Kansas City Royals Potential September Call-ups

Oct 15, 2014; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals catcher

celebrates with fans on top of the dugout after game four of the 2014 ALCS playoff baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles at Kauffman Stadium. The Royals swept the Orioles to advance to the World Series. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

The Kansas City Royals appear headed to their first division title in 30 years, and their first ever Central crown, with a 13.5 game lead over the Minnesota Twins. With 10 days to go before September, general manager Dayton Moore must now be considering who to call up from the minor leagues when rosters expand from 25, to every player on the 40-man roster.

In years past, the KC Royals used roster expansion to get a look at top prospects, and to reward career minor-leaguers with a taste of The Show. With the Kansas City Royals positioning themselves for home field advantage throughout the playoffs, September call-ups will, necessarily, be focused more on players who can help the team win: both in the stretch run, and by earning a spot on the playoff roster. 

Twenty five man playoff rosters are likely to be built a little differently than the one we’ve seen most of the regular season. For one thing, playoff series have more built in rest days (for travel) than the regular season. This change means that playoff teams will rarely use more than four starters, and use fewer relievers, due to more rest.

Another difference is that every game is more meaningful. Managers are less likely to “let a game go” when trailing by a large margin. They also want to pull out all the stops to bring home a precious win. In recent years, these strategic strategic differences between the playoffs and regular season have typically caused teams to trim down their pitching staff in favor of more specialty bench players. The Kansas City Royals, in fact, did this in 2014 to add base-stealing demon Terrance Gore to the bench.

However, the 2015 KC Royals could choose to go with a heavy pen with the idea of avoiding the third time through the order penalty given some of the struggles of starters Yordano Ventura and Danny Duffy this season.

So, Kansas City Royals fans, when you see a player up from the minors this September, remember he is probably there to help win games and audition for the playoff roster. The following slide show will consider candidates with these goals in mind:

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