KC Royals: 4 players the club shouldn’t pursue for 2021

The 2020 season is winding down for the KC Royals, so thoughts turn to 2021. Here are four players the club shouldn’t consider bringing back next year.

With less than two weeks left to play and their playoff hopes falling just short of fantasy, the KC Royals have reached the point of no realistic return. While winning remains the goal for this campaign, the club must begin crafting a better team for 2021.

General manager Dayton Moore, together with his scouts, assistants and new owner John Sherman, are sure to seek help from within and without the organization. Rarely big spenders on the free agent market, and too frequently burned when they are, expect the Royals to resort once again to a trade or two and the inexpensive, low-risk free agent signings that occasionally pay off.

Fortunately, the club’s vastly improved pitching means finding mound help will be less of a priority than in the last few offseasons. The urgent need is better bats and the KC Royals won’t win consistently until they get them.

How to make room for improvements is the question; the Royals can cut players, trade them, and avoid pursuing others whose contracts are ending this season or nearing expiration.

No contemporary KC Royals’ offseason speculation would be complete without considering the fate of Alex Gordon, the veteran Gold Glove collector who last season followed three miserable years at the plate with serviceable hitting. His offense is improving after a slow start and his defense remains excellent, so unless he implodes at the plate down the stretch, he’ll probably be back. (Whether he should return is a discussion for another day).

Although other players in the organization under current scrutiny, such as the Ryans O’Hearn and McBroom, have minor league options remaining and might not be sacrificed to create sufficient space for newcomers on the 40-man roster, any players acquired for immediate improvement will require room. Here are four suggestions for saving space easily.

A veteran pitcher is the first player the KC Royals shouldn’t consider for 2021.

Ian Kennedy did something hard last season. With only two relief appearances among his nearly 300 games prior to 2019, he moved to the KC Royals’ bullpen, pitched 63 times, and saved 30 games for a bad team that lost over 100.

But the KC Royals didn’t give Kennedy a five-year, $70 million contract—the second biggest deal in club history (Alex Gordon signed three weeks before for $72 million)—to pitch out of the pen. They signed him to start, but his performance over the first three years of the deal prompted his move to the bullpen. Kennedy’s modest first year (11-11 with a 3.68 ERA) was his best in the rotation; he went 11-24 the next three years before successfully transitioning to relief work.

Kennedy, however, regressed this season. He lost his closer role to Trevor Rosenthal, is 0-2 with a 9.00 ERA in 15 appearances, and has surrendered seven home runs in 14 innings. He’s injured and may not pitch again this year.

That Kennedy’s contract expires at the end of this season might suggest forgetting him is automatic. After all, he vanishes from the roster as soon as the contract ends, but these are the Royals and they often do strange things. So Kennedy, a good closer last year, may still be a candidate for that role next season—Rosenthal is gone, current closer Greg Holland’s one-year deal renders him uncertain to return, and Kennedy’s past and present struggles will decrease his market value. (The Royals like inexpensive help).

Kennedy’s past struggles as a Royal, though, and their return this season, are all the reasons the franchise needs to thank Kennedy and bid him farewell. The Royals have viable closer choices, Josh Staumont and Scott Barlow among them, and, should they choose to pursue a free agent closer, Holland is the better choice.

A pitcher who returned to the organization last season is another the club should refrain from.

By the time 2019’s mid-season trade deadline grew near, the KC Royals were desperate for reliable starting pitchers. At the All-Star break, Homer Bailey’s 7-6 record led the rotation, but the club traded him a few days later. Jakob Junis was 4-8, Brad Keller 4-9, Danny Duffy 3-5, and Glenn Sparkman, splitting time between the rotation and the bullpen, was 2-5 and would finish the season 4-10 as a starter.

Bailey’s departure left a hole in the rotation, and bringing back Mike Montgomery to the club that originally signed him was the best the Royals could do at the deadline. Montgomery, whose primary claim to fame is closing the Cubs’ 2016 World Series clincher, was 1-2 with a 5.67 ERA and hadn’t started a game all season when Chicago shipped him to Kansas City for Martin Maldonado.

Montgomery stepped in Bailey’s shoes but didn’t fill them. He lost his first three decisions, won two in a row, then lost four straight to finish 2-7 with a 4.64 ERA (5.23 FIP). In an unfortunate testament to the club’s lack of rotation depth, the performance made him a proverbial lock for a 2020 starting job.

Montgomery, however, started and pitched only once this year. He lasted just two innings in the fourth game, giving up five runs and five hits before a lat injury forced him out. He’s on the 60-day Injured List.

Although the 31-year old left-hander is on a one-year contract, he’s arbitration eligible and under team control through next season. The KC Royals would be wise to non-tender him.

While some might consider cutting Montgomery after a season lost to injury cold, unseemly and unfair, this is a franchise that’s been there, done that. Despite the vital role Greg Holland played as KC’s closer in its 2014 pennant year, and most of the ’15 World Series season until a UCL injury became too much to bear and he underwent Tommy John surgery, the Royals non-tendered him after 2015.

But the hard truth is that injury or no injury, Montgomery isn’t a top-line starting pitcher. Never a winner of more than five games as a starter, he’s 17-24 out of a rotation in six seasons. Montgomery is, at best, a back-end piece and, at worst, a mop-up man.

The Royals can do better. Duffy, Keller, Junis, Brady Singer and Kris Bubic will, absent a significant offseason acquisition, constitute the KC Royals’ five-man 2021 rota, and deservedly so. That means the bullpen for Montgomery, but it’s an improved and crowded pen that really doesn’t require his services. The club would do well to open his spot.

A fan favorite is probably playing his final days with the Royals.

Bubba Starling was, in 2011, a two-way sure bet, destined to star professionally in football or baseball depending on which sport he chose. Already signed to play quarterback at Nebraska, his first Big 10 season was just around the corner when the KC Royals chose him in the first round of the amateur draft.

Bubba picked baseball. He was can’t miss.

But, sadly, some can’t miss ballplayers do miss, and Starling is one of them. The Royals surely wish it wasn’t so, but the numbers prove it is.

In eight minor league seasons occasionally interrupted by injury, Starling slashed .244/.317/.393, hit 69 homers and drove in 304 runs. The .275 he hit in his first professional season remains his highest full-season average; the 13 homers he hit the following season are his best at any level.

A breakout finally seemed possible last season when Starling’s .310 average at Omaha warranted a July call-up to the Royals. He started well, then fizzled to a final .215/.255/.317 56-game slash.

Starling’s 2020 spring and summer training performances were good, but his season hasn’t been. The stellar play of Edward Olivares, and a .227 average with one homer and five RBIs in 29 games, have pushed him deeper into the dugout than he was when the season began.

To make matters worse, Starling finds himself in an outfield teeming with veterans and rising stars. Left fielder Alex Gordon isn’t the player he used to be, but will probably return for another season. Olivares is well on the way to earning a starting job, and Hunter Dozier’s recent stint at first base may signal a move to right field for Whit Merrifield. Nick Heath is back with the big club; Kyle Isbel and Khalil Lee are a step away from the majors. Something must give, and that something is looking more and more like Bubba Starling.

Parting ways with Starling makes sense. Because he’s out of options, he can’t be sent back to the minors. He doesn’t hit big league pitching; his glove work is good, but the KC Royals already have excellent defensive outfield depth. And he’s 28, an age when good outfielders should be approaching their prime, not struggling to win a spot on the bench.

Starling has been a fan favorite. Unfortunately, his is a chapter in club history the Royals should close.

The KC Royals have serious offensive needs. To ensure room for filling those needs, they must preserve roster space; moving on from Ian Kennedy, Matt Harvey, Mike Montgomery, and Bubba Starling will help.