Kansas City Royals right-hander Brady Singer is not here for your talk of innings limits or how much he should be allowed to throw in his first full season in the majors.
He has humored interviewers when asked the question, but that’s just because he’s polite.
Singer, 24, will be one of many young pitchers at the center of what will be an ongoing debate about protecting arms over 162 games coming off a shortened season. He also personified one of general manager Dayton Moore’s familiar taglines, specifically: We’re not going to put limitations on our players.
“I don’t know what the innings look like this year, but I can tell you that we’re all ready to go,” Singer said. “We’re going to throw as many as they let us. We don’t know how it’s going to work out. We don’t know what’s right or wrong, but we’re preparing for as many as we can. We’re definitely going to be ready.”
There’s no real road map for pitchers going from a 60-game to 162-game season, and while there’s reason to believe organizations might approach the spring with kid gloves, the Royals have chosen to push full-steam ahead from the start of spring training, with few exceptions.
“I don’t think it’s smart to go out of the gate with that number in your head,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “This game has a way of kind of taking care of some of that stuff. I think if we go in half-stepping, we’re going to have some regrets.
“So I believe those are adjustments that we make as we go. Right now, we’re going to prepare every one of these guys like last year was a normal season, like this year is a normal season.”
The one caveat Matheny acknowledged is that there are some pitchers who aren’t realistically part of the major-league plans coming out of spring training. The front office and Matheny have already discussed the handling of those specific pitchers, who Matheny didn’t identify. The coaching staff has also had conversations with those players.
“There’s some of them we’re pulling back before they ever walk out of here the first day,” Matheny said. “They’re going to know that. There’s some others that we’re going to let them go and watch how they blend. Then we’re going to keep an eye on how their progression goes.”
The approach will be more conservative with those pitchers.
However, the pitchers the Royals plan and expect to lean on during the season will not be coddled.
“Unless we have been told that these guys are hands off and let’s be really slow — and that’s not that many guys — we’re going to let them go compete,” Matheny said.
Danny Duffy said he looked at the lighter workload in 2020 as a reason he could throw more this offseason than he ever had previously. After all, he didn’t log nearly as many innings last year (56 1/3) as typical. Duffy threw 130 or more innings in each of the six prior seasons.
Right-hander Brad Keller said he looked at the abnormal 2020 season as reason to be in top shape right from the start of the season.
With uncertainty about how often certain guys may pitch early in the regular season with more off days, he felt it was important to be ready to hit the ground running.
Keller could be one of the pitchers asked to remain on a normal schedule if others are skipped.
“I think with the way last year went, with not a lot of guys being able to throw a lot of innings, I think it’s important to come into camp ready to go right off the bat,” Keller said. “I put a lot more emphasis on conditioning this offseason to come in and take innings right away.”
If the time comes and Singer does have to skip a turn in the rotation for the sake of preserving his long-term health, he’ll begrudgingly accept the decision.
“I don’t think it will be tough performance-wise,” Singer said. “I think it will be tough to take the ball out of anybody’s hand. If that was to happen, it’s going to be hard. But they’re trying to help us. They’re not trying to hurt us, obviously, so we’ve got to listen to them.”
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