The Royals offense appears to be mired in a bit of a slump. They’ve scored three runs or fewer in their last three games, and seven of their last eleven. In the 10 games leading up to last night, the team was hitting .201/.279/.353. Their 81 wRC+ was sixth-worst in the span, and with several hitters struggling, it’s logical to begin to wonder if the first two weeks of the season were a mirage. Perhaps this is the beginning of the team’s Annual April Adversity.
Even with the poor stretch, though, here are the Royals MLB ranks entering Tuesday’s game in a few Statcast categories for contact quality:
Expected slugging percentage (xSLG): 5th (.426)
Hard-hit rate (HH%): 5th (41.2%)
Average exit velocity (EV): 7th (89.0 MPH)
Barrel rate per plate appearance (Barrel/PA%): 8th (5.8%)
Seems pretty respectable, no? What would you say if I told you those ranks are not statistics from 2024 alone, but rather their ranks since the start of 2023? Does that seem less like a hot streak and more like a long-term trend?
The 2024 Royals have looked like a different team, but I can’t blame fans for holding some doubts about whether the differences would persist, particularly in the midst of the current downturn. As Royals VP of Communications and former KC Star columnist Sam Mellinger liked to say, Royals fans come by their skepticism honestly.
However, there are some indicators that the Royals are capable of turning things around more quickly than previous iterations of the team would have.
By expanding the sample size to include last season, we can see a better case for a true talent level, based on the players’ batted ball statistics. Below is a chart of the regular lineup with the previously mentioned Statcast numbers, along with the MLB average for each statistic, for comparison.
It’s not all peaches and rainbows, especially at the bottom of the lineup (Renfroe, woof) but overall the lineup has done quite well. Some guys don’t have a massive sample size, but their data is not reliant on a hot two weeks at the dish. These numbers take into account cold starts in 2023 from Witt, Melendez, Massey, and others. They include Garcia’s propensity for not barreling the ball until 2024 began. They include guys like Pasquantino and Perez playing through pain last year.
They also include Bobby Bob Bob and Velazquez going nuclear in the second half. The point is, over time, the hot and cold streaks tend to level off, so these are likely more indicative of the Royals’ true talent level than their early-season stats, which, for the record, are quite impressive.
xSLG: .466 (2nd)
HH%: 41.7% (4th)
EV: 89.7 MPH (3rd)
Barrel/PA%: 7.0% (2nd)
The Royals are now in their second full season with Alec Zumwalt as hitting coach. Keoni DeRenne has been there since 2022. While the roster saw quite a bit of turnover this past winter, many of the hitters are experiencing some continuity with their coaching staff. I can only speculate on its importance, but it’s possible the young guys are now seeing the fruits of their labor.
In a spring interview with Anne Rogers, Zumwalt talked about those young hitters hopefully taking something from 2023:
But I think that experience that they got from last year, through the ups and downs, I hope each one of them takes something from it and applies it.
What struck me most about Zumwalt’s approach is how individualized everything is. Compared to previous hitting coaches, he understands you can’t have a cookie-cutter plan for every hitter, and it appears the players have responded to this approach by largely becoming better versions of themselves.
They aren’t forcing Velazquez to become a contact hitter, they’re embracing the guy who will whiff more than you like, but who will also frequently punish baseballs. Garcia isn’t told to keep the ball on the ground; he boasts a barrel rate in the 82nd percentile. Melendez has an unorthodox swing, but the Royals have recognized it works for him, and he’s been one of the 25 best hitters in the AL since the 2023 All-Star break.
I can’t image any of those things happening prior to Zumwalt’s arrival.
The Royals are struggling right now, and while their underlying statistics suggest they’ll turn things around, nothing is guaranteed, and while typically, good contact results in more runs scored, ultimately the results matter most. Despite the expected stats above, the Royals’ slugging percentage since the start of 2023 is .399, 20th-highest in MLB. This year it’s .405, which is 9th-highest, but 61 points lower than expected.
They’ve been unlucky (they have the third-largest difference between their expected and actual slugging percentages) and while they shouldn’t expect the two to equal each other, it should normalize some. Last year’s biggest difference was 28 points, so if they can continue hitting the ball hard, they’ll see an uptick there. (If that sounds familiar, it’s because I wrote a similar thing last April when the Royals were even more unlucky… unluckier? Less lucky? Whatever, you get it.)
This Royals offense should bounce back, is the point. They’ve proven over the last 185 games that they have dudes who can make great contact, and I would expect that to continue. Zumwalt and company seem to have gotten through to this batch of hitters, and while they have hit a rough patch, their track record suggests they’ll get things going again soon.