KC Royals: Making the case, 9 Rangers free agents

A trio of righty pitchers are available, but the KC Royals don’t have a pressing need for them.

Don’t let Kansas City’s Wednesday signing of former Royals closer Wade Davis, or its recent reunion with Ervin Santana, fool you. The Royals hope Davis satisfies their perceived need for another bullpen righthander and Santana, also a righty, may give them some rotation depth. But the club doesn’t have a general need for more righthanders.

Even if they did, the last three Texas free agents don’t have much to offer. Ten-year veteran Juan Nicasio, who began transitioning from the rotation to the bullpen with the Dodgers in 2015 and became a full-time reliever two seasons later, has an unremarkable 40-46, 4.71 career record and, despite some good years, has surrendered too many runs for three straight seasons—ERAs of 6.00 and 4.75 in 2018 and ’19 are too high for a reliever, and opponents battered him for six runs in the 1.1 innings he threw last season.

Entering his age-38 season, Jesse Chavez is also giving up too many runs. He posted a 4.85 and 6.88 ERAs the last two years.

Control problems should keep reliever Luis Garcia off the Royals’ radar. He walked nine in 8.1 innings last season, and BB9 rates of 6.6 (2013), 8.4 (2014), 5.0 (2015) and 4.7 (2016) fully explain his career 4.8 BB9.

Corey Kluber was the cream of the Texas free agents before he signed with the Yankees. There isn’t much left for the KC Royals to seriously consider.