‘This isn’t that far away’: How Daniel Lynch used 2020 to close in on big leagues
It’s debatable how meaningful prospect rankings are to the guys on the lists. But that feeling of being on the verge of making it to the majors is undeniably significant.
Kansas City Royals left-hander and top pitching prospect Daniel Lynch remembers when that feeling truly hit him. It was when his friends, draft classmates and fellow Royals minor-league pitchers Brady Singer and Kris Bubic were promoted to the big leagues last year.
“I think the biggest thing was those guys getting there ... ‘All right. This is my level, and they’re there,” Lynch said last week in an interview with The Star in Surprise, Arizona. “It honestly made me feel more ready because I drove Kris home the day he got called up.”
Bubic, a southpaw like Lynch, made the jump to the majors despite not having pitched above Single-A.
For Lynch to see that unfold in front of him, it kick-started a summer of detailed and focused work on his craft that has one of baseball’s most highly regarded pitching prospects believing in himself in a new way.
“I think when your peer group gets there, you start to get like, ‘This isn’t that far away anymore,’” Lynch said. “I think that was the biggest thing. I started pitching and thinking in the mindset of ‘I’m not in Double-A anymore. Is this going to work in the big leagues? Because it’s really, really close.’”
Whether Lynch breaks camp with the club or not this spring, he figures to force his way into the starting rotation discussion sooner than later.
“I just see a more mature pitcher standing up there, and I think he’s going to be better for it in the long run,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said before the start of Cactus League play.
Lynch’s first spring training outing, the first true game setting in more than a year, featured some speed bumps as he battled through spotty command on Wednesday against the Chicago Cubs.
He gave up three runs, three hits and three walks in 1 2/3 innings. All three runs came in his second inning.
That still doesn’t negate the “huge strides” Matheny noticed from the first time Lynch stepped on a mound for a bullpen session in Arizona.
“Daniel looks completely different 365 days later than what we saw last year,” Matheny said. “And part of that is a little bit of edge. He wanted to be a part of what we were doing last year. Part of that is our development team, and our pitching development did a really good job.
“Stuff has been there. It’s been fine-tuning some of the idiosyncrasies and some even away from the ball as far as his demeanor, as far as his presence.”
It’s in there
From the outside looking in at Lynch, everyone has recognized his potential by this point.
A 6-foot-6, 200-pound Virginia native drafted 34th overall out of the University of Virginia in 2018, Lynch throws a fastball in the mid to upper 90s along with an above average slider and a changeup that has shown the potential to be an above average major-league pitch.
Baseball America ranked him the 25th-best prospect heading into this spring, while MLBPipeline.com ranked him No. 29.
Teammates who’ve stepped in the batter’s box or watched him throw keep coming back to the same adjective — “nasty” — as the best descriptive for Lynch’s repertoire. Evaluators and player development staff have expressed similar sentiments about his raw ability.
But, as if often the case, Lynch hadn’t quite figured out how to sustain the pitching brilliance he’d shown in flashes.
The 24-year-old impressed with his performance in his 32 minor-league starts. He tossed his way to an 11-3 record with a 2.50 ERA, 157 strikeouts and 37 walks and a 1.19 WHIP in 147 2/3 innings. An injury caused him to miss some time in 2019, but he returned and also pitched well in the Arizona Fall League after the conclusion of the minor-league season.
Lynch joined Jackson Kowar, Singer and Bubic, his draft classmates and former roommates as first-time invitees to big-league spring training camp last year.
It wasn’t until he came to Kansas City for spring training 2.0/summer camp and then stayed in the area as part of the alternate training site that he gained a better understanding of what he needed to do in order to harness his ability.
Figuring it out
This fall, Royals director of pitching performance Paul Gibson raved about the progress Lynch made in multiple areas, including the development of his changeup.
Lynch’s latest advancement came away from onlookers and without any published statistics or spectators in the stands outside of team personnel. His feedback came in the form of one-on-one battles with hitters at the Royals alternate site.
In that setting, he found more consistency with his command.
“During the alt site, it sort of progressed, working with Gibbie specifically,” Lynch said. “He really knew what made me click. There were some things that he could see. He didn’t say much. He let me do my thing, but then he never let stuff get too far out.”
The continuity played a big part in Lynch’s strides. He worked on the same things for the entire season, which he described as “key.”
Because he saw progress with his command, it bolstered his confidence and allowed him to trust his stuff without feeling the need to reach back for something extra and ultimately overthrow.
“I also think it was a lot of being comfortable with who I am as a pitcher and not trying to do too much,” Lynch said. “I think that is what would happen a lot of times when I would get out of my delivery. It was never that I was scared or whatever. … I was trying to be more than I could be, trying to throw way harder, be nastier, when I needed to stay in my lane and be who I was.”
The domino effect went like this: More consistent mechanics led to improved command, which led to a more confident pitcher.
The Royals hope the end result will be a pitcher with trust in himself and one of the most overpowering arsenals of any young left-hander in the game.
“I think I’m not necessarily a different pitcher, I just think I’m a more refined version of who I already was,” Lynch said. “I don’t think I’m doing anything different. I just think I’m doing the good things a little bit more consistently, or trying to.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2021 at 10:06 AM.
