Debating who wins the final bench spot

0:00Who is going to grab that final spot on the bench for the royals? We'll give you our thoughts next on Lockdown Royals. You are Lockdown Royals. Your daily Kansas City Royals podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. You are tuned into another edition of Lockdown Royals and the Lockdown Podcast Network. As always, I'm your host, Jack Johnson, and you can find me on Twitter at JohnnyJUunderscore15. That is at JOHNYJUunderscore15. We're also now the number one sports podcasting network out there, and we've got a variety of ways to listen to this channel, which can be Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcast, Odyssey, and YouTube. To be sure to hit that follow button and subscribe. For you first time listeners, wondering what to expect from this page. Well, we bring you episodes Monday through Friday, 30-minute episodes in length, and on Friday,

1:01there will always be our mailbag Friday where you send in a question via YouTube or Twitter, and we will answer it throughout that entire episode. A little bit of a programming note here. I will be on vacation all of next week. I haven't decided just yet. If I'm going to be pre-recording all five of those interviews, or if we'll do something else in terms of getting content out there, I'll promise you this, that we're not going to go an entire week without episodes, but I'm going to try to this weekend, kind of compile all that stuff together. So if anything breaks next week, I'm unfortunately not going to be around my computer to do an episode, but we're going to have a fun time putting together five episodes over the weekend, or three or four, to make sure that you guys won't go an entire week without anything on the royals from this channel. Before we get started, want to tell you that today's show is brought to you by PlayStation Standard. And I'm thrilled to be talking about our sponsor, MLB The Show 26.

2:02The greatest game in baseball is back with its newest installment. Baseball fans are going to have a hard time putting themselves away from the games. If you're gearing up for the regular season, also go by the game, MLB The Show 26. We'll be talking about that a little bit later on in today's episode. Let's dive right into it for our first segment, involving the bench for the royals. And in our discussions about Starling Marta yesterday, it's really the perfect time to pivot and to what this bench might look like for the royals and how the roster construction has going to go down over the final couple of weeks. They can go a couple of different ways here. They could carry 13 and 13, 13 position players, 13 pitchers. They could do 14 position players and 12 pitchers. They'd have one less man in the bullpen, but they could not do nine pitchers in the bullpen and five starters. So you can either have a extra guy on the bench or you can have the same amount of position players

3:04and same amount of pitchers. I would like to see the royals break camp with 13 on each side. It's even that way that kind of goes into my prediction as well. So of course, I want them to go 13 and 13 because that's what I have on my preseason prediction list. And if that is the case, the royals already have three spots on their bench that are solidified and unless an injury happens, that's not changing. They're going to have Michael Massey on the bench. They're going to have Starling Marta on the bench and they're going to have Lane Thomas on the bench. Of course, Lane Thomas and Isabel will be platooning. We'll see Starling Marta quite a bit and I would say the same for Michael Massey, but that brings us to our final bench spot and who would be deserving of it. There's a couple of different ways that you can evaluate this. I think the first way of going about it would be, okay, you're looking for an extra utility guy. You want to have somebody who can play all around the infield, can play one or two spots in the outfield

4:07and you'll feel satisfied with it. Cause truth be told, this final spot on the bench is going to be the guy who plays the least in my opinion. And the options would be Josh Rojas, minor league deal guy. I've expressed my positivity around him making the roster. John Rafe would be another option. Nick Lofton maybe has as good of a chance as Josh Rojas and some would tell you out there that Nick Lofton has a better chance over Josh Rojas cause Rojas is a minor league deal guy after all. You also can look at Drew Waters. I thought that it was going to come down to Waters and Blanco to be DFA for Marta turns out it was Blanco who was DFA. And I would say that's because of age and I would say it's because of Drew Waters ability to switch hit. That's why they went with waters over Blanco and fingers crossed that Blanco could clear waivers and still be another pinch running option at some point throughout the season. But utility is going to be the focus on that final spot

5:09and where you have two right-handed bats on the bench, you've got Lane Thomas and you've got Starling Marta you've got a lefty and Michael Massey it would make sense to me to get an extra lefty on the bench. Now they do have a lot of lefties in the starting nine so it wouldn't be out of the question to put Nick Lofton there so you can have three righties on the bench and if you're going to run up a tune lineup you've got three options right there to replace three lefties in the lineup. And we're going to talk about this in the final segment today as well. Spring training numbers are not numbers that you should fall for. They are not numbers that you should judge a player on. They could go hit 500 and spring training. It's not going to matter. You may be asking yourself well didn't Jack say that spring training matters for a couple of different people. That is the case, right? If I'm looking at Josh Rojas his numbers matter but I will say that doesn't mean

6:10he's going to be great in the regular season which is why this is a tougher decision for the Royals coaching staff in evaluating Josh Rojas, Nick Lofton, John Rave, Drew Waters, Tyler Tolbert, another one. I didn't bring him up in the initial conversation but Tyler Tolbert gives them another right handed look. He also can play multiple spots and he has what none of the other guys do an ability to steal bases at an elite rate. That can give him the nod over everybody else there. And then you get to the next part of this. What do the Royals really need with that final bench spot? We know that Lane Thomas can play all three outfield spots. We know Starling Marta is probably only going to play left field and right field in D.H. when he's in there. Michael Massey can play second and left field. He is in right field today and he might get more run out there because all these guys at the World Baseball Classic are going to open up some opportunities for a guy like Michael Massey to move around.

7:11They have a bunch of outfielders there or guys that can play in outfield position. That brings me back to Josh Rojas and Nick Lofton because I would say Nick Lofton predominantly stays in the infield. You might want to have somebody who can play every single spot in the infield with that 26 spot on the roster. You want them to play first base. That's where Rojas is today. We've seen Nick Lofton play first base. We know they both can play third base. I'm sure if you put them up to it, they can play shortstop, but how often do they go into play shortstop over Bobby with Junior? I would go on record of saying, anytime Bobby with Junior's not playing shortstop, he's got an off day. Michael Garcia is in the lineup and he's playing shortstop. Second base is where you could see the most rotation but Michael Massey is the best option to put there at second base. So a utility guy for the infield, though important, we also can't acknowledge that there's not going to be many times where Vinnie Pasquantino,

8:12Jonathan India, Bobby with Junior and Michael Garcia are out of the lineup. Where are the most opportunities going to be for utility guy? It's going to be in the outfield. And there's still going to be behind guys like Lane Thomas, Starling Marte, and Michael Massey. Maybe that's why it could be Tyler Tolbert. Tolbert's not going to play a lot but where he can get into the game is pinch running in the eighth or ninth inning. And he can steal second base for you. And Diron Blanco could do that as well but Tyler Tolbert's younger, he's cheaper and he can play more positions than Diron Blanco. That's why they made that choice to DFA him. So if Tolbert is the guy, there is something I do want to see from him that I didn't really see a lot last year. If your sole purpose of being on the roster is to steal bases, you can't really be conservative

9:13when you go out there. You have to have that Gerard Dyson, Terence Gore mentality of I'm going. Everybody in the stadium knows I'm going but I'm good enough to get the read, I'm good enough to get the jump and I'm good enough to have that perfect slide where I get in there at a 90 to 95% success rate. Like if he's going to take one of those spots and I know that he hit 280 last year, I know he can play multiple positions. I would argue that Josh Rojas and Nick Loftick can play better defense than Tolbert but Tolbert can steal bases better than that. And my only argument against Tyler Tolbert would be if he goes out there and he's on the roster to pinch run and he's not running and taking off every single time he's out there, regardless of the situation, then it might not be worth the roster spot. Because as I said, Marte and Lane Thomas and Michael Massey they're going to be the next in line

10:13to be in the starting lineup when somebody needs a day off. Tyler Tolbert's going to be the third, fourth, fifth option off the bench to get into the game. But as I said, where he can get into the game a lot more than anybody else is pinch running. And if he goes out, I really, I'm not going to fault the guy. If his success rate is at 90 to 95% what I can't live with is if he's not even trying to steal second base. And I thought there was a stretch of games last year where he had been thrown out and then when he'd go out there to run, he wasn't run. And when you've got speed like that, you need to be a difference maker. Every single spot on this roster needs to hold some sort of value. And though I've said, Rojas is my front runner. I also can not even need to squint and see I can absolutely see Lofton or Tolbert getting that final spot over Rojas. I said I'd go with Rojas because I think that he could replicate what he did in 2024 and he has gold glove defense when he's healthy

11:15which he wasn't last year. He's done it before at the big league level. Lofton and Tolbert have not for an extended period of time. But if they go with Tolbert, Tolbert needs to be incredibly aggressive on the bases, not to a fault because you also have to be pretty successful but I could live with being aggressive maybe overly aggressive than not even trying to run it all. Because if you're gonna have that pinch runner, that pinch runner needs to be able to steal second base and perhaps third from time to time. Who do you see grabbing that final spot on the bench for the Rojas? Let us know in the YouTube comments below. When we come back, I've been pleasantly surprised with what I've seen from Daniel Lynch and his increased velocity. We'll dive into that next on Lofton Rojas. It's tax time, but for a lot of us, the old way of doing taxes is a lot. Trying to book an appointment, that's not the most convenient, sitting in a waiting room with a stack of papers, emailing back and forth and wondering

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14:17Xbox Series S and X and Nintendo Switch, rated E for everyone. We are back here on Lockdown Royals and the Lockdown podcast network. I'm your host, Jack Johnson. We are now the number one sports podcasting network out there. Want to tell you about the every day or club? Don't forget to check out the every day or club for ad free episodes and access to a group chat with me and other listeners of this show. Don't forget to check out the every day or club for ad free episodes and access to our group chat with me and other listeners. All you need to do is scroll down below, click on that URL link and they're gonna be able to take you from there. Going over to the pitching side of things here, it has been more than noticeable what Daniel Lynch is doing in camp. And we're going to see more and more of him while other pitchers are pitching in the World Baseball Classic, he's gonna get opportunities maybe to start, but if not, we'll get to see him for an extended period of time in relief. And what's been noticeable is that increase in velocity.

15:19And I've said it on the podcast before that when I was talking to somebody before spring training started, they let me know that he spent time at drive line in the off season. And drive line and tread where Cole Reagan's goes to really specializes in getting that increase in velocity, getting that increase in spin, and we've seen it with Daniel Lynch. Sitting anywhere from 95 to 96, topping out at 97, that is going to get him a spot on the roster, whether the ERA looks good at the end of camp or not. Because that's what's been missing from Daniel Lynch's arsenal, velocity. If you're not going to have the sharpest command at 92, 93, you're not gonna have that true put away pitch, you have to light up the radar got a little bit more. I can live with spotty command, I can live with maybe not being the big strikeout guy if you throw hard enough to blow up past somebody.

16:20And Daniel Lynch just didn't have that last year. He towed the line many, many times with tons of base runners coming in in certain situations, he'd get hit hard, but luck was on his side. And now the focus this off season and the focus in camp needs to be swing and miss, but also making sure that with the increase in velocity, you can have more deception to it. You know, if you throw a hundred miles an hour, but it's as straight as an arrow, it's going to get clobbered at the big league level. If you've got 97 with a couple other different pitches to work with and you can put it for the most part where you want it to, you're gonna have a ton of success. And that's what I wanted to see from Daniel Lynch going into camp. Bailey falter in him, I'm assuming are still battling for one of those final spots in the bullpen and whereas a couple of weeks ago, I was on record of saying Bailey falter would be my pick because he's out of options.

17:21The Royals trade for him last year and he's been working in the off season on a variety of different things, fine tuning his stuff, and he's gonna be pitching in a long relief role of the bullpen. If you needed him to start, he could start as well. Daniel Lynch's day, he's of starting or behind him unless he's an opener, but this is where I look at it and say, if Daniel Lynch is sitting 95 to 97 from the left side and Bailey falter is sitting 92 to 93, it's not the velocities, everything. But when I want to see a lefty on lefty matchup, I'm going with Daniel Lynch's stuff over Bailey falter and with the slider to go with a mid 90s fast fall, that can play nicely in the bullpen. That can be a really good weapon to have. And the Royals over the course of the last three or four years, they haven't had a ton of high powered guys in the bullpen. They've had a couple. Stephen Cruz is a high power guy.

18:22Lucas Ersig is a high power guy. When he's ramped up and when he's feeling healthy, Carl Sistep is a high powered guy. Then you have a ton of pitch to contact guys. And I would say that Shriver and Nick Mears and for the most part right now, Lewanderov will be a pitch to contact guy though he's got explosive stuff to become a swing and miss guy. But Daniel Lynch was that guy last year of when he's in the game, you're hoping that guys just aren't on it. They're not seeing him well. And if they do hit the ball hard, it's right at somebody. Anytime you've got a noticeable increase in velocity, you want to jot it down, remember it and know that when they leave camp, that's another weapon that you have in the bullpen. If somebody goes from 94 to 95, it's really not that noticeable. It probably wouldn't even be registered as an uptick in velocity, not to the human eye. You might see from time to time

19:23that they're sitting with more consistency at 95. But Daniel Lynch going from 92 to 93 to 95 to 96, that is going to alter what we think about him as a pitcher. Completely alterate. When I see him come into the game, facing a tough lefty, I can have more confidence that he is able to blow somebody away with the stuff he now possesses than I did last year. And the best that Daniel Lynch ever looked was when he came up in September or came back in September and 2024 and the roles are making their playoff. But she was one of the more reliable relievers out of the bullpen. He was not the same guy last year. And I thought it was due to the lack of true command that he showcased at the end of 2024. The bonuses in camp right now is that the velocity is playing up and it's more than just the gun being hot. When I say that the gun is hot, I'm meaning that it's a tick or two faster,

20:24not four to five miles per hour faster. And that's where Daniel Lynch is. If this truly is who he is and the command can stay as consistent as it's been, it changes my perception of him as a pitcher. It changes my perception of what the left-handed relievers look like in the Royals bullpen. I'm confident in Matt Strong. I know that Matt Strong is going to be a reliable guy they can turn to late in the game. If Daniel Lynch can become that too, better than Serpa last year. Now you're talking about this bullpen having a completely different ceiling where if you had two or three guys in the bullpen where you didn't think their stuff was explosive and you couldn't really count on them in a close game, then that ceiling is significantly less than it would be if even one guy like Daniel Lynch changes their entire arsenal. And maybe that's too strong of a word to say with changing the arsenal. His pitches are the same, but they don't look the same.

21:26They're coming out of his hands with more heat, more movement, more spin. And that's going to be something to watch all spring training long. Do you see Daniel Lynch making the bullpen out of camp? Let us know in the YouTube comments below. When we come back with all this talk about spring training, I'm going to tell you why you shouldn't be fooled by some numbers out there. We'll talk about it next on Lockdown Royals. College basketball is non-stop. Big games, tight spreads, momentum swings every single night from early tip-offs to late night West Coast shootouts. There's always action on the board. And now Fandals giving you a way to turn that energy into an even bigger potential win with a college basketball parlay profit boost. You can build any college hoops parlay you want, rivalry games, ranked matchups, whatever fits your need. You can mix spreads, totals, and player props to match how you see this late playing out. Go safe, go bold, ride with the team.

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23:28So go out and download the game time app today. We are wrapping up this Tuesday edition of Lockdown Royals and the Lockdown podcast network. I'm your host, Jack Johnson, and you can follow me on Twitter at JohnnyJU underscore for 15. For our final segment, want to speak to the numbers in spring training and why you shouldn't be fooled by batting average, home runs, RBI's, slugging, whatever you're looking at, don't be fooled by it. And really, this is how I try to go into every single spring training so that I'm not dumbfounded when the regular season is underway. It is always better, so this is my first point here. It is always better to have good numbers in spring training than poor. If you were to ask any player out there, and I have before, would you rather have great numbers? Are you superstitious where, if I hit well in spring training, I'm almost always going to start poorly in April.

24:29I mean, one of the Royals best hitters in Vinnie Pasquintino has seemingly struggled in April the last couple of years. And he said that. He said that in our interview, which you can go back and listen to. But his numbers are never going to matter in spring training, whether they're great or they're bad. It does not correlate to what he does in April. It's just different. The weather's different. Players are going to tell you the warmer the weather, the better they feel. It's easy, or easier, I should say. It's never easy to hit a baseball, but it's easier to go out there and swing about when it's 75 and sunny than when you're in Cleveland in April and it's 45 degrees and rainy. I mean, that's a tail as old as time. Now, the second part to this, though, the numbers never really matter for the everyday guys. It does matter for guys trying to make the roster, because quite frankly, it's what the coaching staff has to go off of. It's not the end all be all where if Josh Rojas is hitting 350 and Nick Lofton's hitting 340,

25:29they're going to go with Josh Rojas. It also comes down to the battered ball metrics. Is it a lucky 350? Or are they scorching the ball? Are they scalding it? And you will also look at the competition they're facing. Are they hitting 350 against AAA guys? Or are they hitting against guys that are going to be in big league rotations and are trying to earn a spot in the rotation? If I had to be really specific about where I can get excited about a spring training at bat or a spring training outing, you look at a guy who's trying to make the team, facing another guy who's trying to make the team, they're both big leagueers, and you know they're going for the most part all out. They're trying to impress. I mean, the guys that are on the fringe, they're not working on all these different pitches. They're not doing what Carlos has steves is doing. They're having to go out there and show why they've earned a spot on the 26 man roster. But just because the numbers look good

26:29does not mean they're going to roll into the regular season red hot. That's also to say though, too, that they could have a great spring and a great regular season. They can go that way. Michael Garcia had a great spring training and a great regular season. Michael Massey had a great spring training last year, really poor regular season. There's never going to be that perfect science of what really matters. And the Royals have a couple of guys that are fighting for roster spots. They have young guys who are trying to prove that they're everyday players, and they want to play well. They want to look good while doing it. And certainly with the World Baseball Classic, they want to play well so that every fan out there can see what type of potential they really have. Now, I will say this, I'm never going to tell a fan how to be a fan. If you buy into the numbers, you buy into the numbers. Right, if you're high on somebody and then they look good in camp right now and that's to go on off of and they look good in the regular season, you have every right to say that's why it happened.

27:31There's also people that will say it doesn't matter at all. This guy may be hitting 450 in spring and he's going to be terrible in the regular season. And that might happen. That very well could happen. But the only thing that I would say we have to go off of, we have to look at is with the guys that we've been talking about throughout this episode, the fringe guys, the ones that are battling for a spot. I guess the only hang up would be, yeah, it might be good enough to get them on the roster. Just don't be surprised if those numbers don't translate. If Nick Lofton or Josh Roas finishes camp in 20 plus games, slashing 350, 440 with a 500 slug. It's something ridiculous. I know last year, mass EOPS, North of 1,000, but if they do that, I'm not trying to say that people are believing they're going to put up those exact same numbers. Just don't be shocked if they then hit 200 in the regular season.

28:34Guys pitch them differently, and they're not playing as frequently. It's tougher to get into the lineup. Pictures, a guy that I'm loving what I'm seeing so far. In Mason Black. Mason Black has terrific horizontal run on his fastball. His slider looks good. He hasn't given up a run just yet. I'm sure he's going to get a ton of opportunities while guys are at the World Baseball Classic. Don't be surprised if he breaks camp and goes to Omaha and the numbers never, never translate, never correlate as great as spring training is, as fun as it is to talk about real live baseball games. Boy, does it lead us astray many, many times? It's where we get hope for players. It's where we rule out players. And though it's been around forever. We've never had this exact science of what it really means because we can't go inside the mind of a player and understand how much they're putting into that outing

29:36or how much they're putting into that effect. Some guys put in 110%. Some guys put in about 50. The weather's great. It's comfortable to play there and there's barely anybody at the games. They play in front of the smallest crowd. They will all season long. And all of those factors and ballpark factor as well, it's easy to put one on the berm, it's a prize stadium and much easier to do it when it's 80 degrees than it will be even when the fence is coming into Kaufman to park one over the wall and right center field when it's 50 degrees and windy, with the wind blowing in I should say. So though there's still many games to go and I'd even go as far to say the world baseball classic numbers aren't going to dictate a lot because the regular season's just different. When you're playing every single day, you're seeing guys maxing out, left and right, it's going to be a challenge and it's always an adjustment for everybody. Just don't let some of these numbers fool you.

30:37Lead or have them lead you to your predictions, your opening day roster, your starting nine, let it do all of that, but never fall for numbers in spring training and let them lead you to believe that those numbers are going to correlate to the regular season. The funny part about this too, those numbers might correlate and there will be no direct reason. There will be no answer as to why that happened for somebody and not the other guy. And that's just spring training 101. Do you have anybody that you're really high on in spring training right now or anybody that you're not worried about? Let us know in the YouTube comments below. That's going to do it for another edition of Lockdown Royals and the Lockdown podcast. Network, I've been your host, Jack Johnson. Until tomorrow, you take it easy, Kansas City.