The best pictures from 2024 Spring Training photo day

Our $200 million man - and more

Ah yes, spring: that time of year when it gets warmer just to trick you before dipping below freezing again for a week or two. That time of every year just after the Chiefs win the Super Bowl. That time of year that precedes...baseball!

Ironically, Spring Training starts in the winter; it isn’t technically or officially spring yet until the vernal equinox—one of two points in time in which day and night are equal lengths at the equator—occurs around March 20. But that’s just one definition of spring, and another just as good definition is when you can hear the sweet, sweet sounds of baseballs hitting bats and gloves in complexes in Arizona and Florida.

For me, spring isn’t really here until the Spring Training photos have hit our photo databases. And hit they have, QT patch and all. After a slow period from 2020 through 2022 in which there was precious little silliness or noteworthiness in Spring Training photos, my annual tradition of showing and discussing the best pictures of Spring Training reappeared last year.

So, Royals fans, let’s go on a journey of the best pictures from Spring Training photo day. Your photo credits this year are:

• light grey: Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA TODAY Sports
• white: Ric Tapia/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
• dark grey: Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Let’s begin

Nate Eaton, true innovator

Position players can contribute in two areas to help their club: offensively and defensively. Eaton’s bat hasn’t quite been as good as his glove. But...what if you combine the two??? Eaton may be onto something here. Offense and defense at once. Brilliant.

Smell baseball. See baseball. Like, with a baseball.

“What if I replaced my eyes with tiny eye-sized baseballs” is not a phrase that I have thought about, but it’s a phrase that Will Smith here is trying to get us to consider. Remember when Ervin Santana’s social media catchphrase was “Smell Baseball?” Maybe Smith got some ideas there.

I’m just really disappointed there wasn’t a similarly tiny bat that the position players could use as a prop. Seems like a miss.

Freddy Fermin is serious

Freddy Fermin is listed at 5’ 9” on Baseball-Reference, which I’m not sure is quite accurate. In any case, it’s pretty difficult for a short dude to look imposing with A) see through pants and B) a QuikTrip logo on your sleeve. But dagnabit, Fermin looks very cool here. Great pic.

Nick “Walkin’” Loftin

I’ve seen enough of these pictures to wonder why certain players end up in unique poses. No one else really has anything like this. Did Nick Loftin come up to the photographers and say, “look, I’ve got an idea, trust me” or did the photographers look at Loftin and say “you know what, this guy looks like he could walk like a boss.” The world may never know.

Brady Singer means business also

Not a lot of smiles in many of these pictures. Brady Singer had a down year in 2023. If he can bounce back, the Royals might just have one of their stronger rotations in recent memory. I just wish pitchers could toss balls up in the air whilst staring down batters without it being a balk.

NeLsOn VeLaZqUeZ

The kids, as it were, probably don’t say “derp” these days. Indeed, Google Trends reveals that searches for “derp” peaked in 2012 and that its volume is 90% lower today.

But, come on, this picture is derp. I don’t care if that ages me or is cringe. And you know what? Maybe Nelson was thinking about derp, too. Or its Spanish equivalent, which is more likely. We’re losing the plot here; let’s move on.

Flying Nathan

This...this one has potential, my friends. I have never seen this pose before, which would make it worth including on its own, by the photoshop potential on this one is just off the chain.

Also, Mr. Eaton here has a cool clove. Love the powder blue laces and the light tan leather. Nice choice.

Michael Massey, winner of Royals Review’s 2024 “Is a Snack” award

A few years ago, I wrote that Nicky Lopez looked like a snack in one of his Spring Training photos. Someone tweeted that take at him, which amused him. Since then, I’ve dubbed a player the winner of the “Is a Snack” award. Last year, it was MJ Melendez. This year, it’s Michael Massey, who looks very good in this picture. #snack

Oh, so that’s why Cole Ragans is good

Cole Ragans pitched like the second coming of Randy Johnson last year for the Royals, just absolutely lighting up the radar gun while striking out a billion dudes. We’ve apparently discovered why: Ragans doesn’t just throw one baseball. He throws lots of them, and if you don’t hit them all you’re out. Them’s the rules—I don’t make them up.

1, 2, 3, 4, I declare a thumb WAR

This picture is in here solely so I could make that thumb WAR joke. You are welcome.

Dairon Blanco, the Most Interesting Man in the World

This picture is quite funny—I’m not sure why Blanco decided on that pose or why he seems to have some sort of angelic aura around his noggin. And then I thought: wait, he looks like someone else.

Yeah, that’s it.

Perplexed by baseball

Every year, there’s someone on the team with a picture where they have a blank, oddly curious expression as they stare at a baseball. This year, Carlos Hernandez is the culprit. I dunno, these just never get old to me. It tickles my funnybone. I will always have someone in these looking at the baseball in such a way.

SALVY SMASH : - )

This exact same bat is in a few photos, so I doubt that Salvy broke it by hand. I’m not sure why he went with such a happy facial expression, though. I mean, I do, it’s Salvador Perez, of course he’s happy. He’s always happy. Salvy has gotten to play baseball professionally for a decade and a half, and has won a World Series and will end up making $140 million while doing so. I’d be happy, too.

Unrelated, but Salvy’s jersey is as full of things as a QuikTrip’s gas pumps during the lunch rush. Which—also unrelated, but I have to say this—if you’re pumping gas at a crowded QT and leave your car to go into the store to get some snacks rather than parking to let someone else use your pump, you are a monster.

Perplexed by bat

MJ Melendez is channeling his inner Pedro Cerrano here. Bats, they are sick. I cannot hit curveball. Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid. I ask Jobu to come, take fear from bats. I offer him cigar, rum. He will come.

The only time you won’t see Vinnie smiling

Vinnie Pasquantino has, in the non-Salvy division, the biggest personality on the team. He’s always smiling. Always joking. Always animated. So to see him here with a completely blank expression on his face is unnerving, in part because it is so blank.

That reminds me: one time, I referenced the Abbott & Costello skit “Who’s On First” to an Englishman when I was studying abroad in the UK. He responded with a similarly blank face, only with his mouth slightly open as if to wonder if the stupid American was right in the head. Joke’s on him though, because no British baseball team has ever won the World Series and our very own Kansas City Royals did a few years later.