The Royals avoided the sweep against the White Sox in Chicago this weekend and now have an off day on Monday before they begin a six-game homestand. This stretch at Kauffman starts on Tuesday against the New York Yankees, who are in first place in the AL East division with a 39-25 record.
Although the Yankees have been the class of the American League this year, they have experienced some recent struggles, much like the Royals. They are 5-5 in their last ten games (same as Kansas City), and they have lost two in a row, which cost them their series against the rival Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.
Thus, the Royals have a prime opportunity at home to capitalize on a team that has been experiencing its share of issues recently. Plus, a strong series against the Yankees (as well as the Athletics over the weekend) could help Kansas City gain some ground in the Wild Card race. As of Monday, the Royals are 1.5 games behind that Wild Card spot (which currently belongs to Minnesota, Tampa Bay, and Toronto, who are all 35-30).
Royals fans will undoubtedly be juiced this week, especially on Tuesday, as rookie sensation Jac Caglianone makes his Kauffman Stadium debut. Furthermore, this upcoming Yankees series is a rematch of the 2024 ALDS, which New York won 3-1 (Kansas City lost both games at the K).
Hence, this series should be one of the most exciting series at Kauffman since the Cardinals series back in mid-May.
So what are on the minds of fans going into this series, especially after the Yankees swept the Royals in the Bronx earlier this season? Here are four questions I figured would be on the minds of Royals Nation before first pitch on Tuesday night.
How Will Cags Handle His Debut at the K?
Yankees-Royals always proves to be a draw at Kauffman Stadium, even when Kansas City wasn’t competitive (the bandwagon Yankee fans who live in Johnson County come out in droves). However, this one will be a little more special, especially on Tuesday, as Caglianone will make his home debut.
Excitement is high among Royals fans right now for his debut, especially after he had a 4-for-4 game on Sunday afternoon against the White Sox.
It will be interesting to see if Cags will get to debut on Tuesday, especially with the Royals facing off against left-handed starter Max Fried. Fried has been sensational this year, boasting a 1.78 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, and 2.1 fWAR in 13 starts and 81 innings of work.
Even though Fried is a lefty, he’s sported reverse splits against left-handed and right-handed hitters this season, according to Fangraphs.
Against lefties, the 31-year-old is allowing a 4.89 FIP and 3.82 xFIP with a 2.67 K/BB ratio and 1.77 HR/9. Against righties, he is allowing a 2.08 FIP, 2.96 xFIP, 5.89 K/BB ratio, and 0.15 HR/9. Hence, Royals manager Matt Quatraro should be more apt to keep Cags in the lineup, even with Cags being a left-handed hitter.
When it comes to pitches, Fried’s four-seam fastball is the catalyst to his overall arsenal. According to Savant, his four-seamer has a run value of +14, the best mark among his seven pitches. Here’s how Fried’s primary pitch fares on a TJ Stats heatmap and Stacast-end against both left-handed and right-handed hitters this season.
Against lefties, Fried’s four-seamer sports a CSW% of 28.9%, a whiff rate of 24.3%, a chase rate of 23.7%, and an xwOBACON of 0.415. Against righties, his CSW% is 24.1%, his whiff rate is 20.7%, and his chase rate is 18%. Those are all less impressive marks.
However, while Fried generates fewer whiffs and chases with the four-seamer against righties, he also generates less hard contact. His xwOBACON is 0.317, which is 98 points lower than his xwOBA against lefties.
Cags didn’t see many left-handed pitchers in Omaha (he only saw 29 pitches from lefties, according to Savant). However, the xwOBA data in the limited sample was impressive based on his zone chart.
On pitches in the middle and the edges, Cags made productive contact. When it comes to his pitch description and type chart metrics, the Royals rookie didn’t seem overwhelmed by lefties in Omaha (though Fried is undoubtedly a much better pitcher than anything he saw there).
He had a few whiffs, but he also fouled off a lot of balls and put balls in play against lefties. When it comes to what he’s done at the MLB level against lefties, it’s been similar on a pitch chart end, though he’s had more whiffs and fewer foul balls (but still roughly the same amount of balls hit into play).
Hopefully, Cags’ nerves won’t be running too high, especially going against the Yankees and Fried in front of (likely) packed Kauffman Stadium.
Can Salvy Get Back On Track at Home?
Salvador Perez has become the target lately of disgruntled Royals fans. Unfortunately, it makes sense, based on his subpar metrics at the plate this season.
In 62 games and 260 plate appearances, Salvy is slashing .229/.266/.355 with a 68 wRC+. His walk rate is down 2.5%, his strikeout rate is up 2.1%, and his BB/K ratio is 0.19, a 15-point decline from a season ago. He did hit his fifth home run of the season on Sunday, which got the Royals offense going and was nice to see after his 0-for-4, four-strikeout performance on Saturday.
It’s definitely been hard to be optimistic about Salvy’s performance at the plate, especially considering he’ was expected to be so critical to the Royals’ lineup at the beginning of the season. Last year, Salvy made the All-Star game and slashed .271/330/.456 with a 115 wRC+, 27 home runs, and 104 RBI in in 652 plate appearances. It is unlikely that he’ll finish 2025 anything closer to that.
However, when it comes to his hard-hit and barrel metrics, there still is a lot to be optimistic about with Salvy, as seen in his TJ Stats summary card below.
Even though he has seen a steep decline in rolling wOBA and increase in rolling K%, as seen in the graphic above, he’s actually seeing positive trends in his rolling sweet-spot percentage. For Salvy to maintain this barrel rate and see more offensive production, his ability to launch the ball this year going forward is key.
His sweet-spot trend since the 160th BIP mark is an encouraging sign, as seen below.
I’ve been curious to see if Salvy catching less would have a positive effect on his offensive performance this season. When looking at his positional splits via Fangraphs, this is how he breaks down offensively at each position he’s played this year (catcher, first base, and DH).
- Catcher (144 PA): .209 average, 0.24 BB/K, .119 ISO, and 58 wRC+
- 1st Base (58 PA): .224 average, 0.00 BB/K, .121 ISO, and 49 wRC+
- Designated Hitter (58 PA): .283 average, 0.25 BB/K, .151 ISO, and 109 wRC+
Should Quatraro give Fermin more at-bats in order to preserve Salvy’s bat, who seems to be succeeding when he has less things to prepare for defensively this season? Should the possibility of Salvy being the DH be a more realistic solution, with Fermin and Luke Maile splitting the catching role? Moving up Maile could also give Carter Jensen an opportunity in Omaha, as Jensen is absolutely scorching Double-A pitching right now.
Those are questions that probably won’t be answered soon, but could linger, especially if Salvy continues to struggle offensively while catching for the Royals.
Nonetheless, a solid series against the Yankees could help him build some good will, especially after a disappointing series against the White Sox.
He has good recent history against the Yankees, with his Game 2 bomb in the ALDS being one of them.
Let’s hope Salvy can continue the power surge with a home run or two against the Yankees at Kauffman.
Can Cameron Outduel Fried on Tuesday?
The Royals decided to shuffle the rotation a bit for this Yankees series so that Cole Ragans wouldn’t pitch until this weekend. Here’s how the rotation will fully break down over the next three games, according to Locked In Royals podcast host Jack Johnson.
Cameron and Fried will be the best matchup of the three. We know about what Fried has done for the Yankees, but Cameron has been sensational as well, with a 0.85 ERA, 0.79 WHIP, and 0.5 fWAR in five starts and 31.2 IP.
The St. Joseph, Missouri native’s start to his MLB career has been so phenomenal that he’s tied himself with another legendary left-handed pitcher.
That said, Cameron will certainly have his work cut out for him on Tuesday.
The Yankees hitters rank 1st in OBP, 1st in OPS, 1st in home runs ,and 3rd in runs scored. Furthermore, he was also being facing the arguable “ace” of the Yankees rotation. Surprisingly, Cameron and Fried compare similarly on a Stuff and Statcast end via TJ Stats, as seen in the comparison below.
In terms of TJ Stuff+, Cameron sports two pitches with TJ Stuff+ marks over 100 while Fried has four. Cameron has been 2.6% better in terms zone rate, while Fried has been 1.4% better in terms of chase rate. Lastly, the Royals lefty has outdone Fried this year in terms of whiff (1.9% better) and limiting hard contact (Fried’s xwOBACON is 60 points higher). Granted, Fried does have a much bigger sample than Cameron, so this difference should be taken with a grain of salt.
In terms of pitch profile, Fried has two more pitches and throws from a more horizontal arm angle (47 degrees) than Cameron (56 degrees). Fried’s breaking offerings have more horizontal movement too than Cameron’s, whose curve and slider are much tighter offerings. Fried’s slider has 3.3 more inches of break, and his curve has even more than Cameron’s at 8.1 inches.
Here’s a look between the Cameron and Fried’s curveballs, with Cameron’s profiling as a harder pitch while Fried’s supports more movement (and dramatically so).
I’m curious to see how the Yankees hitters will adjust to Cameron’s pitch mix and approach. As stated before, Cameron does an excellent job of throwing strikes. However, he doesn’t sport any overwhelming pitches stuff-wise.
His best pitches whiff-wise are his cutter (31.1% whiff rate) and his slider (38.2%). His four-seamer, though, only has a TJ Stuff+ of 88 and a whiff rate of 7.3%. He throws that pitch 29.8% of the time, so if Cameron isn’t locating with his secondaries, the Yankees may sit on the fastball hoping he throws one in the zone that they can mash.
He has been more effective against lefties with the four-seamer, based on TJ Stats heatmap data. Thus, it’ll be interesting to see in manager Aaron Boone makes the lineup righty-heavy against Cameron on Tuesday night.
Cameron only has a strikeout rate of 16% and K/BB ratio of 1.90, so he’s going to need his defense and command in this one if he hopes to steal one from Fried and the Yankees on Tuesday. His BABIP is only .140, so some regression may be due soon (and his 3.64 FIP also hints at regression).
Hopefully, Cameron can stave off the “regression fairy” for one more game.
How Will Royals Fans Treat Chisholm and Volpe in Their Returns to Kansas City?
Don’t be surprised to see Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Anthony Volpe as public enemies No. 1 and 2 on Tuesday night in their return to the K.
Chisholm isn’t hitting for a high average (.214), but he has nine home runs and 117 wRC+ in 148 plate appearances. The 27-year-old third baseman is known for his bravado and willingness to share that with the media, and he certainly did his part to ruffle the feathers of Royals fans in the ALDS.
Then again, that confidence can sometimes backfire on Chisholm.
That was evident in Sunday’s lost on ESPN as he was on the mic while at third base. While talking, he was hit a ball and made a crucial throwing error.
Perhaps Jazz’s focus on goading the Royals fans can have the same kind of backfiring effect like Sunday night against the Red Sox. Already Royals Twitter is planning to give Jazz all kinds of grief on Tuesday, if some of the Tweets posted on Monday are any indication.
As for Volpe, he and Maikel Garcia got into it a bit in the ALDS on a Garcia slide at second base. Garcia didn’t appreciate Volpe’s tag (i.e. forearm to the face) and the Yankees shortstop gave Garcia a condescending “atta boy” pats with his glove afterward, as broken down by Jomboy last fall.
Listen, as a Filpino-American, I want to support Volpe as a fellow Pinoy (there’s not a whole lot of us in Major League Baseball beyond Benny Agbayani). However, Volpe just seems like a jerk and his play doesn’t nearly back up his attitude on the field (he wouldn’t have this hype if he was a Pirate or even a Royal). I hope Royals fans boo Volpe as hard this series as they do Carlos Correa and Jose Altuve (which is dumb by the way as it only fires those players up; it’s been almost a decade, let’s get over the scandal).
I want the game on the field to be about the play and not other stuff.
That said, I wouldn’t mind if the Garcia and the Royals get some payback against the Yankees in some kind of fashion, especially on Tuesday night.
Photo Credit: Denny Medley / Imagn Images