3 KC Royals that will benefit from a shortened season

While the pause of America’s pastime is not how we envisioned this spring playing out, it will be a benefit to some on the KC Royals.

When the suspension of spring training was announced less than a month ago we were all disappointed.  Of course, KC Royals fans understand the gravity of the situation and will wait this out as the country fights back against the health crisis.

As we look forward to the day we can worry about box scores instead of how many rolls of toilet paper we have left, there are some Royals players who will actually benefit from the extra rest.  Possibly it is to recover from injuries or to hit the reset button on a disappointing spring.

How short the season will be is still unknown and will depend on circumstances out of baseball’s control.  More than likely it would be June at the earliest and many suspect starting after mid-July would make it very difficult to even get in 100 games unless baseball play on until the end of the year.

It appears that players still have at least 2-3 months to prepare before any games will be played that count in the standings.  You can essentially wipe out anything that happened in February and March as that long of a layoff will kill any momentum or slumps that people were in.

“Knowing that so many players are not even having any access to throwing at all or hitting at all, but most importantly just throwing, and probably limited access to just training and exercise, it’s hard to imagine we could get ready in less than four weeks,” Mark Shapiro told reporters. – foxnews.com

We take a look at three KC Royals players who can benefit from this additional time off to prepare for a short season.

KC Royals’ fans held their breath not once, but twice, when this dynamic shortstop left two different games due to shoulder injury.

After battling back from a shoulder subluxation, a fancy way of saying his shoulder popped out of place and then back in, in July, Adalberto Mondesi reaggravated it just a few days before the end of the year. That led to surgery to repair a labral tear and it was estimated he would be out five to six months.

While we were hearing he was on pace to make an Opening Day return, Mondesi did not face any action in a Kansas City spring training game prior to play being suspended on March 12th.  This extra time will help him build strength in the shoulder and be fully recovered for a mid-summer start-up.

The Royals can definitely use a healthy Mondesi as they strive for contention in 2021.  Despite playing in only 102 games, he tied other Kansas City players for the Major League lead in triples with 10.  He batted .263 and swiped 43 bases.  That makes a total of 75 steals in just 177 games the last two seasons.

Defensively he made spectacular plays and his fielding average was 14 points above the league.  He was only charged with seven miscues in 440 chances.

The hope is that upon his return he will be still be diving after balls and stealing bases right and left.  The reality, though, is will he have the confidence to make plays and slides like he used to?  And will his shoulder hold up if he does?  The optimistic outlook is that the extra time will give Mondesi the ability to strengthen that area and return to his old form.

Not running up his pitch count this summer will give this future ace a chance to let loose once play resumes.

Many anticipate Major League Baseball will schedule multiple doubleheaders and that will put the onus on teams to have arms ready to compete in these contests.  The KC Royals are already going to struggle to put a decent rotation together and there is no reason not to give Brady Singer experience against big league hitters in 2020.

Singer looked impressive this spring.  The three runs he allowed all came in one game against the Oakland A’s in two-thirds of an inning pitched.  Throw out that appearance and he hurled five frames, gave up four hits, one walk and struck out five with a 0.00 ERA.

Even when you include the Oakland game, he held hitters to a .304 slugging percentage.  Singer also located 68.6% of his pitches for strikes which should temper any concerns about control issues.

For his first year in professional ball in 2019, Singer jumped straight to Advanced-A ball and dominated so much he went to Double-A for the second part of the year and pitched well.  Would there be an adjustment period at the highest level or pro ball?  Absolutely.  Is he mature enough and does he have the mindset to battle through the challenges?  No doubt.

The greatest growth you will experience in all walks of life is how you deal with adversity.  The KC Royals need to allow young players like Singer the opportunity to grind it out.  No better time than in a year when expectations are extremely low.