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2 KC Royals likely to improve, 2 who probably won't, in 2023

By Mike Gillespie |
/ Peter Aiken-USA TODAY Sports
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Even in the bleak world of a team without a single winning season in its past seven, it stands to reason that the KC Royals will be better in 2023. Little room remains near the bottom for these Royals, the young players to whom they gave chances in 2022 are better for it, and general manager J.J. Picollo is, despite opinions popular in at least some quarters, making moves designed to improve the club.

So count on things being better in Kansas City this season. The Royals won't be in the playoffs come October, but 2023 won't be as bad as 2022, and certainly won't reach the 100-plus loss depths of 2018 and 2019.

Look, too, for several players to improve. Some will, as is the nature of big league baseball, be worse this year; for others, the differences between their 2023 and 2022 performances will be hard to measure.

Which Royals will be better, and which will not? Let's look at two who'll likely improve and two who probably won't.

This KC Royals pitcher will have a difficult time improving this season

The past two seasons haven't been kind to Kansas City pitcher Brad Keller. Selected by local baseball writers for the club's Bruce Rice Pitcher of the Year award in 2018 and 2020, Keller stumbled in 2021 to 8-12 and the 80 earned runs he surrendered in 133.2 innings gave him a 5.39 ERA, the worst of his five-year major league career.

Keller's 2022 really wasn't any better. Yes, he improved his ERA, but at 5.09 it remained far too high. And he lost 14 games, more than any other hurler on the staff, and won only six. Pitching badly in the rotation forced him to the bullpen in August; he fared no better there, going 0-1, 6.23 in 13 appearances.

"Improvement" is, of course, a relative term, but not much about Keller's last two seasons suggests he'll be significantly better in 2023.

KC Royals infielder Bobby Witt Jr. was good in 2022 and will be better in 2023

That Bobby Witt Jr. impressed in his first shot at the big leagues last season surprised absolutely no one. Making a splash was what he was supposed to do and what he did.

Witt, only 21 when he debuted Opening Day, hit 20 homers, stole 30 bases, and drove in 80 runs in 150 games. For good measure, he also doubled 31 times, tripled six, and was named Kansas City's Les Milgram Player of the Year.

Was all that enough? Of course, but Witt is too good not to get better. The superstar-caliber tools he's lucky enough to have and capable of exploiting to their full extent all but guarantee he'll improve in 2023. The .254/.294/.428 he serviceably slashed will, simply because he's Bobby Witt Jr., improve.

And the experience he gained last year will only enhance his performance this year. Witt entered the 2022 campaign with just two full seasons and the summer he spent at the Royals' 2020 Alternate Training Site on his professional resume; those 150 games he played a season ago, and toughing out the rigors of spring training and the regular campaign, will prove invaluable.

Getting better for the KC Royals will be an uphill battle for Hunter Dozier

Not at all unlike Brad Keller, Hunter Dozier's Kansas City stock has fallen. After breaking in with the Royals for eight games in 2016 and going 4-for-19, then hitting .229 in 100 games for them two years later, he thrilled the club in 2019 when, with less than a full major league season's number of games under his belt, he tied for the big league lead in triples with 10, clubbed 26 homers to go with 29 doubles and 84 RBIs, and slashed .279/.348/.522.

But the bright light that suddenly represented Dozier's future quickly dimmed. He's now homered only four more times than he did in all of 2018 and struggled to bat .228 in 2020, .216 in 2021, and .236 last season, when only the .264 he hit in May saved him from a sub-.220 campaign.

Fair to say now is that despite the four-year, $25 million contract KC gave him before the 2021 campaign that on its surface might suggest otherwise, Dozier's story is one of regression. Like Keller, little of his most recent pair of seasons (we gave him a "D" for 2021 and the same grade for 2022) provide much hope that this campaign will be significantly, if any, better.

Outfielder Kyle Isbel is bound to improve for the KC Royals this season

Three years ago, not long before the pandemic stepped in and forced baseball to shut down for almost four months, I wrote in this space about a young Kansas City outfield prospect who I'd mistaken during a game for Alex Gordon. For reasons more detailed in that story, I considered it a reasonable mistake, and still do to this day.

Since that game, Isbel hit well when he made his major league debut in 2021: in a season divided in two by a temporary return to Triple-A Omaha, he put up a 28-game, .276/.337/.434 line and handled 47 outfield chances without making an error.

Last season, though, wasn't good for Isbel. He played 106 times for Kansas City but hit only .211 with a .264 OBP and five home runs. His defense wasn't quite as good (.979 overall fielding percentage while playing every outfield position), but didn't seem to rattle the Royals.

Now, Isbel will enter spring training with renewed hope of landing an everyday spot in the Kansas City outfield. Gone via a recent trade to Minnesota is center fielder Michael A. Taylor, so Isbel will compete with Drew Waters for the center field job and perhaps with Edward Olivares in right. He's a decent bet to be the fourth outfielder if he doesn't beat out Waters or Olivares.

But whatever happens and wherever he plays, Isbel will, considering Taylor's departure, probably be a Royal when the regular season opens March 30. And he'll probably be better at the plate: he showed the club what he's capable of in 2021 (yes, it was a small sample) and owns a career .276/.352/.804 minor league line. The potential to hit is there.

Next. Projecting Vinnie Pasquantino's 2023. dark

Will Bobby Witt Jr. and Kyle Isbel improve in 2023? How about Brad Keller and Hunter Dozier? Let us know what you think.

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