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Royals Sign Oscar Hernandez

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The Royals announced that they have signed backstop Oscar Hernandez. He’ll receive an invitation to participate in Summer Camp.

Hernandez, 26, was cut loose recently by the Cardinals. He’s trying to find his way back to the majors for the first time since 2016.

The Diamondbacks carried Hernandez in the majors in order to secure his rights through the Rule 5 draft. But the effort was for naught. Hernandez has simply not yet developed as a hitter, carrying a sub-.600 OPS in the upper minors.

Pitching Notes: Teheran, G. Holland, Taijuan

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The latest on a few well-known major league hurlers…

  • The Angels have placed right-hander Julio Teheran on the 10-day injured list for an undisclosed reason, J.P. Hoornstra of the Orange County Register was among those to report. “I have not heard from him specifically and I have not heard from the medical group either,” manager Joe Maddon said of Teheran. “For me, there’s been no contact.” That obviously doesn’t sound encouraging for Teheran or the Angels, who signed the ex-Brave to a one-year, $9MM guarantee in the offseason. The 29-year-old Teheran has effectively chewed up innings for the majority of his career, which is one of the reasons the Angels added him to a staff that has been low on reliable options in recent seasons. But it’s now unknown when Teheran will be in position to make his debut with the club.
  • Once among the game’s elite relievers during his younger, pre-injury days with the Royals, righty Greg Holland is now fighting for a chance to make the team. Holland, whom the Royals reunited with on a minor league contract in the offseason, looked as if he’d earn his way back during the spring, but it’s up in the air whether he’ll do enough in Summer Camp to crack the club’s 30-man Opening Day roster, Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com writes. Fortunately for Holland, he has a fan in pitching coach Cal Eldred. “What I’ve seen here is just as good as his body of work was in spring,” Eldred told Flanagan. “Actually, the ball is coming out even better. I think he’s been really sharp. I think he’s in a great spot.” The 34-year-old three-time All-Star hasn’t pitched in the majors since last August, when the Diamondbacks released him after he tossed 35 2/3 frames of 4.54 ERA ball with 10.35 K/9 and 6.06 BB/9.
  • Mariners righty Taijuan Walker took the hill for the first time at camp Tuesday and was hitting 90 to 93 mph with his fastball, per Greg Johns of MLB.com. Walker has averaged 94 mph on his heater during his career, but serious arm injuries limited him to just 14 innings with Arizona from 2018-19. He’s now back in his old stomping grounds in Seattle, where he was once a top prospect and a capable starter. And as Johns explains in his piece, while many players are understandably nervous about participating this year because of the coronavirus, Walker’s champing at the bit to reestablish himself after two lost seasons. He’ll open 2020 in what figures to be a six-man M’s rotation after signing a one-year, $2MM pact in free agency.

Brad Keller, Ryan O’Hearn Test Positive For Coronavirus

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Royals right-hander Brad Keller and first baseman Ryan O’Hearn have tested positive for the coronavirus, per the team. Keller said in a statement that is dealing with minor symptoms at the moment, while O’Hearn is asymptomatic. They’ll both need a pair of negative tests before they’re cleared to return to the team. For now, they’ll isolate as they await those negative tests. Keller and O’Hearn join Salvador Perez as known Royals players to have tested positive in the early days of Summer Camp.

The hope is obviously that both will make swift recoveries and be ready when games begin later this month, although there’s no way of knowing when either will be cleared. Keller, 25 later this month, is a lock for the Royals rotation and served as their Opening Day starter a year ago. The former Rule 5 pick tossed 165 1/3 frames of 4.19 ERA ball over the course of 28 starts for Kansas City this past season.

O’Hearn, who’ll turn 27 in late July, had a big Spring Training before the league shutdown and was competing with Ryan McBroom for regular reps at first base. There’s an obvious platoon pairing between the two if the organization sees fit, but both are looking at the 2020 season as a hopeful proving grounds. O’Hearn posted a monstrous .262/.353/.597 slash (153 wRC+) in 170 plate appearances in 2018 but saw his production decline precipitously in 2019 (.195/.281/.369).

Royals Notes: Matheny, COVID-19, Kuntz

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With positive coronavirus tests dominating the news from training camps around baseball, Mike Matheny told reporters (including MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan) Saturday that he also contracted COVID-19 “about a month ago.”  The Royals manager said he has recovered fully, though not without first experiencing some symptoms.

“We had a family member test positive, so we knew even before the test because we had exposure, so my wife and I took off and we quarantined just the two of us,” Matheny said.  “And it was just the way they said it might happen, about three days [after exposure], I started feeling it.  But we laid low and quarantined and stayed away from people and it ran its course.  Fortunately I’ve been tested with the right antibody and looking forward now to donating some plasma to help out however we can.”

Owing to the unpredictable nature of the virus, Matheny said his wife Kristin “never had any symptoms and never tested positive,” even though the couple stayed together during the quarantine period.  Now, Matheny is at the Royals’ training camp in preparation (after several months of delay) for his first season as Kansas City’s skipper.

While it’s certainly good news that the Mathenys have a clean bill of health, the specter of COVID-19 continues to linger over every team in the league, the Royals included.  News broke yesterday that Salvador Perez was quarantining after a positive coronavirus test, and the club announced Friday that longtime coach Rusty Kuntz wouldn’t be coaching first base in the coming season.

The 65-year-old Kuntz is at a greater risk for COVID-19 due to his age, and GM Dayton Moore noted the large amount of travel associated with being part of a baseball team also presented an additional danger.  Instead, Kuntz will remain based out of Kansas City, still able to offer coaching and advisory tips to Matheny from the safer distance of a Kauffman Stadium suite.

Damon Hollins will move from his minor league outfield/baserunning coordinator role to take over as first base coach for Kuntz, who returned to the position just this past offseason.  Kuntz previously worked as the Royals’ first base coach from 2008-10 and 2012-17, spending the last two seasons as a special assistant to Moore.

Royals’ Salvador Perez Tests Positive For COVID-19

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Royals fans will have to wait just a little longer to see long-time backstop Salvador Perez back in a Royals’ uni. Salvy is the latest player to allow his name to be released after testing positive for coronavirus. Perez is asymptomatic as of right now, and though he personally stressed that people should wear their masks, he feels well enough to play (though he can’t, at least for now), per The Athletic’s Alec Lewis.

After missing all of 2019, the 30-year-old Perez was looking to get back to his role as the Royals’ everyday catcher. The Royals have five other catchers in their 60-man player pool: Nick Dini, Cam Gallagher, MJ Melendez, Sebastian Rivero, and Meibrys Viloria. Gallagher and Viloria would figure to get the gameday starts if Perez isn’t back in time, though Dini could also get a look after appearing in 20 games for the big-league club in 2019.

Perez is a career .266/.297/.442 hitter over eight seasons with the Royals. He’s one of the last remaining members of the back-to-back pennant-winning clubs from 2014 and 2015, along with Alex Gordon and Danny Duffy.

Quick Hits: Pirates, Hayes, Moran, Royals, Hill, Lopez

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A few items from around the game…

  • The Pirates have one of baseball’s top prospects in third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes, who’s part of their 60-man player pool, but first-year manager Derek Shelton will ease him into a regular role slowly. Pittsburgh’s currently planning on sticking with Colin Moran at the hot corner, per Shelton, who said (via Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic): “I don’t think it’s an open competition. You’re going to see Colin there a lot. I think you’re going to see other people there … but you’re going to see Colin there.” The 27-year-old Moran, acquired from the Astros in the teams’ January 2018 Gerrit Cole trade, was the Pirates’ primary option at third during the previous two seasons. Moran only produced 0.8 fWAR in 968 plate appearances, in which he batted .277/.331/.419. Nevertheless, the Pirates believe it’s best for Hayes to continue his development as an understudy. The 23-year-old did reach Triple-A for the first time in 2019, but his .265/.336/.415 line across 480 PA was 8 percent below the International League average, according to FanGraphs’ wRC+ metric.
  • Multiple players’ positive coronavirus tests, including the Rockies’ Charlie Blackmon and the Giants’ Hunter Bishop, have become public knowledge in recent days. Major League Baseball doesn’t want that to happen without consent from the player, though. In a statement issued Wednesday, the league said (via Marly Rivera of ESPN): “Because COVID-19 is not considered an employment-related injury, we will respect the privacy of the players who test positive or who are under evaluation, and we will defer to their wishes regarding public updates about their status. Without their voluntary permission, we will not disclose any COVID-19 related information.”
  • Royals pitchers Tim Hill and Jorge Lopez have health concerns that could have led them to opt out of the 2020 season, but both players plan to take the field this year, Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com relays. Hill, a colon cancer survivor, told Flanagan: “I’m playing. I’m not opting out.” Of course, Hill noted he has be as careful as possible during the pandemic, and he’ll continue on that path. Lopez doesn’t have a preexisting condition of his own, meanwhile, but his young son lives with Familial Mediterranean Fever and Crohn’s disease. Hill informed Flanagan that Lopez will not opt out, though, calling Lopez “one incredible guy” for surviving the adversity he and his family have battled.

Royals Announce Initial 60-Man Player Pool

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Today marks the deadline for teams to submit to Major League Baseball their initial spring training player pools, which can comprise up to 60 players. Players are not eligible to participate in either a spring training or regular season game until they are included in the pool. Teams are free to change the makeup of the pools as they see fit. However, players removed from a team’s 60-man (for reasons unrelated to injury, suspension, etc.) must be exposed to other organizations via trade or waivers.

Not all players within a team’s pool are ticketed for MLB playing time, of course. Most teams will include well-regarded but still far-off prospects as a means of getting them training reps with no intention of running them onto a major league diamond this season. A comprehensive review of 2020’s unique set of rules can be found here.

The Royals’ initial player pool consists of the following players…

Right-handed pitchers

Left-handed pitchers

Catchers

Infielders

Outfielders

Royals Outright Eric Skoglund

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The Royals announced that left-hander Eric Skoglund has cleared waivers and been outrighted to Triple-A Omaha. Skoglund has evidently spent the past three months in DFA limbo. He was designated for assignment on March 25 to create 40-man roster space for the addition of Trevor Rosenthal. Two days later, MLB instituted a league-wide transaction freeze that, until today, left Skoglund’s situation unresolved.

Skoglund has seen MLB action for Kansas City in each of the past three seasons. All told, he’s combined for 109 innings over 27 appearances (22 starts) with a cumulative 6.61 ERA and minuscule 13.8% strikeout rate. The 27-year-old will remain with the organization that selected him in the third round back in 2014.

Royals Sign Asa Lacy & Rest Of Draft Class

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7:09pm: Lacy signed for $6.67MM, Jim Callis of MLB.com tweets.

2:13pm: The Royals announced Tuesday that they’ve officially signed left-hander Asa Lacy. The former Texas A&M ace was the No. 4 overall pick in this year’s draft after compiling a career 2.07 ERA with 13.3 K/9 and 4.0 BB/9 in 152 total innings of college ball (21 starts, 21 relief appearances). He’s the highest pick to come to terms so far, and while his bonus figure wasn’t announced by the club, the No. 4 slot comes with a $6.664MM value.

The Kansas City organization didn’t stop there. It also added shortstop Nick Loftin on a $3MM bonus, Jim Callis of MLB.com reports on Twitter. That’s a far sight higher than the $2,257,300 allocation that came with the competitive balance round A selection with which he was chosen. Loftin decided to go pro rather than returning for another year at Baylor.

Righty Ben Hernandez, an Illinois high-schooler chosen in the second round, agreed to a $1.45MM bonus. (Via Callis; Twitter links.) That freed up nearly $400K to help cover the amount due to Loftin. The Royals also saved a bit on third-rounder Tyler Gentry, an outfielder out of the University of Alabama, who inked for $750K ($818,200 slot value). The Royals also agreed to as-yet-unreported bonuses with Christian Chamberlain, LHP, Oregon State (4th round) and Will Klein, RHP, Eastern Illinois (5th round).

The Royals also announced seven undrafted player signings, rounding out a widely heralded incoming class of amateur talent:

While there’s plenty of promise from multiple new prospects, Lacy remains the crown jewel. He was the consensus top pitcher available, which made it rather surprising to see him fall to the Royals at the fourth selection. Virtually all draft pundits graded him as one of the three best prospects up for grabs in 2020.

The Royals will be especially excited with Lacy because of the team’s long-stated intention to engineer a quick rebuild. Having gone heavy on advanced college pitching prospects in recent drafts, with promising early returns, the K.C. club can now look forward to another fast-rising youngster. Lacy possesses and commands an impressive four-pitch arsenal and has already proven himself against top college competition.

Team Plans For Signing Undrafted Amateurs

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Now that MLB’s abbreviated 2020 draft is in the books, we can move along to the next phase of this one-off amateur signing season. Undrafted amateur players will now be free to sign with any team of their choosing, though they are capped with a signing bonus of $20K. Thus, the setup here presents a fascinating situation for amateur ballplayers and for us, those interested in parsing the ins-and-outs of roster-building. Here we have a unique situation where money will not necessarily be the driving factor for players choosing their first professional team. As players start to sign, we’ll likely hear stories that shed light on player perspective, which could paint an interesting picture of how young players view different franchises around baseball. For now, we’re starting to hear from teams themselves about spending limits for this class of amateur free agents. We’ll use this post to update those strategies as they trickle in…

  • The Giants have no apparent limits when it comes to signing amateur free agents now that the draft is completed. John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle provides a primer for this period of amateur free agents, writing, “The process starts at 6 a.m. Sunday, and the Giants will compete with the other 29 teams for the best available talent. But rather than outspending the others, all they can do is try to outsell them and offer appealing opportunities.” Given the Giants’ current position as a team looking to infuse as much young talent as possible, one would expect them to be aggressive in their attempts to add players from this pool. Obviously, more players than usual will be returning to college or committing to school as high school graduates, but given the volatility of the MLB draft under normal circumstances, it’s fair to expect a quality player or two to emerge from this pool of undrafted amateurs.
  • The Marlins are planning on limiting their pool of undrafted amateur free agents to 10 signings or less, per Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald (Twitter links). Along with their six drafted players, all of whom are expected to sign, the Marlins can expect an influx of 16 players max.
  • Similarly, the Mariners don’t expect to go hog wild with this year’s class of undrafted amateur. Per MLB.com’s Corey Brock, the Mariners’ Scouting Director Scott Hunter said the Mariners will only be signing between five and ten amateur free agents.
  • The Royals, meanwhile, are ready to shop, tweets Jeff Rosen of the Kansas City Star. The Royals could be big-time players in this sphere, as they’ve generated some goodwill recently because of their treatment of minor league players. Kansas City might not typically be a major free agent draw, but for amateur players, it’s a different story. The Royals have the opportunity and a long track record of highly valuing their own players. For players looking for their first professional contract, the Royals have a lot to offer. Among other things, they’re ready to be aggressive. GM Dayton Moore has the green light to “sign as many of those guys as we can,” per Lynn Worthy of the Kansas City Star.
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