Royals Duffy To Start Sunday – What Should We Expect?

Danny Duffy was throwing serious heat in the Royals bullpen. Expect that to change.

Many Royals fans wanted Danny Duffy in the rotation from the beginning. While I understood their thinking, I was not in that group.

In that linked article, I had this to say about Danny Duffy’s velocity

In 2015, Duffy’s 94 MPH fastball ranked as the 23 highest among pitchers with at least 130 IP. Of the 22 above him, only David Price and Chris Sale were left-handers, and both of them also sat at 94 MPH. I’ll compare Duffy’s fastball to Price’s, for the sake of similarity. Price’s fastball is, for the most part, straight, but explicitly fast for a left-hander. Duffy’s could be categorized as the same, with a max velocity of 98 MPH. However, Price got swings and misses on 28% of his fastballs, while Duffy only registered just over 15% as a starter in 2015.

On the premise of Duffy’s velocity going up in the bullpen, I made this assumption about his 2016 season.

I don’t doubt that Duffy will get a look at the rotation, but the Royals lack of an effective left-handed reliever paired with Duffy’s burst of strong history out of the bullpen, his value may be higher when he’s in relief. However, that value will depend strongly on his ability to strike out hitters.

I never doubted that Duffy would get a shot at the Royals rotation because for one, it was still February and I was mostly talking about a shot in Spring Training, but also because the vulnerability of the Royals rotation was obvious.

Yordano Ventura was overly inconsistent. Edinson Volquez had over-achieved in back-to-back seasons. Ian Kennedy had gotten shelled the year before in a pitcher’s park. 

Then you had Chris Young, who was a 36-year old walking the fly ball pitcher tight rope, and Kris Medlen, who was coming into the season having pitched in just 15 games since 2013 and started in just eight of those.

Danny Duffy, meanwhile, had arguably the best season of any of those starting pitchers over the last two seasons, posting a 2.53 ERA over 149+ innings for the Royals in 2014.

The chances of Duffy not getting a few starts this season was as unlikely as Luke Hochevar getting a start.

Next: Why I Wanted Duffy In The Bullpen

Why I Wanted Danny Duffy In The Bullpen

However, there is a reason I wanted Duffy in the pen, and it’s not because he isn’t a capable starting pitcher.

One of the first tweets I saw after the announcement on Duffy was made was about his velocity and ability to miss bats.

Kiley was referencing Duffy’s ability as a reliever, citing him as “pretty damn good” in an earlier tweet.

And he’s not wrong.

Unfortunately, those results likely won’t continue with Duffy as a starter. This is especially true with the velocity, something that baseball fans tend to see out of context, especially when it comes to starters and relievers.

Long story short, Duffy will likely not be averaging 96 MPH on his fastballs come Sunday.

Want proof? Take a look at this velocity chart, via Brooks Baseball.

Notice that Duffy’s velocity peaks over the last three seasons for the Royals (including 2016) bookend a velocity plateau.

The first dot is from April of 2014, with the last three “peak” dots (ignore the 3/16 dot that represents Spring Training) are from October of 2015 up until the present day.

He has made 30 appearances for the Royals in those four months. None of them were starts.

During that span, Duffy has averaged just a tick under 97 MPH on his fastballs, while striking out 44 batters in just 34 innings.

In the 276 innings in between, he has struck out 201 (good for a 6.55 K/9) and averaged just over 94 MPH on his fastballs.

Next: Lack Of Whiffs As A Starter