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Austin Cox

Royals’ Austin Cox, Freddy Fermin Require Surgeries

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Royals left-hander Austin Cox has been diagnosed with a full ACL tear and partial MCL injury in his left knee, tweets Anne Rogers of MLB.com. While he’s going for a second opinion, the expectation is that he’ll require surgery.

Cox was injured last week in Toronto. Scrambling to cover first base on a grounder that had deflected to the right side of the infield, he twisted his knee when he lunged to try to find the base. The Royals immediately placed him on the 60-day injured list. While the club initially termed the injury as a knee sprain, the ACL tear is a more unfortunate diagnosis.

It’ll surely keep him out well into next season, potentially costing him more than half the year. The Royals could keep Cox on the 60-day IL during the season, but they’d have to carry him on the 40-man roster throughout the winter. It doesn’t seem out of the question they’ll non-tender the former fifth-round draftee to clear an offseason roster spot.

A Mercer product, Cox logged 35 2/3 big league innings as a rookie. He posted a 4.54 ERA, striking out a respectable 22.1% of batters faced but walking opponents at a lofty 11.4% clip. He had similar strikeout and walk marks in 47 1/3 innings at Triple-A Omaha, where he worked to a 3.61 ERA.

In other Royals news, backup catcher Freddy Fermin underwent surgery to address a fractured right middle finger, according to Rogers. He’s done for the season but is expected to be ready for Spring Training. Fermin solidified his spot on the roster with a solid showing in a part-time role. The 28-year-old backstop hit .281/.321/.461 across 235 plate appearances. He should go into 2024 with a hold on the #2 catching job behind Salvador Perez as a result.

Royals Make Four Roster Moves

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The Royals announced that Brad Keller has been reinstated from the club’s 60-day injured list, and that catcher Tyler Cropley’s contract has been selected from Double-A Arkansas.  In corresponding moves, Kansas City placed left-hander Austin Cox on the 60-day IL with a left knee sprain, and catcher Freddy Fermin will go on the 10-day IL due to a fracture in his right middle finger.

The 60-day placement will end Cox’s season, though suffering “only” a sprain might be something of a relief given the obvious pain on the southpaw’s face when he suffered the injury in Friday’s game.  Cox was running to cover first base on a grounder when a bad step caused his left leg to give out, and he had to be helped off the field.

It’s a rough end to Cox’s first Major League season.  A fifth-round pick for the Royals in the 2018 draft, Cox made his MLB debut in May and has a 4.79 ERA over 35 2/3 innings, working out of the bullpen in 21 of his 24 appearances (though he functioned as an opener in one of his three starts).  Cox’s strikeout (22.1%) and walk (11.4%) rates aren’t overly impressive, though he has done an excellent job of keeping the ball in the park, allowing just two homers all season.

Fermin’s injury also must have been a recent occurrence, as he was the starting catcher throughout Friday’s game, a 5-4 loss to the Blue Jays.  After a three-game cup of coffee in 2022, the rookie has gotten a longer look this year, appearing in 70 games and hitting .281/.321/.461 with nine home runs over 235 plate appearances.  This solid play has increasingly given Fermin more time behind the plate, as Salvador Perez has been used more often as a first baseman or DH over the last five weeks.

Perez figures to return to regular catching duty with Fermin out, and MJ Melendez could also get some playing time even though he has primarily been used in an outfield role.  Since K.C. seems to prefer Melendez as an outfielder, it opens the door for Cropley to get his first taste of the big leagues after five pro seasons.

Cropley was an eighth-round pick for the Nationals in the 2018 draft, and he has the spent the last three years in the Kansas City organization.  The 27-year-old has a modest .235/.329/.359 slash line over 168 PA for Arkansas this season and he has never played any Triple-A ball, so the Royals could be viewing Cropley purely as a depth option in Fermin’s absence.

After posting a 4.36 ERA over his first nine starts and 43 1/3 innings of the season, Keller was sidelined with right shoulder impingement syndrome in mid-May and is only now returning to the K.C. rotation.  He’ll get the chance to log a few more appearances before the season is out, and perhaps take his final bows in a Royals uniform since Keller is a free agent this winter.  The right-hander has a 5.12 ERA over 316 2/3 innings since the start of the 2021 season, and with this injury-marred season on his record, Keller may have difficulty finding a guaranteed big league contract from the Royals or any other team.

Kyle Isbel To Miss Six Weeks With Grade 2 Hamstring Strain

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The Royals announced some roster moves earlier today, with outfielder Kyle Isbel going on the 10-day injured list with a hamstring strain and left-hander Austin Cox optioned to Triple-A. Those roster spots were taken by infielder/outfielder Nate Eaton and right-hander Jonathan Heasley, both of them getting recalled from Omaha. Manager Matt Quatraro tells Anne Rogers of MLB.com that Isbel has a Grade 2 hamstring strain and will be sidelined for six weeks.

Isbel, 26, was a third round pick in the 2018 draft and has been considered one of the club’s top prospects in recent years. Baseball America had him in the top 10 among Royal farmhands for four years straight beginning in 2019. He reached the majors in 2021 and has had roughly a full season’s worth of playing time since then, getting into 160 games with 457 plate appearances.

He hasn’t been able to contribute much at the plate in that time, currently sporting a batting line of .222/.274/.359 for a wRC+ of 73. He’s struck out in 25.6% of his trips to the plate and walked in just 5.9% of them. He has been able to contribute in other ways, however. He’s played all three outfield positions and has accrued +16 Defensive Runs Saved, +14 Outs Above Average and a 9.1 grade from Ultimate Zone Rating. When combined with his 13 stolen bases, he’s been worth 1.3 wins above replacement, even with that tepid offensive production. Any kind of step forward at the plate would make him a solid everyday player.

Unfortunately, he’ll now have to miss the next few weeks with this injury, which is unfortunate timing. Despite his lack of offense this year, he may have been able to continue getting regular playing time. The Royals traded Michael A. Taylor this winter, seemingly at least partially motivated as a way to clear a path for Drew Waters to get everyday playing time in center field. But Waters suffered an oblique strain in February and has been on the injured list all year. He was set to start a rehab assignment this week but it was recently reported that some lower back tightness has put those plans on pause. That could have allowed Isbel continued reps at the position but he’ll now have to join Waters on the IL instead.

The Royals will now have to figure out how to proceed up the middle without either of those two. Quatraro tells Rogers that Jackie Bradley Jr. and Nate Eaton will be the primary options with Maikel Garcia in the mix as well. Bradley is an excellent defender but has been one of the worst hitters in the majors in recent years, including a tepid .156/.255/.200 showing this season. Eaton is primarily an infielder but has some time on the grass, while Garcia has only played infield thus far in his career.

Royals Select Austin Cox

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The Royals announced Wednesday that they’ve selected the contract of left-hander Austin Cox from Triple-A Omaha. Righty Jose Cuas was optioned to Omaha to open a spot on the active roster, and southpaw Kris Bubic was transferred from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL to clear space on the 40-man roster.

Cox, 26, was Kansas City’s fifth-round pick out of Mercer University back in 2018. He’s opened the season with 20 1/3 innings of 2.21 ERA ball but a 22-to-11 K/BB ratio in Omaha. Cox is currently sporting a career-best 53.5% ground-ball rate in this year’s small sample of innings — a stark increase from the 37.5% mark he posted in 147 2/3 innings of Triple-A ball in 2022. Last season, Cox worked to a 4.21 ERA in Omaha, fanning just 16.2% of opponents but posting a strong 7.7% walk rate.

During the Royals’ most recent rebuilding effort, they spent a couple years putting an emphasis on college pitchers early in the draft, and Cox is a product of that strategy. It hasn’t panned out yet for Kansas City, however, as they’ve yet to produce a reliable big league starter from the experiment. Brady Singer certainly looked to be that during a breakout 2022 season, but he’s been torched for 28 earned runs in 29 2/3 innings this season. Other notable college draftees include Bubic, Daniel Lynch, Jackson Kowar, Asa Lacy, Alec Marsh, Grant Gambrell and Jonathan Bowlan, among others, but the development on that group simply hasn’t gone as hoped, whether due to injury or poor performance.

The Royals didn’t announce Cox as a starter for any of their upcoming games, so he could well head to the bullpen for his initial MLB assignment. That said, Kansas City starting pitchers have combined for a ghastly 5.80 ERA on the season, so there ought to be ample opportunity for Cox to eventually break into the group. Brad Keller and the injured Bubic —  who’ll miss the rest of the season following Tommy John surgery — are the only Royals starters with ERAs under 6.00. Zack Greinke (6.10), Jordan Lyles (6.11), Singer (8.49) and Ryan Yarbrough (7.40) have all struggled enormously to begin the year.

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