The Royals should be “ambushing” pitchers more

The 2025 Royals could take a tip from Alcides Escobar.

The Royals’ offense is bad. There’s no getting around that. Anyone with half a brain worried that could be true before the season started. To the Royals’ credit, they also knew this and took steps to address it during the off-season. First, they traded for Jonathan India. Then they attempted to sign a couple of the most impressive free-agent outfielders in Anthony Santander and Jurickson Profar, but chose not to outbid other clubs for those players.

The India trade has not worked out. Never known for his power, it’s further evaporated while playing for the Royals. Some of us hoped he’d channel what in the Great American Ballpark was warning track power into a bunch of doubles using Kauffman Stadium’s spacious outfield. Instead, he’s having by far his worst season as a big leaguer. Think right-handed Nicky Lopez without the glove. It’s not quite that bad, but it’s closer than anyone could have reasonably imagined.

Santander and Profar didn’t sign with the Royals, but neither would have been an answer even if they had. So the Royals started the season with MJ Melendez and Hunter Renfroe in the middle of their order and prayed both would find their form from previous seasons. Neither did.

Again, to the Royals’ credit, they’ve pushed just about every button they could to fix the lineup. First, they demoted MJ Melendez and recalled Drew Waters, who was hitting well at Omaha. Eventually, they replaced Hunter Renfroe and Cavan Biggio with Nick Loftin and John Rave. Finally, they called up last year’s sixth-overall draft pick, Jac Caglianone, and asked him to add some thunder to a wimpy lineup. Nothing has worked. Short of trading for one or more impact bats, the Royals have only one option left to them: hire a new hitting coach.

The problem goes beyond additions or lack thereof

Alec Zumwalt and Keoni DeRenne have both worked as the Royals’ hitting coaches since J.J. Picollo and Matt Quatraro took over general and on-field managing duties for the club in 2023. Joe Dillon joined them last year. There can be no denying they’ve had some successes. Bobby Witt Jr. has flourished under their tutelage and, on multiple occasions, has credited them with helping him identify mechanical flaws to escape slumps. Maikel Garcia has grown into a true top-of-the-order hitter while working with them.

But, overall, this isn’t working. They’ve got to go. And yes, as some have argued, finding a permanent solution for a hitting coach in the middle of the season is a fool’s errand. So the Royals should be seeking a temporary solution to try and get them back into things for now.

That solution should be Alcides Escobar.

Ambush!

Escobar was never a great hitter for the Royals. His best offensive season was in 2012 when he accrued a 97 wRC+. At the end of 2014, however, he was made the leadoff hitter and provided a huge spark for a Royals team that needed everything it could get. In 2015, he won ALCS MVP on the back of a .478/.481/.652/1.134 slash line. He finished that postseason with a 130 wRC+. The Royals, of course, won the World Series.

Escobar became known around the league for one thing: ambushing opposing pitchers. While conventional wisdom at the time had hitters watching the first pitch of the game quite often, Escobar realized that such pitches were therefore treated as perfunctory strikes by many of the league’s pitchers and started swinging away at them. In 2015, Escobar slashed .364/.367/.477/.844 on the first pitch of an at-bat, easily his best numbers for any single count in that season.

Things are bad on the first pitch

Why all this about ambushing pitches? Well, as lead editor Max Rieper noted in a recent article, the Royals are getting an insane number of first pitch strikes.

64.1 percent

That’s the rate of first-pitch strikes Royals hitters get from opponents, third-highest in baseball. Pitchers are attacking them, mostly because they don’t have to worry about them doing damage. The Royals swing at just 28.6 percent of first pitch strikes, the lowest rate in baseball. So, despite being one of the most aggressive teams swinging the bat, they are the most passive swinging onthe first pitch. Where’s Alcides Escobar to ambush a team when you need him?

Where is Alcides Escobar, indeed?

I ran some calculations and found that things are even more dire than that number portends: Prior to Wednesday night’s game, no team had watched more first-pitch strikes. Of all the first pitches of at-bats, the Royals had seen a strike and chosen not to swing at 35.1% of them. These aren’t all high-quality strikes, either. Perhaps the most damning number is 11.9%. That is the percentage of first pitches that the Royals passively watch that are fastballs in the heart of the zone. The league averages for those are 30% and 9.4% respectively.

So the Royals, who, per Max’s article, also chase the most in the league, are caught napping on the first pitch more than a third of the time and watch some of the juiciest pitches in baseball almost one in every eight times they step to the plate. Heck, the Royals are tied at eighth for the most fastballs in the middle of the plate allowed to pass uncontested in any count. Pitchers aren’t afraid of Royals batters. Maybe it’s because they’re not good, but more likely it’s because they know the Royals just aren’t going to swing.

Do you doubt it? Consider this. It’s well known that one of Tampa Bay Rays’ starter Taj Bradley’s biggest issues this season has been throwing first pitch strikes. In his effort against the Royals on Tuesday night, he threw the third-most first-pitch strikes he’d thrown all season. Most of them were fastballs. More than a couple were in the middle of the zone. Are you curious as to when he threw the most first-pitch strikes this season? That, of course, was in his first start against the Royals back in April.

Randy Vásquez threw the most first-pitch strikes of his season against the Royals on Sunday. Carlos Carasco, who is currently looking for a job because he’s been so bad, managed to throw his second-most first pitch strikes against the Royals in his start for the Yankees back in April. Jacob Lopez threw the third-most first pitch strikes he’s thrown all year against them. Severino had his best first-pitch strike game against the Royals. On and on. Is it any wonder the worst pitchers in baseball look like aces against the Royals? They can get free 0-1 counts to start practically every at-bat!

It’s not like this is a new issue, either. Our own Kevin Ruprecht wrote about it back in April! You simply can’t leave the guys who are overseeing those kinds of awful swing decisions in their positions. The Royals have to make a change. I think there’s room for Zumwalt, DeRenne, and Dillon to make contributions to this team. But they can’t be in charge of the major league hitting coaching philosophies and priorities anymore. It’s been obvious for at least a couple of weeks that a new voice is needed. A voice that will free up the bats to ambush the opposition, even when it doesn’t necessarily make sense.

It’s a bit tongue-in-cheek to suggest that the Royals actually hire Escobar as the hitting coach, but they need a change, and that’s one glaring weakness. It also happens to be Esky’s strength. Alcides Escobar isn’t the hitting coach the Royals deserve, but he’s the one they need.