Camp Battles: Kansas City Royals

The Royals disappointed in 2016, and entered the winter with questions about how they’d manage payroll with several key players poised for free agency. It’s a bit of tightrope walk, but the organization continued to put resources into the MLB roster. Two positions, in particular, are ripe for competition: one which features several holdovers, and the other of which may be led by two new additions.

Here are the key camp battles for the Royals, who are the third entrant in MLBTR’s new Camp Battles series.

SECOND BASE
Whit Merrifield
Age: 28
Bats: R
Contract Status: Pre-Arbitration; projected to become a free agent after ’22 season
Options remaining: 2

Christian Colon
Age: 27
Bats: R
Contract Status: Pre-Arbitration; projected to become a free agent after ’20 season
Options remaining: Out of options

Cheslor Cuthbert
Age: 24
Bats: R
Contract Status: Pre-Arbitration; projected to become a free agent after ’21 season
Options remaining: Out of options

Raul Mondesi
Age: 21
Bats: S
Contract Status: Pre-Arbitration; projected to become a free agent after ’22 season
Options remaining: 2

This is hardly an established group, but Kansas City elected to forego bringing in veteran competition — despite a market low on demand at the position — even as the organization signed a variety of hurlers to bolster its staff. It’s certainly a calculated gamble, but evidently the Royals front office remains confident that it can achieve value with the in-house options.

Merrifield appears to have the edge entering camp. He excelled in the field and on the bases in his debut last year, while hitting just enough (.283/.323/.392) to compile 1.7 fWAR in a half-season’s worth of games. If there’s another player who can stake a claim to the bulk of the time in camp, it may be Cuthbert. Despite his lack of time at second as a professional, the club has worked with him on learning the position, as Rustin Dodd of the Kansas City Star recently wrote. Cuthbert’s chief advantage comes in the power department; while his overall productivity largely mirrored that of Merrifield, he swatted a dozen long balls in 510 MLB plate appearances last year and added seven more at Triple-A.

The two other possibilities here are both limited in their offensive outlook. Colon struggled badly at the plate last year, slashing just .231/.294/.293, and may be best suited to utility work. Mondesi, who’s still just 21, was similarly unimpressive (.185/.231/.281) in similarly limited major league action, though he was much better in the minors (.268/.322/.469) and comes with a solid prospect pedigree. He’s also the only one of these players who can hit from the left side, though it’s reasonable to think the club will prefer he get some more seasoning in the upper minors.

Players such as Ramon Torres and Corey Toups are also in camp, but don’t appear to have much of a shot. The former hasn’t displayed much bat in the minors, and while the latter hit quite well last year at Double-A, that represents his only action to date in the upper minors.

Prediction: Merrifield opens the year with the lion’s share of the time.

STARTING ROTATION (ONE SPOT)
Travis Wood
Age: 30
Throws: L
Contract Status: 2 years, $12MM (plus $8MM mutual option; $1MM buyout)
Options remaining: Can’t be optioned without consent

Chris Young
Age: 37
Throws: R
Contract Status: 1 year, $5.75MM (plus $8MM mutual option; $1.5MM buyout)
Options remaining: Can’t be optioned without consent

Nate Karns
Age: 29
Throws: R
Contract Status: Pre-Arbitration; projected to become a free agent after ’20 season
Options remaining: 1

The Royals are fairly locked in to their first four starters, with Jason Hammel essentially taking the spot that would’ve gone to dearly departed young righty Yordano Ventura. But there’s an open competition for the fifth and final rotation slot.

Kansas City obviously saw a need to bolster the depth, as the club added Wood late in the offseason after already dealing for Karns early on. The organization also has at least two other conceivable candidates in Mike Minor and Matt Strahm, though indications are that those two lefties will compete instead for bullpen jobs.

Wood says he signed with the Royals in part because he was promised a chance to compete for a rotation job, and he’s probably the favorite after landing a $12MM deal. But if he doesn’t grab the reins in camp — and/or some of the lefty pen options falter — it’s conceivable that the club could place him back in the relief role in which he thrived over the past two seasons.

It certainly seems possible that the other two chief candidates could overtake Wood in the competition. Young, after all, was inked last winter with the premise of working as a starter, and did leap to an 11.1% swinging-strike rate last year despite his unsightly 6.19 ERA (which came due to a reversal in his batted-ball fortunes from the prior two seasons). And Karns likely comes with the most upside, though it may work against him that he’s also an intriguing relief candidate and still has an option remaining.

Prediction: Wood earns the first crack at holding down the job.

[RELATED: Kansas City Royals Depth Chart]