Earlier last week, I looked at the pitch quality of three pitches from three Royals pitchers trying to earn spots on the Opening Day roster this spring. In this post, I wanted to switch the focus to a hitting end, this time focusing on the batted ball profile of three Royals hitters trying to earn spots or roles on the Opening Day roster.
What is a batted ball profile?
It’s a heatmap created by Pitcher List’s Kyle Bland that tracks the frequency of groundballs, line drives, or fly balls (y-axis) and opposite field, up the middle, and pulled batted balls (x-axis). There are two kinds of heatmaps: the hitter’s profile compared to the rest of the league and compared to what they did a season ago.
So here’s a look at three Royals hitters whose batted ball profiles will be worth watching in Cactus League play. Furthermore, I will look at whether certain adjustments can help them earn spots on the opening-day roster and have productive seasons at the plate in 2024.
Nick Loftin, 2B/UT
Loftin had a solid rookie debut in 2023. In 19 games and 68 plate appearances, Loftin slashed .323/.368/.435 with a 118 wRC+. The former 1st-round pick out of Baylor didn’t showcase much power (.113 ISO), but he demonstrated an all-fields batted ball approach that produced results.
As Royals fans can see in the batted ball heatmap, Loftin didn’t lift the ball often, as most of the red (which is good) on the chart is in the ground ball areas. The launch angle metrics also seem to back up what we see from his batted ball profile as well, as his 10.8-degree average launch angle and 31.4% sweet-spot percentage were both below the league average, according to Savant.
The impression from Royals fans regarding Loftin’s debut in 2023 was that he was a “line drive” hitter.
Unfortunately, based on the heatmap, that really wasn’t the case. He hit a lot of groundballs actually, though he did a good job of spraying it across the field. That was evident in his batted ball heatmap as well as his hit spray chart from a season ago.
Loftin put a lot of balls in play, but a lot of dots, both of the colored (hits) and gray (outs) variety, stayed in the infield. That’s not a promising sign for a guy who sported an 86.3 MPH average exit velocity, 35.3% hard-hit rate, and .392 BABIP. If the profile remains the same in Cactus League play and at the start of the year, his wOBA in 2024 will likely mirror more closely to the xwOBA he produced in 2023 (.302) than his actual wOBA (.348).
On the flip side, there is some potential still there.
While Loftin lacks traditional power, he did post a barrel rate of 7.8% last season. That demonstrates some power potential, not just in 2024 but long term. It may not result in an uptick in home runs, but it could produce more batted balls of the line drive variety, which could produce more hits and production at the plate.
Whether or not Loftin can lift more batted balls in 2024 could be key to whether or not he can be a regular platoon player off the bench in 2024 with the possibility of perhaps being a starting infielder, especially if Maikel Garcia or Michael Massey struggles this season.
Nick Pratto, 1B
Pratto appears to be on the outside looking in when it comes to earning a spot on the 2024 Opening Day roster. Vinnie Pasquantino is back, and fully healthy, and Hunter Renfroe and Salvador Perez are right-handed options who would make sense at first base when Vinnie needs a break due to them being right-handed (i.e. when Vinnie gets a day off against left-handed starting pitchers).
Nonetheless, I don’t think Royals fans should particularly sleep or give up on Pratto just yet, especially since he struggled a bit through injury toward the tail end of last year, and because he is still 25 years old.
There are plenty of stories like Pratto’s around the league where a guy starts out slow in their first couple of seasons and then it finally clicks.
When looking at his batted ball profile, Pratto showed a strong ability to hit line drives to the pull side, especially that right-center field gap. That’s a solid profile to have, especially while playing in a home park like Kauffman Stadium which is spacious in the left-center and right-center gaps. It deflates home runs but can produce a lot of doubles and triples, according to Savant Park Factors.
Pratto also showed last year that he not only hit line drives and pulled the ball more than other MLB hitters but also showed improvements in these two areas compared to what he did in his rookie season in 2022.
Granted, he did pull more groundballs, which is not ideal. On the other hand, the focus for Pratto became less on trying to hit the ball out of the park, and more on improving his hard contact and line-drive approach.
In addition to the more line drives produced in 2023, the 2017 1st-round pick also saw a significant increase in his hard-hit rate trends from his rookie year, which can be seen via his hard-hit rate rolling chart below, via Savant.
As Royals fans can see above, Pratto’s hard-hit rates were significantly above what he did in 2022 and consistently in that range for most of the year. The only negative was that he dropped significantly around the 240th batted ball mark last year.
What contributed to that sharp decline?
Well, Pratto missed a month of play due to a groin injury. It’s likely that he just never fully recovered from that injury he suffered in late July or had a hard time re-adjusting after returning off the IL. Regardless of the exact reason, his batted ball results plummeted after that injury.
It sounds like Pratto is fully healthy, and I think he will continue to show gains in his batted-ball profile in 2024, especially if he can find some lift on balls that he truly pulled a year ago. When he can fully come around on a ball, Pratto can produce home runs like the one below.
Royals fans need to pay attention to Pratto and what kind of contact he’s making this spring in Arizona.
If we’re seeing more lift and more pulled balls, then it’s possible that Pratto could be a sneaky breakout candidate this season (even though finding playing time initially will still be tough).
Drew Waters, OF
Waters, like Pratto, will have to do a lot this spring to make the Opening Day roster. That said, his chances are better than Pratto’s, and struggles from another Royals outfielder (such as Nelson Velazquez, Dairon Blanco, or Kyle Isbel) could help Waters not just earn a spot, but perhaps catapult into a starting outfielder role on March 28th.
The former Atlanta top prospect has already gotten off to a good start in Cactus League play, as he homered in the Royals’ first spring game on Friday against the Rangers.
What’s encouraging about Waters is that he has shown an ability to elevate the ball at the Major League level, which is what the Royals need in the lineup. Compared to Royals outfielders who will be competing for playing time this spring, he did fare well in categories last year such as launch angle and barrel rate, which can be seen in the table below, via Fangraphs.
Obviously, Waters lags behind Velazquez and Melendez in terms of barrel rate and hard-hit rate. That said, Waters did post the best average launch angle of this six-outfielder sample. Hitting the ball hard consistently is still a work in progress for Waters, but he at least keeps the ball off the ground, which gives him some potential for 2024 and beyond.
Granted, a huge issue for Waters over his career has been staying healthy, especially at the beginning of the year.
At the Royals Rally in early February, he did mention in the interview panel that he wants to have a fully healthy Spring Training, which hasn’t happened for him in the past. One has to wonder if that’s a reason why his EV and hard-hit rate numbers lag, despite his encouraging batted-ball profile.
Notice in the rolling hard-hit rate chart over his career how Waters’ hard-hit rate jumped after a slow start to begin the year (which was due to him starting on the IL due to an oblique injury suffered in Spring Training).
Granted, he did plateau and slightly declined toward the end of the year. That said, oblique injuries can linger longer than expected sometimes (we learned this with Jorge Soler in 2020). It’s possible that some of those oblique issues were flaring up at the end of the year, which contributed to his decline down the stretch.
When he was fully healthy and in a groove though last year? Waters’ power was something to behold, as evidenced by this shot into the fountains in June against Tampa Bay.
Isbel probably has the edge over Waters in center field and Renfroe and Velazquez also are likely to split right-field duties as well. However, Waters offers the best overall toolset of that group of outfielders, as he sports power, good defense (especially in the corners), and solid ability on the basepaths.
If he can be fully healthy and turn some of those high fly balls (which tend to be outs) into more of the line drive or “productive” fly ball (i.e. just above the line drive line on the batted ball profile heatmap) variety, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Waters have a solidified spot in the Royals outfield in 2024 and beyond.
Photo Credit: Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports
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