This story was excerpted from Anne Rogers' Royals Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
SURPRISE, Ariz. -- A gray long-sleeve shirt hangs in the locker of every Royals pitcher in the clubhouse at their Spring Training complex. Finally graced with Arizona weather that doesn¡¯t require heavy overcoats and sweatshirts this past weekend, a few pitchers and coaches broke out the shirt that illustrates the theme at the forefront of Kansas City's 2023 season.?
On the front are the Royals' guiding values overlaid on a baseball field.?
On the back is this phrase: "RAID THE ZONE."?
That is the club's pitching motto this year. Pitching coach?Brian Sweeney, assistant pitching coach?Zach Bove?and bullpen coach?Mitch Stetter, along with the Royals¡¯ analysts and research and development department, came up with the idea. Bove came up with the word ¡°raid.¡±?
¡°'Raid' just came to me. I can¡¯t tell you this cool story,¡± Bove said. ¡°But I view it as a two-parter -- raiding like filling up the strike zone, throwing strikes, which is not a different concept. But then also, I did some research on this, like the raiders of World War II. Defeating the enemy. It¡¯s like this dominating mentality. We¡¯re the aggressor, we¡¯re on attack, we want to strike guys out.?
"That¡¯s where the 'raid the zone' comes in. We want to be in better counts this year. First-pitch strikes, attack the zone. That¡¯s not anything new. But it¡¯s a mindset and mentality that we¡¯re trying to create.¡±
Throwing strikes is certainly not a new concept. But it¡¯s something the Royals struggled with last year. Their 9.4 percent walk rate and 19.1 percent strikeout rate were both second-worst in baseball. Their first-pitch strike percentage was dead last at 58 percent, and they were in the bottom half in baseball in zone percentage at 41.2 percent.?
¡°We¡¯ve identified pretty clearly what we need to improve on,¡± general manager?J.J. Picollo?said. ¡°That really comes down to pitchers trusting that they can be in the strike zone. A lot of it comes down to not trying to be too fine, especially early in counts.¡±?
In 0-0 counts last year, opponents hit .328 against the Royals, which ranked 11th in the Majors. In 1-0 counts, hitters batted .373 against Kansas City -- 28th in the league. To be fair, the Royals¡¯ opponent average in 0-1 counts last year was .365, last in baseball.?
The Royals¡¯ findings coincided with what they heard from Sweeney, Bove and Stetter in the interview process. Bench coach?Paul Hoover?identified what?catchers could do to help strike-throwing, and Sweeney and Bove are also working with pitchers on improving pitch quality to drive up strikeouts and lessen hard contact, whether that¡¯s through pitch usage or design.
¡°As I went through the interview process and after, I learned that these guys are good,¡± Bove said. ¡°The results weren¡¯t great last year. But there are a lot of pieces to this that are interesting, whether it¡¯s the age of guys or the stuff that maybe wasn¡¯t being utilized maybe to the best of the ability. The guys had success, it¡¯s not a knock on anybody that was previously here. But is there a creative way to take the same people -- we don¡¯t need a whole bunch of new pitchers, the ingredients are there -- and view them differently and help them improve.
¡°The strike-throwing was definitely something. Talking to Brian and the analysts, we were just all coming to the same conclusions. That¡¯s where 'raid the zone' came from. We got to teach this mentality of not being afraid to throw strikes, especially early in the count, and then go from there.¡±
It seems simple enough to throw strikes. It gets harder on a Major League mound. That¡¯s why there¡¯s a focus on the message early in camp, on shirts and in meetings.
¡°I think we overanalyze things,¡± Brad Keller said. ¡°Hitters say that hitting is hard, too, but sometimes they make it seem easy. So you always want to be pinpoint when you don¡¯t have to [overanalyze]. I think that¡¯s one of the things they¡¯re trying to reiterate to us. And if we¡¯re on the attack, hitters are on their heels.¡±