The great thing about baseball in Spring Training (Royals baseball especially) is that hope always runs high in the desert air of Surprise, Arizona.

Like many Royals fans starved for success, I had high hopes for the season.

Granted, did I think this team was a playoff-caliber squad? Absolutely not. They were too young and still had a lot of question marks, even with the much-needed managerial and front-office changes.

That said, I was hoping that with the right breaks, the 2023 Royals could perhaps be the 2022 Baltimore Orioles, who went 83-79 a season ago.

Instead, this season’s Royals squad, which went 56-106, was closer to the 2019 Orioles, which went 54-108.

To be fair, the Orioles truly began their “rebuilding” process back in 2019, so maybe better days are ahead for Kansas City, even if it may take another three to four seasons before another winning season happens.

Despite the disappointing results, I still wanted to look back on two sets of bold predictions that I made in the past season: One in Spring Training, before Opening Day; and the other at the All-Star Break, in preparation for the second half.

In this post, I am going to look at my pre-Opening Day predictions and see which ones I was close to (or called exactly) and which ones didn’t exactly come to fruition (not surprising considering my optimistic tendencies as a Royals fan).

---

Prediction #1: Bobby Witt, Jr. Represents Kansas City at the All-Star Game

Result: Didn’t happen

Bobby Witt, Jr. ended up having one of the most memorable seasons in Royals history for a position player, which says something considering the franchise had George Brett and Bo Jackson.

Royals fans know about the offensive numbers, including the 30 home runs, 11 triples, and 49 stolen bases. However, he also showed tremendous strides with the glove at shortstop this season (along with the infielders as a whole group), which boosted his fWAR to 5.7 this year. That is 3.4 points higher than his fWAR during his rookie season, which shows that Witt took the necessary leaps in 2023 to be a star player worth building around (and most importantly, trying to keep long-term).

That said, Witt’s first couple of months were pretty pedestrian, as he posted a 90 wRC+ in April and 95 wRC+ in June, according to Fangraphs. It’s not a surprise that around that time Royals fans were wondering if he could be even a solid “regular” player, let alone an All-Star.

We all know how June-on played out for Witt.

Nonetheless, Witt’s mediocre start at the plate explains why he didn’t get the Royals’ lone All-Star spot. Instead, the Royals’ All-Star selection was Salvador Perez, mostly due to a sensational May (he was named offensive player of the month).

If the All-Star game started maybe a couple of weeks later, it’s possible that Witt would’ve been named to his first All-Star team in his sophomore season.

Instead, Witt’s Midsummer Classic debut will have to wait, even though I’m sure he’ll gladly accept Royals Team MVP honors this winter.

---

Prediction #2: Aroldis Chapman is Traded By June

Result: Correct!

I basically felt when Chapman was acquired that if he did rebound with the Royals as hoped he would be traded at the earliest opportunity. To me, June felt like a good time to deal him, especially since it would give a club plenty of time to utilize Chapman out of the bullpen during a playoff push.

The Royals traded Chapman to the Rangers on June 30th, so my June “prediction” came true (though it certainly was close). To make things better, not only did the Royals trade Chapman sooner rather than later, but they got a possible ace in Cole Ragans, who wasn’t widely heralded when initially acquired (due to some mediocre numbers out of the bullpen with Texas).

Thankfully, Ragans has been absolutely electric since coming to Kansas City (and they got a high-upside position player in Roni Cabrera, who primarily played in the DSL this year).

That’s not a bad return for a rental reliever coming off a career-worst season.

---

Prediction #3: Kris Bubic Becomes the Royals’ Third-Best Starting Pitcher

Result: Way Wrong! (Okay, slightly wrong due to injury).

To be honest, I was buying into the Royals’ new pitching team’s Spring Training hype (“raid the zone”) when I made this prediction and Bubic seemed to me the best candidate to have a turnaround after an up-and-down first few seasons at the MLB level.

After all, Bubic was a Stanford guy (i.e. smart) and he seemed to be the most open to feedback and coaching of that 2018 MLB Draft class (which includes Brady Singer, Daniel Lynch, Jackson Kowar, and Jon Heasley). He also showed some promising fastball velocity development in the second half of last year, and I wondered if he could channel that into success in 2023.

Early on, it looked like Bubic was on his way to living up to my prediction, with a particularly strong six-inning, two-hit outing against the Giants at Oracle Park in San Francisco on April 9th (43% CSW according to Savant).

However, he allowed five runs on 10 hits in his next outing against the Braves at Kauffman Stadium, and he ended up going under the knife for Tommy John surgery shortly after (effectively ending his season).

There’s still some hope that Bubic can still live up to that “hype” and thrive under Sweeney and the Royals’ pitching coaches…

Unfortunately, though, that might not happen until the end of 2024 or perhaps 2025.

---

Prediction #4: Vinnie Pasquantino Slightly Disappoints

Result: Kind of right? (Though like Bubic, it was due to injury).

At the end of April, I was looking like an idiot with this prediction.

Vinnie going into May was hitting .287 with a .894 OPS in 117 plate appearances. That included five home runs, 10 RBI, and 14 walks to 15 strikeouts.

If anything, it looked like Pasquantino was on his way to the All-Star game in Seattle at that point in the year.

That said, Vinnie did struggle a little bit in May.

The average dipped to .255 that month and the OPS also saw a similar decline to .753. He still hit four home runs in 116 plate appearances, but his walk total dropped to eight in the month of May, and his strikeouts still remained at 14, only one less than his total in April.

In June, everything came crashing down for Pasquantino at the plate.

He only had 23 plate appearances, but in that span, he only hit .048 with a .255 OPS. On June 10th, Vinnie was diagnosed with a torn labrum in his shoulder, and the Royals as a result opted to shut him down for the year with season-ending surgery.

When Vinnie was healthy, he was great and still proved that he could be a long-term building block in Kansas City along with Witt. Unfortunately, his injury dampened his season overall and made his outlook in 2024 and beyond a bit more questionable.

---

Prediction #5: The Royals Farm System Ranks Higher by Mid-Season

Result: Not really.

I was hoping that the Trade Deadline and MLB Draft would help bring a lot of much-needed talent to a farm system that ranked near the bottom of the league last winter according to many prospect experts.

Unfortunately, that didn’t really come to fruition, due to different reasons.

While the Royals were able to acquire something valuable in the Chapman trade, other possible trade candidates ended up having down seasons or didn’t do well enough to command a trade at all.

Scott Barlow would’ve netted more if he was traded in 2022. Ryan Yarbrough returned a couple of pieces, but his freak injury didn’t help. Taylor Clarke pitched himself OFF the trade block, and Edward Olivares cooled off when the Royals started floating him more aggressively in trades.

As a result, the Royals didn’t really get any “prized” prospects in their trades, though I do think they fared better than many initially thought at the Trade Deadline.

As for the Draft?

Well, the Royals selected a lot of young, high-upside pieces in the first few rounds, including Blake Mitchell, their first-round selection this year. Unfortunately, Mitchell struggled in the Arizona Complex League, which doesn’t look good with Kyle Teel, who was connected in mocks to Kansas City prior to Draft day, absolutely raking for Boston (Teel was selected after Mitchell).

To make matters worse, Gavin Cross, the Royals’ top prospect going into 2022, absolutely struggled in High-A Quad Cities. While he did earn a promotion to Double-A Northwest Arkansas at the end of the year, he was hurt for most of that stint and barely played with the Naturals. The Royals are hoping that he can regain his confidence in the Arizona Fall League.

As a result, the Royals’ system didn’t improve a whole lot from this past winter, though some prospects like Frank Mozzicato, Ben Kudrna, Cayden Wallace, and Chandler Champlain took steps in the right direction.

JJ Picollo, Danny Ontiveros, and new scouting director Brian Bridges have a lot of work to do to continue building the system this winter.

Hopefully, they can make some trades and Rule 5 selections that can help boost their prospect depth a little bit prior to Spring Training.

Photo Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports