Crown Jewels: Royals Bullpen, Prospect Rankings, and the Team Hall of Fame

The Winter Meetings have come to a close, which means all those talks that started can really heat up.

The quiet after the storm has hit. Baseball’s offseason is a slow drip, as we all know, and it feels like there’s nothing slower than the days following the Winter Meetings. The funny thing is that’s really not entirely true. The meetings set the stage with a lot of opportunity for teams to talk with agents, players, other teams, etc. and so things tend to come together somewhat quickly after the meetings. Look no further than the Royals last year. They left the meetings empty-handed and then went on a signing spree the next week. But still, for some reason, the few days after the meetings just feel silent most seasons. Maybe it’s because teams need a recovery day and you go from constant news and rumors to just nothing for a couple of days.

Still, I think to continue the theme from yesterday’s newsletter, there is still plenty of offseason left. There are 105 days between the end of the World Series and when pitchers and catchers start reporting in mid-February. It’s only been 44 days since the World Series ended. We haven’t hit the halfway mark. That’s coming in a little more than a week. I’m really looking forward to getting back to being able to talk about some baseball. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the slower pace of the offseason to get a chance to write about some other things that it’s just tough to do during the season when the stats change daily, but breaking down the games is way more fun, especially when the team is good.

I do have a heck of an offer coming your way. Paid subscribers will be eligible to win two VIP tickets to Royals Rally for the 12:15-2:15 time period on February 1. So click below to become a paid subscriber!

This week’s newsletters:

Royals in the Rumor Mill

Royals (and Others) Waiting Patiently

Where the Bullpen Stands Right Now

For most of 2024, the Royals bullpen was a question mark. There were pockets of time where things fell into place. After the first week of the season when John Schreiber and James McArthur were the two bullpen aces for a month or so, things went well. When McArthur righted the ship for a few weeks midseason and Sam Long came up and pitched well, they were pretty solid. And then once Lucas Erceg established himself as the closer and guys like Kris Bubic, Daniel Lynch IV and Angel Zerpa found their bullpen footing and Schreiber came back from the IL, they were a legitimately good bullpen in September (2.77 ERA, 29.4% K, 7I .7% BB).

It’s hard not to notice things fell in place when Will Smith, Chris Stratton and James McArthur were all on the IL to end the season. Hunter Harvey too, really. For most of the end of the season, the bullpen was Erceg, Bubic, Schreiber, Long, Zerpa, Lynch and Carlos Hernandez. I know that’s only seven relievers, but that’s really what they used at the end of the season. It was kind of remarkable. Now, they theoretically will get three of the four injured relievers back with Smith back on the free agent market. Add in that Bubic is currently slotted into the rotation and I want to look at where it stands now.

Erceg
Harvey
Schreiber
Zerpa
Long
Lynch
Stratton
McArthur

That probably looks about right. Other options on the 40-man are Luinder Avila, Jonathan Bowlan, Noah Cameron, Eric Cerantola, Steven Cruz, Hernandez and Evan Sisk. The final two rotation spots will likely come down to Bubic, Alec Marsh, Lynch and maybe Kyle Wright if he’s available, but I keep hearing that they think he may be a touch behind for the start of the season. My guess is Bubic and Marsh would get the final rotation spots. If Wright is healthy, he has a real shot, of course, but he or Marsh would likely end up in the bullpen. I don’t think any of the potentials have a real chance with the current group other than Hernandez and Sisk.

You’re hoping Harvey finds whatever he lost right before the trade to the Royals. If he does, that’s a fantastic back-end. You’re hoping Schreiber can do what he did for snippets of time for a full season. You’re hoping Zerpa can repeat his phenomenal September or even like 80 percent of it. You’re hoping Lynch and his amazing September were for real. You’re hoping Stratton bounces back. You’re hoping McArthur bounces back. It’s very easy to look at the bullpen above and see one of the very best in baseball. It’s also easy to look and see another project with potential disaster.

The Royals are on the hunt for “pitching depth” as the offseason continues, but I see this bullpen as a very real opportunity to go get a legit strikeout arm. I don’t see them going after Tanner Scott or anything and the Blake Treinen deal for $22 million over two years puts that market in an interesting spot. I guess the Dodgers likely signed him with the idea that he’s the closer, but $11 million makes the reliever market a little iffy. I’d still be very heavy on David Robertson and his 33.4 percent strikeout rate. Ryne Stanek was a favorite of mine last year. He is again. Tommy Kahnle should be a target, though he might be Yankees or bust. Paul Sewald is a bounceback candidate, but he had a good strikeout rate.

And Kansas City might be a good spot for Kenley Jansen. They’re a good team that should play a decent amount of close games. He needs 32 saves to move past Lee Smith for third all-time. I know that Erceg was a force as closer, but he’s so good at getting the strikeout and getting out of trouble that him as a fireman is really appealing. Jansen isn’t the dominant pitcher he once was, but he had a 3.29 ERA with a 28.4 percent strikeout rate this past season. I don’t know what his cost is going to be, but he’d be really interesting to me to help round out the bullpen.

Baseball America Releases Their Royals Top Prospects

It’s always a fun time in the offseason when top prospect lists start to come out and Baseball America, which has been the gold standard for as long as I can remember, came out with their newest Royals list this past week. One of my favorite things they do is the superlatives. Here’s what they had for the Royals right now in the system:

Their list itself wasn’t too much of a surprise. The top two are the same across the board with Jac Caglianone and Blake Mitchell. Carter Jensen is always either third or fourth, I think. Ben Kudrna is generally in most top-fives. I thought it was interesting that David Shields ranked in their top-five. He’s a draft pick from 2024 who I’m very excited to watch in 2025. I also love that they do a chat when they release every top-10 list during the offseason, and there are always some good nuggets in there.

A few things stood out to me, and one is that Bill Mitchell, who has been handling the Royals’ lists for a long time, is a fan of the Royals pitching development system. That’s a welcome statement for Royals fans who had to endure some pretty brutal development. I’ve heard much of the same from around the league. Teams are seeing what the Royals are doing, and I actually don’t have a ton of answers of what that is beyond what we’ve discussed a lot, but they like what they see and some are even starting to emulate it a bit.

One pitcher who I became very excited about as the season progressed was Steven Zobac. He ranked ninth on the BA list and was 10th on my list. It’s all about the changeup for him, and Mitchell notes that as well. If the changeup doesn’t fully come along (and I think it really did in the last two months), he has the looks of a pitcher who can not only be a good reliever, but a good, high-leverage reliever. If it does come along, he has a chance to start in the big leagues, and maybe soon.

I don’t think it was touched on in the chat, but the Royals system is one that may not get a ton of love from the prospect sites even though I’ve talked to more than a couple of teams who think it’s very underrated. The same issue exists within it that existed last season, only a bit less so. They’re lacking in star power. They have two legitimate top-100 (maybe top-50) prospects and then one more in Jensen who is probably in the ballpark. One contact of mine with another team said they internally rank up to the top 400 and then go in tiers and the Royals actually have the second-most players in the 150-300 range in their list, but only three in the top 150. So it goes back to the same thing we’ve been talking about for two years. There’s depth in this system. Someone needs to step up to give them a few stars and I think there are some candidates.

Royals Hall of Fame Voting is Now Open

Every year, it’s fun to see the names on the Royals Hall of Fame ballot, but as we get to a point where the 2014/2015 team is mostly retired, we’re starting to see some of the more fun names from the past decade. It’s always great to talk about the handful of good players the Royals had during the darkest of times, but at least there were some bright spots. Anyway, the 2025 ballot is out and you can vote on it.

On this list, you have 11 pennants with the Royals and five World Series championships. I really wish Billy Butler had been on that 2015 team to get his ring, though I’m not sure they win it without Kendrys Morales. Still, Butler put in his time on some bad Royals teams and should have gotten a ring for his troubles. This is a fun list. You’ve got a guy heading for Cooperstown in Carlos Beltran. You’ve got a lock for the Royals Hall of Fame and having his number retired in Alex Gordon. You have three of the best relievers in Royals history in Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Joakim Soria (argue with a wall about Soria, his second stint doesn’t change his first). And then you’ve got one of the more energetic players in Jarrod Dyson and one of the brightest stars that was put out too soon in Yordano Ventura along with Butler and Johnny Damon, who is on this list because he had a very good and long career, but pass.

Let’s look at Butler for a second. Here are his ranks in Royals history offensively that are very impressive:

AVG - 4
OBP - 12
SLG - 14
OPS - 12
H - 9
TB - 9
2B - 8
HR - 10
RBI - 8
BB - 7
OPS+ - 9
XBH - 9

He was one of the best hitters in Royals history, which might seem like damning with faint praise, but what’s true is true.

I don’t know. It’s a tough call here. I really want to see Dyson in the team HOF, but I ended up voting for Beltran, Butler, Davis, Gordon and Ventura. I wish we could have voted for more because I’d have voted for everyone but Damon. I felt like those five were the most deserving of the players on this list. But you can make an argument for all of them.

One final thought before I let you all go back to your day. My friend David Smale has an incredible Substack. You can find it in my recommendations all the time, but I want to single it out here. David is a phenomenal writer and what he does with his newsletter is profile really interesting people in sports and he does it in a way that you end the newsletter feeling like you know the person. I would highly recommend you subscribe to read the fantastic work. He took a break from writing about interesting people last week to profile me, which I told him was a mistake but he did it anyway! If you want to read about me and not just read the thousands of words I write, he made me interesting, against all odds.