Royals Roster Projection 2: Pitchers

The position players are pretty well set. The pitchers? Well that's a different story.

March 16, 2022 Edit: Let’s just rip this bad boy up. Kidding, of course, but replace Chafin with Amir Garrett and Minor with Zack Greinke, I guess!

Prior to the 2020 season getting shut down, MLB had expanded rosters to 26 players with the caveat that there could be a maximum of 13 pitchers in that list. It was a big change as we had started to see 25-man rosters tilt far more to the pitchers with some teams even carrying 14 with 11 position players. Then the season was shut down, there was a short “Summer Camp” and that was all blown up with rosters that didn’t dip below 28 players for the short season. And in 2021 with pitchers coming off limited work, the league relaxed the rule as well.

But it’s back. Okay, maybe it’s back. There’s talk of expanding rosters in April to either 28 or 29 to allow for a couple additional pitchers due to the condensed spring. So not only do the Royals have nearly 30 pitchers vying for those 13 original spots, but there may be a couple more that we don’t know about yet. I’m going to predict this for 13 pitchers, but as I did yesterday, I’ll note the additional arms that would be there if there’s more allowed.

My predictions to make the team if rosters are expanded are in yellow. And as was the case yesterday, I’m using the ZiPS projections for stats.

Starters

Here’s a broken record comment. The Royals have a lot of candidates to start the season in the rotation? How many? By my count, it’s probably 12. Who are they? Kris Bubic, Austin Cox, Foster Griffin, Jon Heasley, Carlos Hernandez, Brad Keller, Jackson Kowar, Daniel Lynch, Mike Minor, Brad Peacock, Brady Singer and Angel Zerpa seem to be the candidates based on the 40-man roster and the non-roster invites. I thought we’d see guys like Asa Lacy and Alec Marsh get some opportunities early, but with such a short timeframe, they don’t have time for that. Of the above list, I doubt Cox, Griffin and Peacock are serious candidates for the rotation, but any could be in the bullpen.

Where it gets even more complicated is that the Royals ended last season using a six-man rotation and there’s a chance they start the year that way as well. With the delay to the start of the season, they’ll need a fifth starter immediately and with the short spring, they might want to keep that rotation in place at least to start to keep the wear and tear off the young rotation.

The Locks

Minor’s contract and the fact that he basically did what he was supposed to only like 10 percent worse puts him in the rotation to start the year at least. And Keller is heading into his fifth big league season, almost all as a starter and he’s been almost always solid or better. I think I’ve said this a dozen times, but the aberration for Keller was the first half of 2021, not the last nine starts where he posted a 3.42 ERA with a 23.8 percent strikeout rate and 9.9 percent walk rate. Though the strikeouts were a bit of an aberration.

Those are the true locks, as I see it. I think Singer is probably as close to a lock as possible. His 2021 season was interesting. The results were not what you’d call good, but they also weren’t terrible. His strikeout percentage dropped a bit from 2020 and his walk percentage jumped a bit, but his FIP was 4.08 in 2020 and 4.04 in 2021. Am I just way off in my evaluation? I admit (and have admitted) that his seeming indifference and inability to develop that third pitch has irked me. And he does seem to fall apart when faced with basically any adversity. But he’s still been generally fine in the big leagues. The ceiling isn’t especially high with his current repertoire, but it could be and the floor isn’t terribly low.

The Candidates

By ERA, Hernandez was the best of the bunch out of the guys currently on the team who pitched at least 20 innings. His strikeout rate was reason for some concern, but I’m going to repeat repeating myself and remind you that he was a different pitcher after the break until he wore down in September. You can look at that in one of two ways. Is it a good sign that he seemed to figure a lot out, posting a 2.93 ERA over 43 innings between July 16 and August 27 with a 21.8 percent strikeout rate and 7.9 percent walk rate? Or is it a bad sign that he wore down so quickly? I’d point to good given the increase in innings from any point in his career, but we’ll see.

Hernandez’s best stretch coincided with Lynch’s best stretch, which was a 40.1 innings over seven starts with a 2.23 ERA, 19.3 percent strikeout rate (yeesh) and 9.9 percent walk rate. He was very good, but just didn’t get the swings and misses you’d expect from a guy with his stuff. He sort of reverted to his early-season struggles after that stretch, but he’s another pitcher who saw a pretty hefty increase in workload, so he could have worn down as well, though it wasn’t quite as obvious as it was with Hernandez.

Bubic had a very strong finish for the second straight year, and strong Septembers aren’t quite as much of a red herring as they used to be since rosters don’t expand all the way to 40 anymore in that final month. After struggling mightily throughout the year with his changeup, Bubic had a 2.20 ERA in the final month over 32.2 innings with a 20.5 percent strikeout rate and 7.1 percent rate with just 22 hits allowed. He was very, very good and he’s now put up two roughly league average or slightly better big league seasons. The walk rate was the most encouraging thing from his September. Bubic is one of my favorites because he’s such a cerebral pitcher that you just know he’s cooking something up to at least try to get better. But why isn’t he in the rotation above unless they go six? I fear his stuff will lead to a bad spring, simple as that. Arizona is not a great place for him.

Kowar had a season to forget and I’m going to have something big on him this week, so I won’t say a ton, but if he comes to camp with a different shape to his fastball or that slider has gotten better, he still has such good stuff that he could end up the best of the bunch. I’m not saying I’d predict that, but he will be given that opportunity at least.

Heasley is the last of the “real” candidates in my mind. He was throwing upper-90s in AA and while he likely wouldn’t have gotten an opportunity in a typical season, he did get the big league opportunity in 2021 and I thought he looked okay. I didn’t see as much movement on the pitches, but he held his own in his big league debut and some people have told me that he has looked very good in the offseason. I don’t think he has ace potential, but he could be a nice piece to slot toward the back of a rotation.

The rest are likely in only if something terrible happens in the spring. I’m extremely interested to see what Cox looks like after a season that led me to be pretty down on him with his velocity leading that way. If he can regain the two or three miles per hour that he seemed to lose last year, there’s no reason that he can’t reintroduce himself to Royals fans as a potential starter down the road. Like I’ve said, the short spring just makes it tough for anyone to make a real impression. Peacock is likely part of the bullpen if he makes the team, I would think, but he’ll be given a shot to start, similar to Ervin Santana last year. Griffin will get a shot, but I think he’s in AAA and Zerpa the same even though he was quite impressive in his one shot in 2021.

If we’re being totally honest, it’s kind of all a guess when you’ve got this many arms vying for so few spots. The good news is that everyone who deserves a shot will likely get one this season. Pitchers are still building up and the short spring will add to that.

Bullpen

I’ve liked the Royals bullpen the last couple of seasons when others haven’t quite as much and they’ve come through. One big difference from what we saw in 2018 and 2019 is that they’re starting to come at teams with big time stuff again. Stuff isn’t everything, but I think it’s a bigger percentage of pitching in the bullpen than it is for starters and this group has some serious stuff. The rumor is they’re still going after some arms, so I’m going to predict a signing here, which is super risky given that it could happen…or not happen…by the time you’re reading this.

The Locks

Last year, the Royals had 24 pitches throw at least one pitch out of the bullpen. One of them was Hanser Alberto and even though he had a 0.00 ERA, he signed with the Dodgers. Another was Danny Duffy who is still a free agent (and could be a Royals target, but he won’t be ready until mid-season). The best strikeout rate among those with at least 30 relief innings belonged to Scott Barlow. He ended the year as the team’s closer and had his best season. He’s very breaking ball forward, and I think he’d do well to mix in the fastball just a bit more, but Barlow has been a good reliever for awhile now and became great last season for the Royals. I’ve said before that I think they get where they want to with someone else in the closer’s role, but he’s a big part of that bullpen and will continue to be.

Maybe it’s just the way I talk about them, but I can’t think about Barlow without Josh Staumont. Don’t let the man bun fool you. You know he throws hard. But last season, the velocity was down. He had Covid before spring, then had a knee issue and seemed to have some other issues pop up throughout the year. But what I love is that he adjusted. While he struck out hitters at a lower rate than in 2020, he also walked them a lot less. If that velocity is back and he can maintain the control, he has a chance to be one of the league’s best relievers. These are big ifs, but he’s in there.

And the final lock (I’d have one more, but this isn’t what I would do) is Jake Brentz. He was third on the team in relief innings and gave a similar profile to Staumont but from the left side. He throws hard. He doesn’t always know where it’s going. But he can be dominant. The 5.46 ERA after the sticky stuff ban concerns me, but his walk rate didn’t really jump much. The BABIP against him did, by 100 points. My concern is that it jumped to about league average, so was it just batted ball luck that propelled him to start the year? That’s a subject for another day, but I think he’s basically a lock.

The Candidates

I’m going to start this with Dylan Coleman because he’d be a lock for me. If you want to see what a closer looks like, it’s Coleman. He’s a big dude who throws upper-90s with a nasty slider. He only got into five games in 2021, but he limited walks, got swings and misses and looked good. The fact that he was a PTBNL in the Trevor Rosenthal deal is a huge feather in Dayton Moore’s cap. We’re going to greatly enjoy watching Coleman pitch.

Maybe I’m wrong here and Domingo Tapia is a lock, but I would think he’s just on the other side of lock. The Royals picked him up off the waiver wire last season and he performed well. His control isn’t great and he doesn’t strike out nearly as many as you would think based on his size and stuff, but the results were very good in 2021. I think it would be tough to replicate exactly that if he keeps his peripherals where they were, but he did have the third-highest average fastball velocity of anyone to throw a pitch out of the Royals bullpen. I have a feeling Tapia could be the type to either have a lights-out spring or an absolutely brutal spring and pitch his way off the team.

The other best candidate as of right now is Taylor Clarke, who is still the lone Royals big league free agent they’ve signed since the end of last season. Clarke is an interesting pitcher who exhibited decent control and a mid-90s fastball for the Diamondbacks last year but just didn’t have the results. I’d like to see him use his slider a bit more and back off the fastball some. His slider looks like it has potential to be a dominant pitch. I just have a hunch he gets nudged out to start the year.

Among guys who pitched for the team last year, I think the best shots go to Joel Payamps and Ronald Bolaños. Payamps was fine. He didn’t walk many, which was nice and he’s good a pretty good fastball, but he was just fine. He’s a guy you don’t mind in your bullpen but you also are always trying to improve on. Bolaños, though, was dominant in the bullpen before getting hurt and with an emphasis on needing some additional innings from relievers, he might be a good candidate to help out on the team. My only question is if the Royals want him starting. Maybe I should have listed him as a rotation candidate, but I think if he’s starting, he’s in Omaha and if he’s relieving, he’s in KC.

Gabe Speier also pitched well for the big league club, so he’s going to have a shot, but I just don’t necessarily see it. Same for Tyler Zuber, though he did not pitch well for the big league club. I would say either of these two are DFA candidates if the Royals are needing a roster spot for a signing, trade acquisition or non-roster player making the team.

Collin Snider and Nathan Webb were both added to the 40-man this winter and the lockout probably hurt their chances to make the team, at least out of spring training, but they’ll both have an opportunity. Daniel Tillo came back from Tommy John last season and wasn’t great, but he’s now a lot farther out from surgery, so he’ll be one to watch. Heading into 2020, I was very hopeful after his transition to the bullpen in 2019. If he can regain that stuff, his ability to get grounders from the left side would be big for this bullpen.

The non-roster invites who could make the club are Colten Brewer, Griffin and Peacock and I suppose Jace Vines could get some consideration. He was getting up near triple digits regularly in Omaha last year and has some massive arms. I think Peacock is the only one who makes the team because they love having that veteran in there, especially if there’s an additional spot or two for pitchers.

The Signing

If you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw this:

David Lesky @DBLesky

Super boring first #Royals free agent signing prediction: Andrew Chafin

While Chafin himself is decidedly not boring, a lefty sort of is. He was fantastic in 2021 with a 1.83 ERA between the Cubs and A’s and was excellent against both righties and lefties. He gives a very different look from the left side to Brentz, with a fastball sitting in the low-90s. I think it could be a nice boon for the team to have him out there.

So that’s my second roster prediction. These’ll get a lot closer to the real thing once we actually see the guys play some baseball and get some real reports. But until then, it’s just fun to talk about actual games.