The virtue of patience in baseball
Teams almost never make changes as quickly as we would like. Is there a method to the madness?
As humans, when things are going poorly, we want change and we want it now. When I get too hot at home, I turn down the AC and curse it for taking too long. I have fans set up all around my apartment for rapid cooldown at a moment’s notice. The digital age has only exacerbated this with video games and movies now being available for download in mere minutes. Before that, microwaves changed the game when it came to sating our appetites quickly. Even now more and more grocery stores are leaning into prepared meals to get busy, time-sensitive customers to purchase their products.
It’s no different when it comes to baseball. The moment a player has a bad game or two, we want him benched or traded and to see the latest, greatest prospect from AAA. This isn’t a criticism of anyone, by the way. I and the rest of the Royals Review staff are as guilty of this as anyone, at times. We were leading the charge for the Royals to part ways with Hunter Dozier and Ryan O’Hearn. There were even some exquisite, popular RR community memes that we participated in including “Death, Taxes, and [Alcides] Escobar leading off” and “[Jeremy] Guthrie is still pitching.”
Royals Hall of Fame manager Ned Yost once said that Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox used to have a policy of, once he had become convinced a player needed to be benched, waiting another week. Yost modeled his own decisions on this policy and it led to no small amount of drama when it took seemingly forever for the team to demote Mike Moustakas in 2014 or when he seemingly could not be convinced to bench Omar Infante or Chris Owings until they were cut from the roster in later years.
That has extended to this season, as the Royals have played very well even as multiple players have struggled mightily. As people vested in the success of this year’s team, we want to see them improve. Still, the team has continued to not only employ but pencil those players into the lineup or summon them from the bullpen on a regular basis, which has caused no small amount of frustration.
But there might be a method to the madness. In 2014, the Royals stuck with Mike Moustakas for far longer than anyone thought they should. It paid off when he led the team with five home runs that post-season, and then broke out in 2015. And it might be working this year, too.
Will Smith was truly terrible in his first few outings as a reliever. However, over his last 16 appearances, covering 14 innings, he has a 1.29 ERA and has allowed runs only once in that stretch, a 2-run appearance against the Tigers on May 22. Since that appearance, he’s been even better, pitching 5.2 innings over six appearances and striking out seven - including at least one in each appearance - while walking only one and allowing only three hits. He hasn’t allowed a baserunner in his last three appearances.
Nelson Velázquez was very hot to start the year and then had an extended cold stretch. Then on May 14 against Seattle, he hit a home run that helped them win the only game they’d take in that series with a home run on a swing that didn’t really look like it could possibly lead to one.
Since that time he has slashed .194/.267/.507/.774. That’s not a great line, but in the current offensive environment, it’s good enough for a 110 wRC+. 10% above league average is a lot better than he was offering before that!
Nick Anderson* has had a weird year, such that he hasn’t really had the calls from the general fan base to demote or cut him. He had a nine-appearance stretch covering nine innings in which he didn’t allow a run which made some think he was doing well, but he only struck out six and allowed six hits and walked two during that span. Not bad, but certainly not dominant. He followed that with three straight appearances allowing at least one run, walking three, giving up six hits, and striking out none.
But then something weird happened. Over his next nine appearances, each for one inning, he gave up three runs, two earned, but he struck out 10. He walked three and allowed eight hits, but the increase in strikeouts is promising for a bullpen that needs them. Over his last three appearances, he’s struck out five while walking none and allowing only a single.
*We’ll let this one stand as a tribute to what is also the necessity of patience. I wrote this section before Tuesday night’s game in which Anderson gave up three runs on two home runs, two walks, and zero strikeouts in an inning of work. Considering that line, he’s lucky it wasn’t worse. And so we see that while it can be beneficial to be patient with players, we also have to be patient when it seems like they’ve figured something out or else we might leap to wild conclusions such as assuming a reliever is fine now after a mere handful of promising appearances.
Finally, perhaps the biggest whipping boy considering his status as the “big” free agent signing on the offensive side over the offseason, Hunter Renfroe. Renfroe, of course, started out the year horribly and quickly found himself demoted from the six spot in the lineup to the eight spot and started to see himself lose playing time and get pinch-hit for on a regular basis. Unlike Velázquez, there was no obvious turning point for him, but over his last month he has slashed .284/.351/.522/.873 for a 144 wRC+. That’s more than adequate, it’s flat-out very good.
Before Monday night’s unfortunate injury cut his game short, Renfroe had been rocking a nine-game hitting streak where he slashed .375/.394/.719/1.113 with two home runs for a 210 wRC+. A lot of people probably hadn’t noticed, but he had been absolutely lava hot and a big part of why the team kept coming back in games against the Padres and Mariners over that stretch. After months of calling for him to be demoted for Drew Waters, Waters now seems like a clear downgrade as he has been summoned to take Renfroe’s spot on the roster while Hunter tries to heal up.
Of course, the patience doesn’t always work out. Or, at least, it hasn’t yet. As noted before, Owings and Infante never bounced back the way Moustakas did. Even as Renfroe and Velázquez have bounced back, MJ Melendez has still been truly awful. Sure, he has three home runs in the last couple of weeks, but those are literally his only hits.
It can be very hard to be patient, and it doesn't always help. But sometimes it does, and it sure seems like the team has found a new happier medium between patience and aggression within the past year or so. Let’s hope they can keep it up and the Royals can steal a playoff spot right out from under everyone’s noses in 2024!