KC Royals: Three big questions in Spring Training after week one

With the first week of the 2020 Arizona Cactus League play in the books, there are still plenty of questions that KC Royals fans will have before the 26 man roster must be determined before Opening Day.

It’s worth taking time to discuss and, for that matter, debate what can be called the top three questions so far in Spring Training for the Kansas City Royals and review them weekly.

Who will be the fifth starter in the rotation?

Without a doubt, this is a question that almost every major league team has during any Spring Training. For the Royals and those who closely follow them, this season has just a bit more interest since there is a first round draft pick knocking at the door. That could open the gates for the next round of stars who could enable the team to once again compete for the AL Central.

It may seem like something that isn’t important to some, but it actually is considering there is the potential that this pitcher could start more than 20 or more times this season if they perform well.

Let’s go ahead and make the obvious safe assumptions that Brad Keller, Danny Duffy, Jakob Junis and Mike Montgomery already have their spots locked in and will be healthy to start the season.

Brady Singer is simply impressive so far and appears to be the front runner to be in the rotation. He started two games this week with four strikeouts in three innings pitched. One of those innings included only 13 pitches to get through Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, and Javier Baez. All three grounded out.

Singer  gave up three hits to begin his third inning of work this spring before retiring the next three, utilizing his slider. His slider produced two strikeouts. Only Jason Heyward that inning was able to really get the bat squarely on a pitch so far this first week.

This sort of performance really shouldn’t surprise fans. Cody Tapp reminded everyone that Singer was outstanding in his final nine starts with Northwest Arkansas (AA) last year.

Even with those numbers, there is still Jorge Lopez, who quietly threw four and 2/3 scoreless innings this week and only gave up two hits. Let’s not count him out.

Brady Singer right now looks to be the fifth starter at the beginning of the season. He has potential to climb that ladder before the end of the season as. Look for Lopez to make this a tough decision to start the season though.

This question, to be honest, looks too close to call for right now. At least it is promising seeing some quality starting pitching developing this spring for the back-end of the rotation.

Who will start at first base?

Even though Salvador Perez started at first base on Monday, there is exactly a 0% chance he will be the starting first baseman for the Royals to start the season. This leaves Ryan McBroom and Ryan O’Hearn both taking this question to the wire.

McBroom had four hits, three RBI, and a home runthis week while O’Hearn’s lone hit this week was a homer.

This is also too close to call.

How many outfielders will the Royals really carry?

Unlike the two previous questions, this one involves more than two players. This is kind of a strange question but it’s worth thinking about. The starting outfield is already locked in with Alex Gordon, Whit Merrifield, and Hunter Dozier.

With Jorge Soler being the DH, it’s hard to imagine not keeping him in the outfield at least once per week. Anticipate those being day games to get Salvador Perez a break from behind the plate. It can be assumed that Salvy will DH on those days.

So, with Bubba Starling and Khalil Lee each having a solid spring, this is going to draw us into the question of how many outfielders does a team really need?

It is realized that Merrifield and Dozier are both capable of playing on the infield, but right now all the talk has them locked to be in the outfield. With their flexibility and that of McBroom and Matt Reynolds, the team will have plenty of options of how they want to stack the position players.

Right now, that answer appears to be four outfielders plus two utility players as outfielders in the Opening Day lineup. The answer after week one then would six.

As of Thursday afternoon, Starling went 5 for 10 with two home runs and is hitting .500. He’s off to another great spring, which could cause Royals manager Mike Matheny to consider flexing Dozier to first base or even Merrifield back to second base to get him into the lineup. He will have flexibility with all the utility players available.

There are a total of 68 players right now at Spring Training for the KC Royals. This will for sure be a daunting task to try and get it down to 26 especially with the number of players without options and the lone Rule 5 draftee Stephen Woods.

Next week we’ll try and see if some of these top questions will start to develop some answers. There might also be a few more questions develop as well. Until then join the debate and lets see what you think.