Kansas City Royals: Three reasons to fear the future

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The Royals are currently in a precarious position. They are not good enough to compete. And the bullpen is a big reason why.

In 2019, the Kansas City Royals had a terrible bullpen. Only Baltimore had a worse ERA from their bullpen. The good news is that a decent bullpen can be built through minor league development and free-agent pickups.

The Royals have some up and coming options in guys like Scott Barlow, Richard Lovelady, Josh Staumont, and Kyle Zimmer. We also have some minor league guys like Gabe Speier and Grant Gavin that should become reasonable bullpen arms.

The bad news is that we have been unable to develop or find much in free agency over the last couple of seasons. If the Wily Peraltas and the Brad Boxbergers have reminded us of anything it is that building bullpens is not as easy as the Royals made it look during our pennant-winning seasons.

The biggest fear when it comes to our bullpen for 2020 is that we make the mistake of keeping Ian Kennedy. If we have no intention of competing in 2020, and all signs are that we do not, it makes no sense to have Kennedy closing out completely meaningless games rather than trade him in for some more prospects.

If 2020 is to be spent saving free agent money for some time in the future, a suggestion I remain skeptical of, then it should also be spent on player development for the future. We need to allow our young guys to learn the ropes in the bullpen. Let them pitch. Let them learn to overcome adversity and see which ones can figure it out.

Signing more veteran bullpen arms without adding starting pitching and some more bats in free agency is a waste. If we are going to embrace the losing, let us go all out. It does not really matter whether we lose 95 games or 115 games. What matters is that we actually find a few arms we can count on in the bullpen moving forward.

What if the starting pitching does not develop as we are all assuming it will?

The Royals seem to be currently operating under the assumption that we will have plenty of starting pitching once the 2018 draft picks begin coming to the big leagues. I find this assumption terrifying.

It is very difficult to find a good major league starting pitcher. The Fab Five from the 2018 draft has done everything you would expect them to do so far in their major league careers. But what are the chances that even three of those five become reliable starting pitchers? Not great.

The last time the Royals had a minor league stocked with pitching talent it was guys named John Lamb, Danny Duffy, Chris Dwyer, Jake Odorizzi, and Mike Montgomery. A couple of those guys never even had true big-league careers. We should count ourselves lucky if three of the current crop wind up as Duffy, Odorizzi, and Montgomery.

So, what will fill out the rest of our rotation? Brad Keller and some players to be named later? I like Brad Keller. I know I have said this before, but if Brad Keller is our #3 or #4 starter we are probably in good shape. If Keller is our Opening Day starter, we are not serious about winning a pennant.

If two-thirds of the 6 pitchers really making a name for themselves in the minor leagues right now wind up as major league arms, that is a success. If a couple of them wind up as dependable starting pitchers, that would be a huge step forward for our player development.

We need to be realistic about where we are going to find the other arms necessary. You can never have too many good starting pitchers and I am still not convinced we have more than 2 above-average starting pitchers among our current minor league studs. I remain fearful that we are assuming that we do.

(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) /

Even if our pitching prospects do come through, where will we find the hitting?

We had a few nice bats in our lineup in 2019. We had three guys with an OPS over .800. We have a shortstop who can hit and shows some true pop. We should also expect a decent bat back with Salvador Perez in 2020.

But, the bottom half of our lineup was beyond awful last season. Our younger guys just did not hit. Ryan O’Hearn struggled and Nicky Lopez looked lost for much of the season. Neither Bubba Starling nor Brett Phillips showed much to give us confidence moving forward.

No matter how good your first 5 bats may be, you cannot survive in today’s Major League Baseball with four guys at the bottom who cannot get their OPS over .600. And I am fine with assuming that a couple of these young guys will turn it around. But, are we really expecting them all to become big league hitters?

And here is the scary part: our minor league hitting prospects almost all took a step back in 2019. Nick Heath kept getting on base, so I am comfortable with his skill set. And the same goes for Khalil Lee. He can get on base. But we see almost no pop in AA or AAA, at the moment.

Gabriel Cancel led our AA team in slugging percentage in 2019, with .427. Our best slugging percentages in Omaha last season were guys like O’Hearn and Cuthbert and Phillips. So, either the guys we already know are going to all start hitting better or we need to bring in some more bats.

Next. Tanking is for losers. dark

No matter how good the pitchers of the 2018 draft ultimately are, someone is still going to need to play corner outfield and first base and be able to hit the ball hard. We need to see some steps forward for our hitters in the minor leagues in 2020. And we need to see some of our young major league guys figure it out as well. If not, the Royals need to get out there and find some bats elsewhere. Even if it means making a trade or spending some real money.

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The Royals are currently in a precarious position. They are not good enough to compete. And the bullpen is a big reason why.

What if the starting pitching does not develop as we are all assuming it will?

Even if our pitching prospects do come through, where will we find the hitting?

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