KC prospect Michael Massey latest to reinvent himself

SURPRISE, Ariz. -- In the fall of 2020, a group of Royals hitting prospects convened on the George Brett Field at the organization’s complex here. Among those taking the field for batting practice: Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino and Michael Massey. Witt Jr. and Pasquantino were putting on a home run derby-type show.

Massey, the Royals’ No. 28 prospect, sidled up to senior director of player development and hitting performance Alec Zumwalt to ask a question.

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“He kind of leans in and goes, ‘So is it OK if I, like, try to hit home runs?’” Zumwalt said. “And I’m looking at him going, ‘Yes, it’s OK to hit home runs. Massey, hit it over the fence.’”

The next time they went out to the field, Zumwalt threw batting practice. Massey stepped to the plate with a different mindset than the day before.

“And he starts launching balls,” Zumwalt said. “And all his buddies are smiling and going, ‘Where is this coming from?’”

**

The story of the Royals’ hitting development breakthrough usually begins with Nick Pratto and MJ Melendez, two top prospects who struggled heavily in 2019 only to turn around and become two of the best hitters at the Double-A and Triple-A levels in '21, culminating in a 40-man roster add this offseason.

• Royals' Top 30 prospects

But the story doesn’t end there. Several hitters put together turnaround seasons in 2021, and Massey is one of them. The 23-year-old infielder from the suburbs of Chicago never hit more than six home runs in a single season during his three years at Illinois. Last season, he crushed 21 for High-A Quad Cities, and he didn’t lose his contact skills, hitting .289 with a .351 on-base percentage and .882 OPS across 99 games. He had a slow start, but conversations with Zumwalt and his coaches at High-A helped him stay the course and turn a slump into a breakout season.

“I was hitting the panic button pretty bad early,” Massey said. “But the hitting department -- the credit goes to them. Growing up, someone would tell you how to hit and it would take a week or two weeks to figure it out. These guys tell you something and it freakin’ works right away.

“And you’re like, ‘What are you? Who are you guys?’”

The hitting department’s philosophy is built around individualized approaches and better selectiveness, which doesn’t necessary mean taking more walks. Rather, being selective about the pitch they’re trying to do damage with. And for Massey, knowing that he can unleash the power in his swing.

“If I’m 2-0, maybe taking that strike on the black instead of hitting a ground ball to shortstop or second base,” Massey said. “Being 2-1 instead of 0-for-1 with a groundout. Being able to take that information we get before the game and gather an approach -- I felt prepared to do damage consistently.”

“We’re not telling him to change his mechanics and try to hit the ball in the air, but he has power,” Zumwalt added. “I don’t want people thinking that we’re telling our hitters to swing for the fences, but he has power and he’s not just going to sell out for it. Our whole hitting process is built on hard line drives, hard contact. The result we’re shooting for is hard contact.”

Adding onto Massey’s stellar season at the plate was what he did on the field, where he won the Minor League Gold Glove at second base, given by MiLB for the best fielder at each position across all levels and leagues. He’s turning himself into a plus defender, something three years ago he began to doubt would ever happen based on his health.

**

A week before he began his junior season at Illinois, Massey sat in head coach Dan Hartleb’s office and debated whether he was going to make the first road trip. His back was hurting, and he couldn’t play defense.

“Honestly, at first it was kind of scary,” Massey said. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I could barely even bend over.”

Massey’s swing wasn’t hindered too much, so he was the Illini’s designated hitter for the first 28 games of the season before he felt healthy enough to play the field. But his Draft stock plummeted because of his limited range of motion and the unknowns about his back. That allowed the Royals to pick him up in the fourth round of the 2019 Draft.

After the Draft, Massey underwent medical and strength tests that every player goes through. It gave the Royals an idea of how to target Massey’s back limitations, and he was assigned to Rookie ball, where he hit five home runs and posted a .738 OPS in 42 games for Burlington. Zumwalt, then the director of baseball operations, came back to Kansas City after a visit to the affiliate. Lonnie Goldberg, the scouting director at the time, asked who stood out. Massey was on his list.

“You saw it, the hit tool was there,” Zumwalt said. “But he was restricted in some of his movements.”

Massey still wasn’t fully healthy, and doubts lingered. When he came to instructional league that fall, he was honest with the Royals’ training staff about his back, and they returned to the drawing board.

“What we want to do is identify what’s limiting their ability to be the best version of themselves on the field,” said John Wagle, the player development director of performance science. “Sometimes that is strength, sometimes it’s mobility, sometimes it’s something with a different department altogether.”

Massey’s focus became his hip mobility. The Royals gave him exercises and worked with him on getting his hips to rotate, extend and flex -- movements needed to make plays and smooth out his swing.

“If he can get the hip right, that in theory puts a little less on his back and allows him to train at a higher quality,” Wagle said. “We just want to make sure that the hips can internally and externally rotate, that he’s got good hip extension, those are the most important things for your middle infielder.”

The process wasn’t easy. Instructional league games turned into hours in the training room. Massey’s mind wandered.

“You wake up one day and it’s hard to tie your shoes,” Massey said. “I’m 23 and I can’t bend over. How’s this going to be when I’m 30? 40? 50? And you’re like, ‘How am I going to go hit [pitching prospect] Alec Marsh when I can’t tie my shoes right now?’ You look back and realize you really couldn’t see the other side of it when you were going through it.”

Massey gives credit to the Royals training staff keeping the mood light when his mind wasn’t. Slowly, he got healthy -- and reinvented the way he trained. In college, weightlifting was the priority, and mobility and flexibility work was something he would do if he had time. Now, the mobility work is the most important thing he does.

And although the Covid-19 shutdown stalled prospect development, it likely benefited Massey’s healing process. He showed up to the Royals’ instructional camp in the fall of 2020 fully healthy, and when he stayed on the field, he knew he might be on the other side.

“To be able to go through a whole camp and do everything that everybody else was doing, that was the first time that I did that in a while,” Massey said. “And I got some confidence from that. I went home, did my stuff in the offseason, and then came back and had a healthy spring, and that just kind of carried into the season.”

Massey knows his work doesn’t stop here, in the training room or on the field. Already 23 years old, he’s yet to have success at the upper levels of the Minors.

That opportunity should come in 2022.

“He’s unlocking that next piece,” Zumwalt said. “And it goes back to the fact that he can move. He couldn’t move in 2019 the way he’s moving now. From that standpoint, he’s doing things he couldn’t do before, and it’s fun to watch.”