Clamoring for someone to lose their job isn’t the best thing to do in the world. However, if you are bad at your job, what reasons should you keep it? It’s just the nature of the real world, when you can’t maintain the standard that your job requires of you, you have to go and someone else should get your job and a chance to make things better.
After the Royals made the playoffs in 2024, the expectations the last two seasons have been to win the division. Well, we know how last year turned out. This year is somehow off to an even worst start.
Before the Thursday meltdown in Detroit, the Royals had scored 2 runs or less in 11 of their first 18 games and in 7 of their last 8. Losing games despite strong starting pitching, with no one running away with the division, makes those early-season games a lost opportunity. Similar to last season, the Royals are losing a bunch of games because their offense is downright terrible.
The Royals have the worst record in baseball at 7-16, losing eight straight contests. They are currently averaging 3.30 runs per game, second worst in the league. They have seven guys who have struck out 17 or more times in the first 23 games. If you took a shot for every pop up or strike out the Royals hit every game, you might be heading to the hospital by the fifth inning. They’ve been shut out three times in 23 games, which makes them to be on pace to be shut out 22 times this season. Finally, they are awful with runners in scoring position. As a team, they are hitting .200/.277/.259 in those situations, a wRC+ of 50 that is dead last in baseball.
Look no further than last night’s debacle against Baltimore. The Royals loaded the bases THREE times, once with nobody out and ZERO times did they hit the ball out of the infield. They have run into more outs on the bases than homers hit, although that might be a Hollins/Wilson issue. The Royals were 5-for-21 with RISP and left 16 guys on base in the loss last night. The performance is preposterous and the lack of runs puts way too much pressure on the bullpen. Yes, I know they’ve struggled, but they have no breathing room. The Royals had 14 hits last night, 12 singles. Meanwhile, guys like Leody Taveras, who has 42 career homers, is crushing grand slams to dead center in Kauffman Stadium. The Royals can’t even hit doubles or triples! Only the Mets have fewer extra-base hits!
The Royals haven’t won a baseball game in which the other team has scored since April 6th.
The best hitters in the lineup, Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez are all struggling. Bobby Witt Jr. is looking for his first home run. Salvy is 2-for-27 with runners in scoring position. Vinnie and Salvy are among the ten worst qualified hitters in baseball by wRC+.
If you want to blame it on the Royals big three mightily struggling as to why the offense is bad, fine you can do that, but what is your solution, bench them? Trade them? Send them down? Salvy sat out on Saturday afternoon and he posted his displeasure on social media on the way it was handled.
Royals director of hitting performance/player development Alec Zumwalt has had a rather long leash and opportunity to prove his worth to stay. He is in his ninth season with the organization – he is a holdover from Mike Matheny’s staff! And what does he have to show for his performance?
Jac Caglianone currently sits at one homer. While he is hitting the ball hard a decent amount of the time, his swing is pounding a lot of balls into the ground. After he crushed homers all throughout the minors, who is to blame for his big league struggles?
Cags isn’t the only hitter to struggle under the Zumwalt regime, Drew Waters was once a highly touted prospect, he is nothing more than an AAAA player now. He is Barry Bonds in Omaha but has consistently been bad when getting run with Kansas City. MJ Melendez was a 40-homer guy in the minors and was then really bad for the Royals. Look at what he is doing so far for the Mets. Ryan O’Hearn and Brent Rooker have also found success with other organizations.
And this isn’t just a three-week sample size to panic over either. It’s a multi-year issue with Zumwalt and the offense. In the 130 games that Zumwalt was the hitting coach in 2022, the team averaged 4.01 runs, which over a full season, would’ve been 23rd best in the league. Since then, the 2024 playoff run looks like an aberration, rather than progress.
Outside of the runs not being scored, the Royals hit a lot of fly balls, and most of them are easy outs. They have a 43.4 percent flyball rate, third-highest in baseball. The Royals are batting .223 as a team currently, but according to Baseball Savant, their expected batting average is just a measly .229, which means they aren’t unlucky. Their at bats stink and when they put the ball in play, it’s either not well struck, or the launch angle is astronomical which makes for a very routine play. As a team they have a 13.8% pop up rate, fifth-highest in baseball.
The Royals also don’t hit for that much power for a team that is trying to hit as many flyballs as they do. In 2022, they hit 138 homers, the 26th most in baseball. In 2023, they hit 163, tied for 26th most. In 2024, they hit 170, which was tied for the 20th most. Last year, they hit 159, which was 26th best. So far this year, they have hit 18, which is tied for 22nd most. So, they’ve always been bottom third of the league in homers, despite putting the ball in the air a lot, and moving the fences in this year.
The Royals may turn it around like last season, but like last season, it’ll probably be too late, and they’ll never truly compete for a postseason spot. We are in the prime Bobby Witt Jr. era, and he has been turned into a singles hitter that can’t be driven in by his teammates. They are also wasting a top three starting pitching staff in baseball. It’s beyond time JJ. The move needs to be made now.
To borrow a phrase from Rex Hudler, “Alec Zumwalt, you got to go!”