‘They’re freaks’: On the enticing upside of Royals’ dynamic duo of Mondesi + Witt Jr.
.jpg "Bobby Witt Jr., left, and Adalberto Mondesi started on the left side of the infield for the Royals in their spring training opener on Friday in Surprise, Arizona, a reminder that this dynamic duo is crucial to the Royals’ imminent future.")
One evening last May in Springdale, Arkansas, Dayton Moore sat in the stands outside a suite in Arvest Ballpark and pondered the Royals’ distressing and perplexing 11-game losing streak.
Frustrated as he might have been, Moore, then the general manager and now the president of the Royals, reiterated his faith in the trajectory of the organization.
That was in large part because of what he was about to witness that night on the field for the Class AA Northwest Arkansas Naturals:
The infinitely talented Adalberto Mondesi and the prodigy aptly introduced over that P.A. system as “Bobby Witt Juuuuuunior” were about to take the field together in a game that counted for the first time.
That made for an intriguing snapshot of the imminent future — a future that Moore had told owner John Sherman could be predicated on maximizing the amount of time Mondesi (now 26), Witt (21) and Sal Perez can play together.
“We’ve got to figure out how to do that as long as we can,” Moore said that night.
Flash-forward to the future that suddenly is now on Friday at Surprise Stadium, where the Royals and Texas Rangers played to a 5-5 tie in the spring training opener.
All three would-be pillars indeed were on the field at once in what looked quite like a prospective opening day lineup featuring Mondesi batting seventh at shortstop and Witt batting eighth at third base.
A prevailing sense of enticing possibilities was further stoked by a fourth-inning sequence in which Mondesi lined a first-pitch home run to left field and Witt followed by scampering out a double just into the gap in left-center.
Mondesi’s home run, Witt said afterward, “fired me up.” So much so that he was thinking back-to-back on his first swing.
“I definitely wanted to do the same thing,” he said, smiling. “But I had to tone it down a little bit, just put the ball in play and let things happen.”
Which is hard to do when you feel like he did on this day: “Ecstatic … like a little kid on Christmas, honestly.”
We know the feeling, though.
Because there is something exhilarating about what each of these two could do. And geometrically more so if both bloom at once.
Of all the variables and subplots looming as the Royals seek their first winning season and postseason berth since winning the World Series in 2015, few are more crucial than to what degree and on what pace this pair with stratospheric ceilings can conjure the best of themselves.
And part of the beauty of this time of the season is that no one can tell you that you can’t embrace hoping that vision comes alive — despite X-factors such as Witt’s youth and Mondesi’s unsettling injury history.
Not to say anything can be assumed, exactly.
Witt surely will experience growing pains. And Mondesi’s volatile health has left the onus on him to demonstrate that won’t confine him or define him no matter how diligently he’s worked to overcome that.
Even Mondesi seems to believe there’s only so much he can do.
“Nobody wants to get hurt,” he said in front of his locker Friday, later adding that all he can do is stay positive and work to get stronger. “God is the only one who knows what’s going to happen.”
If you’re a cynic, you’re rolling your eyes right now about how his past must doom his future. After all, he’s never played more than 102 games in any one season in the big leagues and missed 94 of the first 104 games last year because of a pair of oblique injuries and a hamstring injury.
That’s certainly a basis for healthy skepticism and reasonable concern about his reliability, and maybe even enough to attach a psychological asterisk to any expectations we might have of him.
On the other hand, what’s in our heads as observers isn’t what’s in his head. Or in his body, for that matter. This is his story to create. And none of what’s happened before condemns him to more anguish ahead.
Meanwhile, it’s undeniably true that Mondesi has a mesmerizing capacity to influence a game in virtually every way offensively and defensively. “Take over” a game, even, as Moore has told him.
Couple that with the equally spellbinding skill set of Witt, who on Thursday was named MLB Pipeline’s top prospect in baseball and might well have been able to perform at the major-league level a year ago, and the Royals have in their possession the stuff dreams are made of.
“They’re freaks …” said rising first base prospect Nick Pratto, who hit a home run on Friday. “It’s awesome to watch.”
Asked about the duo on Friday, manager Mike Matheny contoured his answer to the broader lineup but allowed as how “I don’t think there’s anybody, really, in (Mondesi’s) league as far as athleticism (and) speed. Bobby’s close.”
Imagine even an approximation of that potential poured into the rest of this while Baseball America’s fifth-rated farm system percolates with more to come:
By now, you can surely count on Perez to be a force and Whit Merrifield to be abundantly productive. You can perhaps surmise that Nicky Lopez can repeat his breakout last season and suppose Andrew Benintendi will hit about 18 home runs and drive in 87-ish as per his 162-game average as projected by Baseball Reference.com.
Meanwhile, the Royals have the makings of an amazing defense, starting with an infield that in essence will feature three exceptional shortstops. And an outfield patrolled by 2021 Gold Glove winners Benintendi and Michael A. Taylor. And, of course, five-time Gold Glove winner Perez behind the plate.
If this season is going to entail a meaningful improvement from last year’s 74-88 dud, of course, pitching obviously will be pivotal … and it remains to be seen how ready the galaxy of young arms is to flourish consistently instead of flash promise.
And there are ample question marks beyond the pitching. Perhaps an overlooked one is the matter of Hunter Dozier, who peaked in 2019 and was muzzled by injuries much of last season before seeming to find himself again by season’s end.
The hunch here is that Dozier has plenty more to offer.
Like the defense and pitching, though, Dozier is a topic in itself that we’ll come back to soon.
But with a Royals revival in the balance, almost nothing in the feasible set could jumpstart the operation like breakthrough seasons by Mondesi and Witt … and the ability to sustain it over time.
It’s rational to wonder if it will all come to fruition, going back even to a year ago when that first appearance came about because of Mondesi being there on an injury rehab assignment.
By season’s end, even Moore said in an interview on “Fescoe In The Morning” via KSCP (610 AM) that Mondesi “may not be a guy that plays in more than a hundred games a year, best-case scenario.”
But that term has a different context right about now.
“Right now, it’s early enough in spring that everybody is talking about the best-case scenario,” Matheny said last week. “We want Mondi at shortstop. How often? We’ll see. We’ll watch.”
So will we. Because the best version of what these Royals can be starts with the arc of Mondesi and Witt from here forward — a fresh start toward an open-ended script.