The Breakdown of a Bad Bullpen

The Royals were a mess pretty much everywhere in 2023, but the bullpen might have been the worst part and is the easiest to fix.

You may have heard that the Royals bullpen was a problem in 2023. I’ll remind you that I not only didn’t expect the bullpen to be bad, I thought it would be good. I’m not too proud to remind you of that. In my defense, it sure looked like a group that could go 14-16 deep throughout the organization with help coming throughout the season. But it was not. Mea culpas aside, their inability to get outs cost the Royals quite a bit. You only have to look as far as their Pythagorean Record, which sat at 64-98, a full eight games better than the 56-106 final record the 2023 team posted.

This feels like a very negative tone for an offseason article where the Royals sit tied for first place with every other team. And while it is, I think it’s important to remember that bullpens and relievers are volatile. No, a bad season one year doesn’t guarantee a good season the following year, but as far as baseball players go, there is the most variance among pitchers who throw an inning at a time compared to really anyone else. What made this bullpen so bad? I’m glad you asked. Or I’m glad that I asked. Someone asked. I’m looking into it.

Talking about a bullpen in today’s game can be a little bit difficult because how do you define a reliever? If you say that it’s any pitcher who didn’t start the game, that’s easy. But is Alec Marsh a reliever when he’s really considered the bulk starter? Is Steven Cruz a starter when he’s working as a reliever, just in the first inning? I truly don’t know the answer to that question, but it’s an interesting one, and one that does have an impact on the numbers with the Royals. Take a look at what openers and bulk pitchers did for the Royals in 2023.

Openers: 30 IP, 23 H, 32 K, 12 BB, 3.00 ERA
Bulk: 84.2 IP, 93 H, 69 K, 34 BB, 5.42 ERA

So if you look at the bullpen’s performance, should they shoulder the blame for the 84.2 innings that were bad or should they get the credit for the 30 innings that were good? I’m digressing like crazy, but I struggle quite a bit with that answer and I hope that sites like Fangraphs and Baseball Reference have someone smarter than me who can figure it out.

To look at the bullpen, I’m going to use the statistics at our disposal to compare to other teams, but I do think it’s at least relevant to the conversation that they had some success utilizing an opener with members of their bullpen. And before I move on entirely, I’ll give you some insight into those opens. They used an opener 20 times and here’s at how it broke down by pitcher:

Jonathan Bowlan 1x
Taylor Clarke 2x
Dylan Coleman 1x
Austin Cox 1x
Steven Cruz 4x
Jose Cuas 1x
Tucker Davidson 1x
Carlos Hernandez 4x
James McArthur 2x
Collin Snider 1x
Josh Staumont 1x
Josh Taylor 1x

• 14 were scoreless, three allowed one run, one allowed two runs and two allowed three runs

• 11 spanned more than an inning, nine spanned two innings

• 13 featured no walks, 10 featured multiple strikeouts

• The Royals went 7-13 in those games

By winning percentage, the .350 was right in line with the season’s .346 winning percentage, so it certainly didn’t hurt them at least. I’d say the opener itself was a success given what we see above and is a credit to the actual relievers in the bullpen. I think six of the 12 above should factor in at some point in 2024 to the Royals plans and that includes 14 of the 20 starts. So that’s a good thing. Now onto the numbers after this brief 600-ish word interlude.

Even with bulk pitchers factoring in, the Royals only ranked 10th in bullpen innings thrown, which was a bit surprising to me given the number of times they used an opener and the number of simply short starts they got. There was a mix of terrible teams, bad teams, decent teams and good teams ahead of them too. So that’s something. But here’s where they ranked in some key metrics:

• 29th in ERA

• 26th in FIP

• 28th in fWAR

• 23rd in K%

• 28th in BB%

• 29th in LOB%

• 26th in Zone%

• 21st in O-Swing%

• 5th in Z-Swing%

• 20th in Contact%

• 24th in Hard Hit%

• 29th in Barrel%

• 26th in Average Exit Velocity

What does this all mean? You know what it means. But it really highlights just how bad the bullpen was as a whole during the season. They were unable to limit scoring and the underlying numbers showed that wasn’t a fluke. They didn’t strike out enough batters while walking way too many. And when they let guys on base, they did about as bad a job as any team in stranding them, so there were never even enough of those escape act innings that are so fun to watch. Oh, and when batters made contact, which was way too often, they hit the ball hard. And they also didn’t get nearly enough swings on pitches outside the zone. But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

It’s almost unfathomable to have 29 actual pitchers (plus Nate Eaton and Matt Duffy) throw pitches out of the bullpen and not have someone who can help bring the numbers up. But some team has to rank at the bottom, I guess. And, to be fair, the Royals did not rank 30th in anything I listed above. So check mate, I suppose. But if you look at the average numbers for relievers - 4.17 ERA, 23.6 percent strikeout rate and 9.5 percent walk rate - how many who pitched for the Royals were better than average in all three of those categories? If you said guessed two, you would be right.

Of course, one of them was John McMillon, who threw all of four innings. The other was McArthur, who threw 20.1 innings. The moral of the story is to have a Scottish surname and you can be above big league reliever average in all three categories. Just nine of the 29 relievers had a better ERA than average, 13 had a better strikeout rate than average and 13 had a better walk rate than average. Only eight more, in addition to the Macbeth twins, were above average in two of the three categories. Not to be too optimistic for absolutely no reason, but that just seems unlikely to happen again just based on the odds. So that’s a plus.

What it comes down to is that the bullpen simply didn’t get enough swings and misses. You can allow loud contact if you allow less contact. The Blue Jays had a pretty decent bullpen in 2023. Opponents hit the ball hard 40.3 percent of the time against them. That’s second-worst in baseball. The Cubs bullpen was pretty average by many numbers. Their hard-hit rate allowed was 39.9 percent, fourth-worst in baseball. Those two teams allowed the third and fourth-least contact in baseball as well. The Royals were actually about average on swinging strike percentage in 2023, but it wasn’t enough.

So how can they get better? For one, McMillon being healthy would be huge for them. I haven’t heard anything on his health status after going down with a forearm strain in late August. Maybe that’s a good thing. I know it’s weird to count on a guy who started the year in A-ball and threw four big league innings, but anyone with eyes can see he’s going to get whiffs. Hernandez needs to get back on track too. We know he’s going to get hitters to swing and miss. And Coleman needs to figure some things out as well. If McMillon is healthy, Hernandez can figure out how to be somewhat consistent and Coleman can be what he was in the second half of 2022 with a 2.35 ERA, 27 percent strikeout rate and 7.4 percent walk rate, things look better already. Add in McArthur and the Royals make Bon Jovi proud and get halfway there.

But this is where they can use the free agent market to their advantage. I know I’ve written about available pitchers a ton already and free agency just technically opened up yesterday evening, but there are pitchers out there who can help and relievers are not expensive in the grand scheme of things. Robert Stephenson got tons of swings and misses. Phil Maton got a lot too. So did Ryne Stanek and Reynaldo Lopez and Will Smith and Matt Moore and Kirby Yates and the list goes on. The great thing about relievers in free agency is that, outside of the elite names, they don’t get a ton of money or a ton of years.

So yes, the 2023 bullpen was an abject disaster for the Kansas City Royals. But if they can miss a few more bats in 2024 and maybe be a little better (luckier?) with men on base, they can turn things around and be an average or even better unit. I’m not saying it’s an easy turnaround, but I am saying it’s the spot on the roster that is the most possible to flip from one season to the next. It’s why I believe they’re going to at least try to jump the market on a reliever or two and start to build out a bullpen that can actually hold the leads they have and give the offense a real chance to come back when it’s close. The bullpen is how I think they can make their biggest win-loss jump in 2024. Now we just wait to see what they do with it.