3 burning KC Royals questions, and 3 answers

The KC Royals, losers of five of six home games to begin the new season, hit the road Friday and found it to their liking. Kansas City pitchers held down the Giants, who earlier in the week hammered 13 home runs in three games against the White Sox, and the Royals' cold bats thawed just enough to score three runs, which proved to be enough for a 3-1 win.

Whether the victory gets the Royals on track remains to be seen. But whether it does or doesn't, questions won't stop swirling around the club.

Let's answer three.

Question 1: What should the KC Royals do with reliever Aroldis Chapman?

Usually, only a player's bad performance triggers such a question this early in the season. After all, the new campaign is only eight games old.

But Chapman's offseason signing, coming as it did after a season tainted by some of his worst numbers ever and suddenly ended by a missed postseason workout, forced him under the microscope from the moment he put ink to paper. Demands to cut him loose will follow any further downward trend; a return to the dominant form for which he's so well known is sure to spark cries to trade him while he's hot.

Hot Chapman is, though, and thus the otherwise early question. Clearly back on the beam, he's pitched three times for the Royals and his three-scoreless inning performance includes six strikeouts and only a walk and two hits surrendered. Per Baseball Savant, his velocities are up, with his sinker and four-seamer near or over 100 mph.

All, then, seems right in Chapman's pitching world. Does that mean the Royals should strike while his iron is hot and trade him immediately?

No. Teams aren't ready to go reliever hunting just yet, and they'll want to see more of Chapman in any event. The Royals have to be thrilled with his resurgence, and they're sure to move him sometime this season, but now is too early, especially if the club wants to optimize the return he'll bring.

Question 2: How much longer are the KC Royals going to give Hunter Dozier?

The increasingly sad baseball journey of once-promising Hunter Dozier continues. The man who opened so many eyes in 2019 with 29 doubles, 10 triples, 26 homers, 84 RBIs and a .279/.348/.522 line, has two hits this season after managing a single Friday. He's now hitting .223 since that almost-forgotten 2019 campaign, and will bring an ugly .095/.136/.095 seven-game line and one RBI into this afternoon's game against San Francisco.

The Royals entered the season counting on Dozier to be their regular third baseman but, with no end to his troubles at the plate in sight, they should resort to Plan B, which could be Bobby Witt Jr. taking over at third with Omaha's Maikel Garcia coming up to play shortstop, or Matt Duffy, who's 6-for-10 with a homer so far, taking over the hot corner.

In all likelihood, however, Dozier will stay in the lineup for the foreseeable future. He's in the third year of the four-season, $25 million deal he signed just before the final full season of the Dayton Moore era began, meaning the Royals will stick with him as long as they can—Kansas City isn't a franchise prone to dumping what are, by their measure at least, big contracts even in the face of failure.

The hope is that Dozier will suddenly recapture the magic of his 2019 season and lay long-term claim to third base at best, or make himself an attractive trade piece at worst. So, at least for the immediate future, don't look for the club to do anything more serious than benching him.