bilingual also factored into the decision.
“He’s doing very well. He’s really holding his own. He’s got some big hits. He’s got some walks. I don’t think he’s fazed by the competition.”
Game On
The 50 players in Kansas City, many of whom trained this summer at the club’s alternate site at T-Bones Stadium in Kansas City, Kan., were divided into two teams via a draft. Double-A manager Scott Thorman manages one squad, while Rookie League manager/Triple-A bench coach Tony Pena Jr. manages the other.
Thorman’s team includes top raft picks Asa Lacy and Loftin as well as highly regarded prospects like left-handed pitchers Daniel Lynch and Austin Cox, first baseman Nick Pratto and catcher M.J. Melendez. Pena’s team includes top prospect shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., outfielders Kyle Isbel, Khalil Lee and Erick Pena and pitcher Jackson Kowar.
Entering Monday, they’d played 10 games against one another since that camp started and six were tied going into the last inning. They’ll play a total of 20 games during the camp.
The two teams in Arizona are playing against teams from other MLB organizations. Newcomers to the Royals organization (draft picks and undrafted free agents), excluding Loftin and Lacy, began the fall in Arizona.
This story was originally published October 13, 2020 at 5:00 AM.