Minor League Update - Northwest Arkansas Naturals

The Royals' Texas League affiliate is off to a rough start to 2014, sitting at 4-13 and in last place in the North Division. The club trails first place Springfield (STL) by five games, and is winless at home in seven tries thus far.

Among the biggest struggles for Northwest Arkansas is a 5.77 team ERA, which is a full two runs higher than the next closest club. Opponents have scored a staggering 115 runs – 39 more than the second worst team. Perhaps worse, 22 of those runs are unearned. Naturals pitchers have walked 81 hitters and have thrown 17 wild pitches, both the most in the eight-team Texas League.

As a team, the Naturals are hitting just .236/.323/.328 and have scored only 62 runs in 2014, the league’s second worst mark. Northwest Arkansas batters have hit just eight home runs, which also ranks second lowest in the league.

Individual Hitting

 

MiLB.com

Who’s Hot:

After going 1-for-16 to start the season, Jorge Bonifacio is now fourth in the Texas League with 12 RBI, just three off the pacesetter. The outfielder has five multi-hit ballgames in his last 10 starts and is hitting .310/.370/.429 since April 11. In all, Bonifacio has one home run with a line of .239/.338/.358.

Infield prospect Cheslor Cuthbert has a team-high 17 hits and 12 walks and ranks second on the club with seven RBI. In all, he is hitting .279/.392/.361.

Whit Merrifield is tied for the league lead with six doubles, three of which have come in his last four games. Over that period, the second baseman/left fielder has three multi-hit games and five RBI.

Who’s Not:

Lane Adams is on the rise with five hits in his last three games, but is still hitting just .224/.329/.284 in 74 plate appearances across 17 games.

Individual Pitching

Who’s Hot:

23-year old pitching prospect Sam Selman tossed five innings in his season debut April 11, in which he allowed just one unearned run. The lefty allowed just two hits and walked four. Across two starts, Selman is currently 0-1 with a 2.79 ERA.

Two of Tim Melville’s three starts have been very impressive. The 24-year old tossed four scoreless innings April 4 and five scoreless April 15. He allowed a combined three hits in the two outings. In all, the right-hander has a 2.77 ERA in 13 innings and has held opponents to a .133 batting average.

Relievers Cody Fassold and Andrew Triggs both have ERAs under 1.80 in six appearances apiece.

Who’s Not:

Basically, everyone else. Specifically:

Prospect Jason Adam has lost three games, tied for the most in the Texas League.

He was roughed up in his first start of the season, surrendering eight runs (six earned) in just three innings against Midland (OAK). He followed that outing with a two-hit performance and one earned run across four strong innings also against the RockHounds , but then surrendered ten hits to Springfield in his last start. The Cardinals score five runs, four of which were earned. Opponents are hitting .388 against Adam with right-handed hitters scorching him for a line of .545/.519/.773 in 23 April plate appearances.

Angel Baez has struck out 17 hitters in 10.2 innings, which ranks among the league’s leaders in K/9. Unfortunately, he has a 10.97 ERA this year across six relief appearances.

Noel Arguelles is tied for the league’s most walks with 13 and has a 14.09 ERA in his first 7.2 innings across six appearances.

Minor League Update - Omaha Storm Chasers

Through the season’s first 18 games, the Storm Chasers are 9-9 and are in a three-way tie for second place in the PCL American Northern Division, trailing Oklahoma City (HOU).

The Chasers have played an astonishing 15 of 18 games at home to start the season, but will leave for an eight game road trip to New Orleans (MIA) and Iowa (CHC) following Tuesday’s morning game against Nashville (MIL).

Through eighteen games, Omaha ranks third with a .299 team batting average, but are middle of the road in the 16-team league with a .356 on-base percentage and .411 slugging percentage, including just 11 home runs (fourth worst in the PCL). The team does not rank any individuals among the league’s leaders in any major offensive categories.

The club is one of three teams with a sub-4.00 ERA, sitting third at 3.96. However, the Chasers rank third from the bottom with 119 strikeouts.

Individual Hitting

MiLB.com

Who’s Hot:

Outfielder Brett Eibner took a big step forward April 9 when he went 5-for-5, including two home runs and nine RBI. The 25-year old scored three times in the game as Omaha beat Memphis (STL) 20-3. Eibner added a four hit game and a three hit contest over the next week and now sits at .333/.395/.500 with 12 RBI and 12 runs scored on the season. He has excelled against right-handed pitching to the tune of .340/.435/.566 with all three of his homers, which is tied with Francisco Pena for the team lead in round-trippers.

Matt Fields has held the everyday first base duties for Omaha and has responded offensively. Fields hit safely in his first 14 games, and was hitting a white-hot .459/. 524/.622 on April 11. Despite being held hitless through his last three ballgames, the 28-year old is hitting .361/.437/.475 with one homer and 10 RBI in 67 plate appearances.

Paulo Orlando hit safely in 10 of his first 12 ballgames and sits at .328/.371/.345 in 17 games. The Brazilian outfielder has four multi-hit games in early April.

Infielder Johnny Giavotella spent nine days in the big leagues, but returned to Omaha on a hot streak. In his first four games back, Giavotella had seven hits and has compiled a line of .368/.429/.526 in ten Triple-A games.

Who’s Not: 

Prospect Christian Colon has five multi-hit games this season, but sits at just .230/.275/.338 in 18 games. He has one home run, nine RBI and has scored 13 runs, but only four walks, in 78 plate appearances.

Individual Pitching

Who’s Hot: 

Spencer Patton is 1-0 with three saves and a 1.04 ERA in five appearances this season. In 8.2 innings, the 26-year old right-hander has nine strikeouts and allowed four hits and four walks.

Fellow reliever Buddy Baumann has yet to allow a run in ten innings across five appearances. The lefty has surrendered nine hits, four walks and has hit one batter.

Columbian starter Sugar Ray Marimon is 1-0 with a 1.00 ERA in two starts this season. He collected a win in his first appearance, five scoreless innings against Nashville on April 11.

Who’s Not:

John Lamb has allowed five home runs, which is the third most in the Pacific Coast League. The lefty is 0-4with a 5.31 ERA, has surrendered at least two runs in every start this season, and has allowed a .333 batting average across 20.1 innings. With runners on, Lamb hitters have posted a line of .368/.429/.632.

Lefty reliever Donnie Joseph has had two rough outings, in which he allowed a combined eight runs (five earned) across two innings. In 22 plate appearances, left-handed hitters are posting a staggering .357/.609/.357, which includes eight free passes. Not very good for someone that hopes to get lefties out in Kansas City this season.

Royals Roster Issue

This morning the Royals received about as good as news as they could have hoped for on the Omar Infante front. No fractures. No concussion. As a result, the Royals are going to attempt to avoid a DL stint for their shiny new $40 million second baseman.

Unfortunately, for the Royals there is no back up middle infielder on the roster. It now appears that the Royals are going to stick with the current roster for 2-3 days in the hopes of Infante being healthy enough to play by the weekend. What this means is that Danny Valencia will be manning second for at least today and tomorrow's contests.

Personally, I think this is a mistake. Even last night, we saw first hand how risky playing Valencia at second could be. When Valencia turned a potential double play into a throwing error, the Rays were given new life in the 9th inning. In fact, thanks to this play the Rays were able to get the tying run to the plate.

So what could the Royals do?

Well yesterday the Royals called up Donnie Joseph and Michael Mariott. The Royals also recently called up Aaron Brooks. Each of these three pitchers have options available. We also know that Louis Coleman is nearly ready to return to the team following a trip to the disabled list in spring training. Either way in a few days the Royals will need to option one of their relievers to AAA Omaha.

The Royals could speed up that process and option one of the relievers to Omaha now and bring up either Johnny Giavotella or Christian Colon. Another option could be Jason Donald, although he would need to be added to the 40 man roster. By bringing up one of these middle infielders now, the Royals could then have an actual second baseman for the next couple of games, instead of playing Valencia out of position.

If Infante is ready to return to the lineup by the weekend (something that I think is very unlikely), you simply send down the recently called up middle infielder and bring back Coleman off the disabled list, getting you back to a 12 man pitching staff. For the next two games, you'd have to have an 11 man staff, but every reliever should be available for tonight. If having an 11 man staff wasn't an issue a week ago then it shouldn't be now.

If Infante takes a week to return to the lineup, then that makes the call up of a middle infielder even more important. For a team on the borders of contention every game is of the utmost importance. They can't afford to be playing multiple games with players out of position. It is great that Valencia can fill in as an emergency second baseman in situations like last night, but there's no reason the Royals should enter a game with him as the only option.

There is a move that can be easily made and improve the team for tonight. There's no excuse for the Royals not to make it.

Follow me on Twitter @Landon_Adams!

Money to Spend on Amateur Talent

Last Wednesday, Baseball America brought us a few different articles breaking down the bonus pools by team for the 2014 amateur draft and international signing period. If you missed it, you can read the article here.

Once again, the Royals rank very highly in terms of total money available to spend on amateur talent for 2014. They rank 18th in baseball in terms of international budget at $2,136,800, but despite not selecting until the second half of the draft they rank 5th in draft bonus pool at $8,602,900. This is a result of the compensation pick that was received for Ervin Santana and the competitive balance pick they received for playing in one of the smallest markets in baseball.

Overall, the Royals rank 8th in total budget for 2014 at $10,739,700. The White Sox rank 3rd, the Twins 6th, the Indians 10th, and the Tigers 25th.

With what is rumored to be a deep draft in 2014, the Royals will have four selections in the first 56 (17, 28, 40, 56). This should again present the Royals with a prime opportunity to add to what figures to be one of the top farm systems in baseball heading into 2015.

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Monday Musings: April 7, 2014

A couple of the quickest things to normalize for hitters are their strikeout and walk rates. We're one week into the season and as a team the Royals have logged 185 plate appearances. It is still early, but there are good indications that the 2014 Royals approach could be much better than the 2013 version.

Last season, Royals hitters walked in just 6.7% of their plate appearances. A mark which ranked 27th in all of baseball. In fact, six of the top nine Royals in walk percentage from a season ago are no longer with the team (George Kottaras, Johnny Giavotella, Emilio Bonifacio, Jamey Carroll, Adam Moore, and Chris Getz). So far this season, the Royals are walking in 9.7% of their plate appearances, which is good for 6th in baseball. Last year's league leader walked 9.4% of the time.

On the strikeout side, after ranking second in the league last season, we knew that the Royals would be even better when they brought in Nori Aoki (struck out just 5.9% of the time in 2013) and Omar Infante (9.2% in 2013). So far this season, the Royals are leading the league in strikeout percentage at just 13.5%. Surprisingly, Aoki is has struck out in 15.8% of his plate appearances, while Infante has 13.6% of the time.

Obviously, we are just one week into the season, but this a team that does an excellent job of keeping the ball in play. The Royals have ranked in the top 3 in strikeout percentage in each of the last four seasons with 2010, being their best mark at just 14.6%. If they can keep the percentage under 14% over the entire season it will be the first time a team has done it since the Twins, Dodgers, and Mariners did it in 2007. If they can keep it at 13.5%, it will rank as the lowest number for a team since the Athletics only struck out 13.1% of the time in 2005.

Of course, if we mention the Royals start in the K% and BB% we should also make a point about the lack of power displayed in the first week of the season. Currently, the Royals rank last in baseball in isolated power at 0.61 and 28th in slugging percentage at .305. Oh and by the way, the Royals are the only team in baseball that has yet to hit a home run in 2014. The Giants already have 11.

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