Trading from strength

Decisions need to be made soon about the Kansas City Royals catcher situation

The biggest mistake the Royals front office has made in recent memory, in my opinion, is the handling of MJ Melendez. We were told that he was a good catcher with huge power potential, and at the end of the 2021 season everyone got excited about trading one All-Star level catcher for another when Perez stepped down, but it was not to be. Melendez was not a good catcher, nor has his bat translated to the big leagues well. Now the Royals have a platoon corner outfielder at best. Luckily, Perez has aged gracefully thus far to mitigate the damage. Failing to evaluate Melendez correctly and trade him before his value plummeted was a huge mistake.

Now the team is heading into a similar situation, but the clock on Perez is shorter than last time. Salvy turns 35 in May, and it is hard to imagine him being a productive catcher for much longer. Freddy Fermin has established a high level of defensive play that makes him a fantastic second catcher, but he is turning 30 this year and is not a long-term starting caliber of catcher. Luckily the farm system, thin as it is, has more catchers than anything else.

Looking at the Royals’ top prospects, catcher is clearly an area of strength. Fangraphs had catchers at numbers 1 and 3 in rankings toward the end of last summer. Farm to Fountains earlier this month had them at 2 and 4. Blake Mitchell’s first full season in the minors has kept him at the top of the Royals rankings. Meanwhile, Carter Jensen took a large step forward this season by crushing high-A pitching and moving up to AA and still posting solid numbers. Mitchell is only 20 years old and Jensen is 21. The team needs to get their evaluation right this time. One of them, and only one of them, should be seen as the heir apparent to Salvador Perez in the very near future.

Hopefully the team already has a good feel for which of these two can handle catching duties at the pro level. The last thing they need to have happen is to again bring up a catcher only to have him prove he does not have the skills to remain behind the plate. If only one of them is going to be able in that regard, the other needs to be traded to turn the value of a high-end catching prospect into another prospect or established player at another position. Or, if both look like they won’t be a fit, then both need to be swapped and catcher post-Salvy becomes a different problem to solve.

The evaluation of Jensen as a potential catcher in the big leagues should be done or close to it. If he is hitting well in 2025, then he could conceivably be in Kansas City by the end of the year. I assume Mitchell will not be big league ready until at least late 2026, and that would be an aggressive rise through the minors as 2026 will be only his third full minor league season. That would only be slightly slower than Bobby Witt’s progression.

Now that Jensen is in the high minors, this is the year to make the decision on him. If he is going to be the starting catcher of the future, great! If not, he needs to help fill one of the lineup weaknesses through trade by the deadline in 2025. An outfield bat would be a welcome addition and this would be one way to fill that need.

These are the hard decisions that JJ Piccolo and team get paid to make, and this is one of the key positions that they will need to handle well over the next couple of years as we transition out of the Salvador Perez era in Kansas City. There should be at least one big trade involving a catching prospect in the next year and a half. I don’t want to hear about Blake Mitchell moving to the outfield next off-season. When you have strength at one position, it should be used to fill in at weaker ones.