Entering play Thursday at just 22-58, the Royals have the second-worst record in Major League Baseball, narrowly leading an Athletics team that has aggressively torn down its roster amid payroll cuts and efforts to restock the farm system. Unlike their floundering AL West counterparts, Kansas City did not enter the season in the early stages of a rebuild and with such minimal expectations. The Royals did recently push for a somewhat accelerated retooling period, but they added several veterans for a second straight offseason and at least hoped to keep afloat in a weak division. No one viewed the Royals as contenders heading into the year, but this level of struggle was not expected either.
Brutal as the Royals’ season has been, owner John Sherman today voiced “total confidence” in first-year general manager J.J. Picollo and rookie manager Matt Quatraro, per Anne Rogers of MLB.com (Twitter links). Of course, that doesn’t mean Sherman considers the 2023 season acceptable — far from it. Said the Royals’ CEO: “I feel accountable for where we are right now with our baseball team. We are committed to do what it takes to return to form. … This is a real year of evaluation, and that evaluation right now is painful.”
Picollo is still new to the top spot in the baseball operations hierarchy but has been with the Royals organization since 2006, when he was hired as the team’s director of player development. Quatraro, meanwhile, is in his first year with the club after previously serving as an assistant hitting coach in Cleveland and as a third base coach and bench coach with Tampa Bay.
The Royals fired president of baseball operations Dayton Moore back in September and elevated Picollo in his place. Moore had been one of the longest-tenured baseball operations leaders in the sport, originally ascending to the position of general manager in 2006. The Royals gave him a title bump to president of baseball ops in 2021, simultaneously promoting Picollo from assistant general manager to GM.
Picollo has had baseball operations autonomy for less than a year, but the moves made this past offseason generally haven’t panned out. A two-year deal for Jordan Lyles has thus far produced disastrous results (6.68 ERA in 91 2/3 innings). Zack Greinke again returned to Kansas City on a one-year deal and had been pitching as a capable innings eater, though a recent trio of rough starts has pushed his ERA north of 5.00. The signing of lefty Ryan Yarbrough is tougher to judge, as he’s been out nearly two months after being struck in the head by a comebacker.
To Picollo’s credit, the Royals’ low-cost investment in former Yankees stopper Aroldis Chapman has worked out as well as one could’ve hoped. The 35-year-old’s fastball velocity has rebounded to its highest level since 2017, and his 42.9% strikeout rate is his highest mark in a 162-game season since 2018. The southpaw’s 16.8% walk rate is still far too high, but command issues have long been an part of the Chapman experience. As it stands, he’s a slam-dunk trade candidate and could net Kansas City some minor league talent of note between now and the Aug. 1 trade deadline.
Lackluster performance from the Royals’ offseason additions are only a small part of the team’s 2023 woes, of course. Much of their recent rebuilding effort staked its hopes on developing polished college pitchers — with a heavy emphasis on that in the 2018 draft — but those efforts have yet to bear fruit.
Brady Singer looked like he’d broken out with an outstanding 2022 season, but he’s regressed in alarming fashion this year, pitching to a 5.88 ERA with worrying negative trends in his strikeout rate, walk rate and velocity. Fellow college arms Daniel Lynch, Jackson Kowar, Kris Bubic, Jonathan Heasley and Asa Lacy haven’t developed as hoped. On the position-player side of things, youngsters like MJ Melendez, Michael Massey, Nate Eaton, Samad Taylor and Kyle Isbel have all struggled at the big league level in 2023.
As for Quatraro, while Royals fans surely can’t be pleased with the on-field results in his first year on the job, the roster composition is such that no skipper could be reasonably expected to have coaxed passable results from this group. Managers are evaluated based on far more than sheer wins and losses anyhow — arguably more so than ever in today’s game.
Based on recent history, Sherman’s comments are wholly unsurprising. There’s little to no recent precedent for a general manager or first-year manager being on the hot seat just three months into his first season on the job. Details of Picollo’s contract remain unclear, but the organization signed him to a multi-year extension late in the 2021 season. Granted, Moore was also extended and promoted at that point, but he’d had a 16-year runway as baseball ops leader by the time he was dismissed; Picollo has been in his current role for just nine months. Quatraro, meanwhile, signed a three-year deal that runs through the 2025 season and has a club option for the 2026 campaign.
If the Royals are to turn things around in the near future, they’ll need a lot of help from a farm system that entered the year ranked in the bottom half of the league — as low as 29th at both Baseball America and MLB.com. Picollo will have the opportunity to add to that system over the next month when he markets Chapman and presumably closer Scott Barlow, but the underwhelming performances from many of Kansas City’s veteran players leaves the Royals without many trade chips to dangle to contending clubs.
This ownership group is a joke
I ain’t afraid of no joke.
What’s that ? I can’t hear ya !? You have to speak louder than the glair off my 2015 World Series Championship Ring
The current owner was not the owner in 2015.
Oops. That man hadn’t even taken the price tag off his post and you returned it on him.
Is Quatraro’s mom, Suzie still making music?
Which means they’ll both be unemployed within a week.
Agreed. That kind of quote coming from ownership is always the kiss of death. How many times have we heard an owner say something to the effect that “So and so’s position with this organization has never been more secure.”, and two weeks later he’s unemployed.
They lost 100 games last year they’re like in the beginning of what looks like a total teardown rebuild. What hurts the most is all the high drafted pitchers all look to have flamed out already. They need to rehaul their scouting and development system more than worry about who is managing.
Ah, the dreaded vote of confidence. Welcome to free agency, guys!
Dumping Dayton Moore is John Schuerholz all over again.
Going from Dayton Moore to his top lieutenant was a very curious decision in the first place. You didn’t make much of a change from something that was clearly not working.
The royals are behind everyone in a bad division. Even the white Sox will be able to stock the farm up if they sell off assets in deadline deals. They’re in worse shape than Oak.
Insert eye roll here. The old B.S.line,”Total confidence…” Both will be whacked by mid season 2024.
Lyles has a nice WHIP but has always required air traffic control.
Some blame it on lack of run support, but when he’s got a 6.68 ERA, run support ain’t the problem.
Not one player is improving and you can’t blame it all on the lack of surrounding veteran talent. If all your young players aren’t progressing, there is an issue among the coaching staff.
I agree completely. They’re bad everywhere, can’t hit, pitching is awful and the defense has been horrible most of the year. And a weak farm system. Things going from bad to worse.
Player development, particularly pitching has been chronically awful for years.
The royals need to steal multiple people from Cleveland’s organization so they can develop pitchers.
They’ve invested a lot of draft capital into that with little to show.
Cleveland’s pitching coaches have been picked dry already. Matt Blake has straightened out the Yankees pitching; Ruben Niebla has turned the Padres questionable pitching into having the #1 ERA in MLB in his 2nd year; and apparently you don’t know that the Royals new pitching coach – Brian Sweeney – was coaching pitching for Cleveland the previous 4 years, and had been their bullpen coach in 2022.
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To answer the other ridiculous comments here that think that turning around any MLB organization – especially a small market one – in one year is just plain ignorant. MLB is not Rotisserie baseball……just ask Steven Cohen.
Manager Matt Quatraro was brought in from the Rays where he was their bench coach for years. His bench coach is Paul Hoover, who was hired as a coach in the Rays system in 2012, and since 2018 has served as their field coordinator replacing Rocco Baldelli when he became manager of the Minnesota Twins. Both men are known for successfully working with young players and being patient as the players are coming along.
Hard as it many seem to believe, those people are totally professional. respected by their peers, and know more baseball than the knee-jerk’s that post cheap shots here because they don’t know crap.
The Royals position players are headed in the right direction. Maikel Garcia and Edward Olivares bring speed to the offense which plays well in that large park. Nick Pratto might be seen as the best defensive 1B in MLB within 2 years – he’s that good. It’s his first full season (age 24) , and he can hit decently. Vinnie Pasquantino clearly can hit, but is probably best as a DH. Bobby Witt Jr. obviously has talent, but he may never catch up to his publicity. He’s only 23 and can be a solid SS for years to come.
The issue with the Royals continues to be their pitching. That doesn’t turn in a year or two. But they’re clearly moving in the right direction. Along with the Tigers, their near-term future looks much better than the 3 other AL Central teams.
I think they may be ahead of the White Sox because of the organization structure In CHW….I’ll take Cleveland over them for the foreseeable future.
All their pitchers took a step back. Not forward. They had some interesting arms too. We’ll see if that reverses course in a couple years.
Anyone have a chill pill for Samuel ?
He doesn’t need that. He knows everything. I tried telling him he’s not the know it all he thinks he is then he muted me.
Bstrowman9;
Being ahead of the CWS in the AL Central will not cause Cleveland fans to squirrel away money for WS tickets in the next few years.
Cleveland desperately needs 2 RH run producing bats. When they get them, we can talk.
That Jordan Lyles deal will never make sense to me. I get that they needed to fill innings this year, but a random minor leaguer would have given you similar results for a fraction of the cost. And Lyles is signed for next year, too! Lyles will have made over $50 million in his career when all is said and done despite being horrible for most of his career. He deserves some kind of award for that.
The CHAD innings eater award…
I don’t know about Lyles, but his agent deserves an Academy Award for convincing multiple teams he’s a solid rotation piece.
Too many rebuilding years. Rebuild should only take 3 or 4 years.
Dream- I agree in 3 or 4 years,not 5.
It begs the definition of when one is finished.I say when the team becomes very competitive for a division title,say 90 wins,and stays there at least for three years.
The Royals are the only small market team to win a WS since 1991.I give them credit for that.But they have not made any progress since then and seem to have bottomed out this year.
The Royals owner may have a drinking problem
Slider_withcheese;
Nothing to compared to the problems you obviously have.
Melendez was tasked with learning OF at the MLB level while also serving as the backup Catcher in the early going. It’s understandable he would struggle offensively while learning a new position. The others are cases of asking young players to carry a ML offense where only Salvador Perez had more than 2 full big league seasons. Also, lets not overlook the fact that the hitting coach is a former pitcher…
This franchise is awful
You could have had me at gunpoint and I wouldn’t have been able to name the Royals manager.
I thought it was still Whitey Herzog – what happened to him, he was pretty good!
Whitey is managing in the Korean league.
They need to hire both positions based upon the strength of the candidate’s faith. That worked out wonderfully with Matheny.
He followed the statement up saying he was “skeptical” of the viability of gravity, and the wetness of the ocean.
I’d point my finger at the development staff. None of these prospects over the past few drafts have lived up to their potential. Bobby Witt is average at best (and can’t field), Asa Lacy is pretty much a bust, and none of the pitchers from the 2018 draft have shown any consistency.
I had to look him up, but at first mention, I thought Asa Lacy was an exotic dancer.
She is,but it’s a different Asa Lacy.
Uh oh…that usually mwans they better update their resume because they always say that before they tell you to get on with your life’s work.
You left Nick Pratto off your underwhelming rookies list. Pratto is currently carrying a 36% K-rate. That makes him 3rd worst among players with 200 PAs this season. His batting average has dropped dramatically as his otherworldly .500 BABIP has come tumbling down. For a brief second, his BABIP was carrying him – but his luck has literally run out.
Pratto has “a K-rate ” and “his His batting average has dropped dramatically as his otherworldly .500 BABIP has come tumbling down”?
My goodness . What a loser! The guy is 24 years-old and obviously will never amount to anything. Surely his coaches don’t know what you know.
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This place is getting out-and-out comical with people that look at a few of a hundred stats and measurements over a short period of time, and draw conclusions about players. Think they’re brilliant. The writers do it as well as the posters.
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Don’t know what you’ll do for a living when you grow up, but heaven forbid your employer and teachers do this to you.
So basically they are saying that if we had given them anything decent to work with, we have total confidence they would have better results.
“Meanwhile” should start the sentence, not go in the middle. How do you mess this up twice? Maybe learn a different word if you can’t use it correctly.