The Royals Have a First Pitch Problem

An inept offense is putting itself behind the 8 ball

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If you follow me on X (you should!), you know I post a lot of in-game stats and reactions. One in particular jumped out as worthy of deeper analysis.

The Royals (now 8-14) were 19th in MLB in swing rate entering Saturday’s action at 46.7%. For an organization we think of as “aggressive” at the plate, that seems low, right?

Well, there’s a reason.

Kansas City has a first pitch problem. As in, they aren’t swinging at them. At all.

With a 25.5% swing rate in 0-0 counts, the Royals are dead last in baseball. League average is 31.3%, and while a 6% difference may not seem like a huge gap, consider the highest first pitch swing rate in MLB is Boston at 36.6%. A whopping 11% more often than KC.

Now, there’s a reason the league swings less at first pitches than all others, to be sure. Teams and players want to avoid making immediate outs. Hitters often want to see a pitch, particularly in their first at-bat of a game.

But the Royals are taking it to an extreme, and it’s leaving them behind in counts. It might make sense for a team to own a low swing rate on the first pitch if it owns a low swing rate across all pitches — but that isn’t the case here.

In all counts other than 0-0, the Royals are swinging 54.1% of the time. That’s fifth in baseball. That tracks with how we think of them, an organization that prides itself on contact, putting the ball in play and forcing the action.

So yes, Kansas City is the most passive (note I didn’t say patient) team in the league on the first pitch. Then hacks away at a near-league high rate.

A quick example, again one I posted on X.

As I said in the post, I’m picking on Pasquantino here but it’s a team-wide issue. In his sixth-inning plate appearance, he watches a first-pitch fastball from Casey Mize split the plate. Then he swings through a splitter that falls below the knees.

Mize owns one of the best splitters in baseball, and it’s a true lefty killer, so you can’t fault a hitter for either misreading a pitch or misjudging its movement. It happens.

On the third pitch of the at-bat, Pasquantino chases again, another splitter that lands outside the zone, and flies out. Another punchless plate appearance on another day KC mustered a single run.

It’s (one of) the Royals problems in a nutshell. One that has an easy (I say from my couch) answer: Take the same mentality to the first pitch that you do to the rest of them — aggression.