Ranking potential closer options for Kansas City Royals

No. 3 Scott Alexander

In his first full season in the big leagues, Scott Alexander was flat-out nasty. The sinker-baller forced opposing batters to pound balls into the ground with ease. Alexander managed to induce ground balls 73.8 percent of the time. He threw his sinker 91.9 percent of the time. To have the success that he did while basically telegraphing his pitches is astonishing.

It seemed at times as though he was pitching practically every night. As the season wore on, his appearances came in increasingly critical points of the game. Alexander never let it faze him and got the job done almost every single time.

While there are a few question marks about Alexander being the closer next year, he seems to have answered most of them. Although he is inexperienced, he came up huge in some clutch spots for the Royals this past year. He showed he won’t wilt under pressure. Like Minor, he is a lefty, but his splits were almost identical for righties and lefties last year.

And while regression seems likely, his career groundball percent and K/9 were fairly in line with what he did this past season. The only thing in his way would be more expensive teammates being given the first shot at the job.