Kansas City Royals: Flanny’s early guess has Kyle Zimmer in bullpen

Kansas City Royals MLB beat writer projects that Kyle Zimmer will have a successful comeback and make the Opening Day roster in his way-too-early 25-man roster projections.

Flanny’s full roster projections can be found here. There is more than one interesting prediction in there, so if you have not, read it. The one that catches the eye, probably because it’s in the heading and picture, is Kyle Zimmer in the Kansas City Royals bullpen.

As pointed out in the article, Zimmer just has a great story. It has been a long road for the Royals 2012 first rounder, and he might finally be ready to make his MLB debut. Rustin Dodd did a fantastic job detailing Zimmer’s comeback on The Athletic.

There is a reason the Kansas City Royals have stuck by Zimmer, and brought him back after he hit free agency. He is ultra talented. At the end of the 2013 season he was the number 30 prospect in baseball. For more context, he was five spots ahead of Yordano Ventura, and 17 spots ahead of Adalberto Mondesi in the top 100.

He was listed with a plus fastball. Not only that, he was projected to be able to have an above average curve, slider, and control. He was taken fifth overall by accident, but that is not the reality we live in anymore. We are fortunate that Zimmer is even still trying to pitch.

Zimmer was at a time when many would have given up. For those unable to read Dodd’s article on the comeback, he was throwing 58 MPH and went to Driveline Baseball as a final hope. This is his comeback.

If he is able to dazzle and maybe recapture some of what made him special, the Kansas City Royals will have a wonderful bullpen piece with an even better story.

I love that Flanny included Zimmer on his way-too-early projections. No one has (officially) picked up a baseball yet and so any guess will do. The fact that Zimmer made the initial projection means that Flanny, along with the fan base, are pulling for this comeback to work.

There is no reason that Zimmer cannot make Flanny look like a genius either. Driveline does amazing work. All it takes is for a little bit of that talent to spill over, and some good fortune from a health standpoint, and this comeback can be successful.