Royals pitchers aren’t walking hitters this spring, what does that mean for the rotation?

As a team, the Royals are not walking many batter so far this spring, and a pretty large group have yet to issue a free pass. A couple of those guys are particularly interesting.

For most spring training stats, I am definitely the guy to talk to about ignoring them. They mean little to nothing. I know if you are the 24th to 29th guy on the roster, it might be your ticket onto the team and then it becomes very important, but as fans, we should mostly ignore them entirely. Vinny Capra has the most spring training homers right now. Who the hell is Vinny Capra? However, you knew the but was coming, the Royals pitching has been getting better at avoiding walks for several years now and that trend is continuing this spring.

Through Tuesday, the Royals had walked 36 total batters in almost 100 innings pitched. That’s 3.34 BB/9IP and good for third as a team in spring training. This is a team that used to be one of the highest walk-rate pitching staffs year in and year out, but they have come a long way toward fixing the problem since J.J. Picollo and friends took over the front office. More than that, who is issuing those walks matter. Of those 36 walks issued, 25 were by pitchers that I would consider very unlikely to make the team. Think Chandler Champlain, Thomas Hatch, and Brandon Johnson who have combined for eight.

Kris Bubic, Stephen Cruz, Hunter Harvey, Daniel Lynch, John Schreiber, Michael Wacha, and Angel Zerpa have yet to walk anyone. That’s three of your expected starting five and several likely bullpen arms. Cruz is especially surprising since walking guys has really been his Achilles heel. These sample sizes are tiny, so please ingest them with a huge grain of salt. We only have so much data to play with at this point, but Cruz having six strikeouts and no walks over four innings is a really encouraging thing to see as he battles for one of the bullpen spots.

Beyond Cruz, Daniel Lynch IV and Kris Bubic are the two pitchers I am really interested in so far. I believe in Bubic. Before spring started I was already penciling him in as Brady Singer’s replacement in the rotation, and more than that, I think he will be an upgrade over Singer. In three starts at the beginning of 2023, Kris looked like he had finally figured something out. Then his elbow exploded because that is what happens to seemingly all professional pitchers anymore. He backed that short stint in 2023 up by coming back last year and being nails out of the bullpen. In the regular season he went 30.1 striking out 11.57 per nine and walking 1.48. That is a phenomenal K/BB rate. Bubic looks like he is poised to be at least a middle-of-the-rotation guy to me. Great control and enough quality pitches usually is a good recipe.

Daniel Lynch IV, on the other hand, has struggled to establish himself in any meaningful way. His stuff is not great. None of his pitches have been particularly effective on a consistent basis. And yet, moving to the bullpen at the end of 2024 he put together a stretch of 11 games and 20.2 innings where he gave up no runs. It was not some dominant, pristine sort of run though, so I still am unable to wrap my head around what he could be. During that stretch he gave up an unsustainable .200 BABIP, but had a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 4 that is well above average for a major league pitcher. His FIP/xFIP were 1.71/2.81, but they did not use him in the playoffs. What do you make of that?

Now he has come back to spring and continued to have success. Zero walks over his first seven innings is a nice sign, but not enough to say everything is fixed. His strikeout rate has not changed meaningfully, but if he has just great control with a mediocre K/rate that can be enough to make someone a solid pitcher. I wish I could find some pitch modeling statistics, Stuff+ or something, for spring training. If that exists, I have yet to track it down. His quality of batters faced on BR is sitting at 8.0, which is AAA level. That’s not unusual in spring training, Bubic is at 8.2 and Cruz is at 6.3 (below AA avg) which might explain some of Cruz’ success so far. I want to see the Royals stretch him out some more over the next couple of weeks and see if he can battle for that last spot in the rotation.

Everyone seems to be penciling Michael Lorenzen into this rotation, as if it is a God-given right. Once Marsh was out of the picture for opening day, I was inclined to agree that Lorenzen was almost certainly going to be one of the five. Now I am starting to think he should have to earn it again. This team is too good to be handing him a starting spot when his record says he will be at best a mediocre fifth starter. He finally made his spring training debut yesterday and looked fine and if he continues that, then by all means give it to him.

Bubic has too much upside to be behind Lorenzen, who is not in the Ragans/Lugo/Wacha class of pitcher. It is time to start seriously talking about Lynch as an option to steal that 5th spot from Lorenzen. Remember last year at this time when everyone thought Jordan Lyles would be in the rotation? He wasn’t. This front office has shown that it will not play the veterans just because they are getting paid more or whatever, and I hope that will continue to be true as opening day draws near.