Royals Roster Projection 2: The Pitchers

Spring is about half over, so this seems like a good time to see if there's any change from the first Royals roster projection.

Yesterday we looked at the position players with the spring roughly half over in terms of games played. It feels like spring training has really flown by this season. Normally I start to think they’ve been going at this for a long time around game 10 or 11, but here we are after 17 (would have been 18 without a rainout) and I’m just now starting to think that. This is the best time of spring to watch games if you get to go out there because you get the starters staying in games longer, both pitchers and hitters. And you see fewer fringe guys. Unless you like fringe guys. If that’s the case, this time of year stinks for you.

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I’m interested in the way the Royals are easing their pitchers into things so far. Only one pitcher has thrown as many as 10 innings. I don’t believe any starters have exceeded three innings in a game. Is this by design? Maybe! The Royals have playoff aspirations even if I don’t believe they’re truly good enough to get there. Matt Quatraro, Paul Hoover and Brian Sweeney have all been parts of staffs that prepare in the spring for a postseason run, so that could very well be what’s happening. I’d anticipate seeing starters get to five or even six innings very soon.

With that limited sample on all of the pitchers, it’s hard to take much of anything from the numbers. I’ll get to Seth Lugo, of course, but he relies heavily on a curve. Should we be worried if he struggles in the Arizona air on a pitch he’s simply trying to get the feel on? I don’t think so, but it’s hard to say for sure. Should we worry that Cole Ragans is hitting 100 MPH early in spring? Heck, I don’t know. Should we worry when any pitcher throws a baseball at all? The answer there is probably.

As with the hitters, I’ll use Steamer projections for the stats for this roster projection.

Starting Pitchers

I have no change in the starting five. Yet. I may next week. Assuming health, Cole Ragans, Michael Wacha, Lugo and Brady Singer are total locks. I don’t care that Singer struggled against the A’s on Sunday. He’s in the rotation to start the year. I really don’t even think there needs to be a ton of discussion around this group, but I’ll touch on one thing that I think is huge. Other than Ragans, this group is all projected to have a better than average walk rate. And I wouldn’t be too surprised if Ragans walks fewer than the projections as well. The Royals finally have a starting staff capable of throwing strikes.

I’m a little worried the strikeouts won’t be there. This isn’t just from the projections, but I think there’s a world where there’s just a lot of contact allowed by this staff outside of Ragans. I’m less worried about Lugo given he maintained a solid enough strikeout rate in his return to starting last year. But Wacha feels like someone who could fall below that 20 percent number and Singer is someone who did fall below it last year. All of them are capable of being 23 percent or higher, so it may be nothing, but that’s just my concern.

Now on to the fifth starter who you’re all so excited about. Jordan Lyles has thrown all of two innings this spring. He was starting a “B” game on the back fields and left with a lower back issue. So far, it sounds like he’s fine and they’re just being cautious with him. I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I really believe the Royals would love it if Daniel Lynch IV beat him out. Lynch has been…fine. He’s kind of been exactly what he’s been his entire career and that’s really not quite good enough. I’m not saying he can’t get there, but four strikeouts in nine innings isn’t inspiring.

The real person to step up has been Alec Marsh, who has had an outstanding spring. Yes, he’s walked too many with four in 10 innings, but that’s playable when you strike guys out, which he has. His fastball has been consistently in the upper-90s and people who have seen him tell me he looks considerably better than last season. I didn’t expect him to be knocking on the door of a starting rotation spot, but I do think he’s entered the conversation with his spring so far. He’ll need to keep showing it and probably needs to do more to beat out Lyles than Lynch would have, but it’s possible.

Zerpa didn’t do himself any favors against the Giants yesterday. He had some trouble with the zone, which hasn’t been an issue for him much in the past. That could easily be dismissed as a one-game problem. He did get hit some, which has been an issue at times in the past. So that’s not something you want to see from someone looking for a chance to break with the team. I don’t think he had the margin for error to have the start he did yesterday.

There is a scenario where the Royals open the season with Lyles on the IL. They do need a fifth starter by the ninth game of the year, so it can’t go too long, but they could open with four starters and nine relievers for a week or so. If you’re looking for a way to massage the roster, that could be it. Now, I’m not sure they’ll do that, but it’s at least worth mentioning.

Bullpen

There isn’t a lot of wiggle room in this group. Free agent signings Will Smith and Chris Stratton are in without question. Trade acquisitions Nick Anderson and John Schreiber are in too. All of this assumes health. James McArthur is in without any question. That’s five of an eight-man unit. The question for the Royals is how to fill those final three spots (or maybe four for a few days). I think the big thing with the five locks is similar to the big things with the rotation locks. They’re going to throw strikes, which is great. The difference in this group is that I also believe they’re going to strike guys out.

That’s not to say I don’t have concerns. Smith is 34 and has posted the two lowest strikeout seasons of his career since his rookie year in the last two years. Stratton is 33 and has never been elite. He’s also had slight walk issues in his career before last year. Anderson is pretty much always really good when healthy, but he’s thrown in 41 games since the start of 2021. Schreiber has really only been great in one season. And McArthur really only has one great month. So there is some very real risk with the five locks, and I don’t think there’s huge upside here outside of McArthur.

The upside comes from the rest of the group. I had John McMillon in my original projection. He exits this time and it’s not something I wanted to do, but he’s thrown two innings this spring. That’s after missing the last month of the season with an elbow injury that didn’t require surgery. But I just can’t, in good conscious, project him on the Opening Day roster at this point. He did throw his second inning yesterday, so if he’s regularly on the mound over the next week, he might be in the next projection, but I just don’t know yet. If healthy, he’s going to pitch in the big leagues and probably a lot, but I just don’t think he’ll be there on March 28. That could change, but as of now, I don’t see it.

Carlos Hernandez is also someone I don’t see on the roster to start the year. While I’m sure there is a loud cheer erupting over that, which I get, it’s also fair to note how good he was for a stretch in 2023. From April 19 to July 30, Hernandez threw 46.2 innings with a 32.4 percent strikeout rate and 6.1 percent walk rate. That’s elite. There is upside there. If he’ll reach it is another question, of course, but that’s where the real upside is with this bullpen. It’s in these two, both of whom I think will miss out on being introduced on the first base line two weeks from Thursday.

The rest of the bullpen to start will be interesting. I do think Marsh makes it as a reliever to start the year, given his spring success. That’s one spot. Matt Sauer has to stick on the roster all season for the Royals to keep him and they really like him. He’s been good enough this spring. That’s one spot. So it comes down to the last spot unless they game the system a bit with a Lyles IL stint, and I think they want to go lefty. To me, it’s Walter Pennington, who is a non-roster invite and has been great, Josh Taylor, Lynch or Zerpa. As good as Pennington has been, my gut is they go with Taylor and keep Lynch and Zerpa stretched out in AAA.

I don’t anticipate a lot of love for Taylor aft

er how he pitched in 2023, and we’re now going back a long way to his last good season, but he did put up a 3.40 ERA, 2.83 FIP and 28.7 percent strikeout rate in 2021. I think he was also a bit unlucky for the Royals last year, throwing first pitch strikes 61.4 percent of the time and striking out 31.3 percent of hitters. He was also too hittable, but there’s some upside in him from the left side as the sixth or seventh guy in the bullpen.

There’ll be a lot of movement, I think, after the main guys. McMillon and Hernandez will almost definitely get in there if they’re healthy. We may see Lyles as a long reliever at some point. Anthony Veneziano is going to get some time in all likelihood as is Will Klein and maybe even guys like Beck Way and Jonah Dipoto. And as outrageous as it might seem given his spring, if Jake Brentz can figure things out, he’ll become an option at some point as well. There’s some depth, but not a ton of certainty in this group.

I think they can have a good bullpen and almost certainly will be better than 2023, but they’re going to need to have some things go right to be more than simply better. That said, I think they’re going to throw strikes and I think they’re going to strike some hitters out. It’s what happens when the strikeouts aren’t there that I’m interested in seeing, but I do think they can get to somewhere around average to above average with this group and that’ll go a long way toward an extra 20-25 wins.