Kyle Isbel looks poised to make his MLB debut for the Royals after Lopez is sent down
Last season, the Kansas City Royals’ impact rookies were mostly pitchers who made the jump to the majors — starters Brady Singer and Kris Bubic.
Now with less than a week until this year’s opener, a position player appears poised to make the leap from the lower levels of the minors to the big leagues.
Outfielder Kyle Isbel, 24, just might be the biggest surprise of this year’s Opening Day roster. A former third-round draft pick out of UNLV in 2018 and the No. 6-ranked prospect in the Royals farm system according to Baseball America, Isbel has staked his claim to the right fielder’s job this spring. Signs point to the Royals having been swayed by what they’ve seen.
After the Royals optioned Nicky Lopez to Triple-A on Sunday, that likely moves Whit Merrifield back to second base everyday. With Merrifield and Hunter Dozier both manning spots on the infield — Dozier is slated as the everyday third baseman — the right field job could be Isbel’s for the taking.
“Yeah, I had a goal to make the team,” Isbel said on Saturday. “But it’s out of my hands. I just give it my all every day. Whatever happens, happens, and I’m grateful.”
With one Cactus League game remaining, Isbel has slashed .341/.417/.561 with two home runs, five doubles, five walks, five RBIs, 10 runs scored and 13 strikeouts in 22 games (41 at-bats).
He has impressed the Royals with the quality of at-bats he’s taken, heads-up base running and the consistent hard contact he has made as well as solid defensive play at multiple outfield positions.
Isbel would also likely be the youngest position player on the Opening Day roster of a team that added experienced veterans this winter as well as increased expectations of making a playoff push.
He seems receptive to advice and insight from older players, pointing to Merrifield as somebody he’d like to emulate his style of play after and Jarrod Dyson as a resource he has been tapping into during spring training.
“I feel like I have talked to Dyson a lot,” Isbel said. “I play catch with him every day. He’s been around for a while. He’s an amazing guy to learn from. Just to be around him, the energy he brings every day — it’s just incredible. He’s an awesome guy.”
While nothing will duplicate the experience of having played in big-league games, Isbel also believes the last year has helped raise his level of preparedness for the competition he’d face in the majors.
Isbel participated in major-league spring training camp last year as a non-roster invitee before being part of the group invited to Kansas City for spring training 2.0/summer camp as well as the pool of players sent to the Royals’ alternate training site.
“Yeah, I feel like I’m ready,” Isbel said of competing at the major-league level. “These guys we had at the alternate site, I think we have some of the best young arms in all the minor leagues and being able to compete with them every day was a battle. We all got better. They got better. We got better as a whole. It was a great experience.”
Ready for The Show
While Royals manager Mike Matheny hadn’t formally announced any decision on Isbel’s status heading into Monday, Matheny has repeatedly held up the planning and implementation done by the organization’s player development staff at the alternate site as crucially important.
Any assessment of a player like Bobby Witt Jr. or Isbel making the jump to the majors that includes the assumption that they missed out on a year in the minors in 2020 is a non-starter for Matheny.
“Had there been a full season, guys that were at A-ball two years ago would have been at Double-A, probably had their toes wet in Triple-A, and there wouldn’t be any conversation about this at all,” Matheny said. “That’s really what was replicated at that secondary site. … I know we all have to kind of take the data we have right in front of us, which will state that these are low-level players. But it’s just not accurate.”
Matheny asserts that some of the players who spent last season training under the organization’s guidance, made even more progress and improvement than would have been typical in a minor-league season.
At the same time, Matheny acknowledges that decisions on a player’s ability to transition to the big leagues aren’t made lightly nor are they made by himself or any other individual in the organization’s brain trust.
Input from the minor-league and major-league coaching staffs, the player development infrastructure as well as the scouting and front office staff will all factor into the placement of any young player on the club’s roster.
“They’ve been burnt. They’ve been right. They’ve been wrong,” Matheny said. “We all have when projecting whether or not certain guys are ready, but you take what you’ve seen and try to make the best decision possible with all of those previous decisions in mind while not trying to hem them into having to be somebody from a previous decision.
“So it’s here’s what we see, here’s what we know, here’s what we believe, here’s what we forecast. And it’s an educated guess as to what we believe is going to transpire at the major-league level and trust the collective opinions and experience that we have.”
This story was originally published March 29, 2021 at 9:59 AM with the headline "Kyle Isbel looks poised to make his MLB debut for the Royals after Lopez is sent down."
