Why the KC Royals won’t find any help in The Bronx

Welcome back to Kings of Kauffman’s continuing series analyzing how the free agent market could impact the KC Royals. Over the next few weeks, our writers will scrutinize each club’s free agents and project who might, or might not, fit Kansas City’s needs. Today, we focus on the Yankees’ free agents.

Baseball’s free agent season opened earlier this month and, not surprisingly, the KC Royals haven’t opened the checkbook. The quiet in Kansas City is probably due more to the club’s fiscal conservatism than it is the industry-wide uncertainty surrounding the collective bargaining process, which may be making other teams gun-shy.

But if the Royals decide they need free agent help to shore up their pitching and add a veteran right fielder, there isn’t a market splash to be made in The Bronx.

A pair of spoken-for Yankee free agents wouldn’t have helped the KC Royals.

So far, the Yankees are a net zero in the pitching department. Second to few when it comes to lavish free agent spending, the Yanks’ only addition wasn’t expensive, or really a new acquisition at all—they signed one of their own free agents, reliever Joely Rodríguez, for a year at $2 million.

Rodriguez had arguably his best big league numbers in 2021, going 1-0 with a 2.84 ERA in 21 games after coming over from the Rangers in July, but those stats have much to do with the fact he played for a better team than the bad Philadelphia and Texas clubs he’d toiled with since 2016. And his Yankee sample size was small—19 innings.

Rodriguez wouldn’t have added a lot to the KC Royals.

New York did lose pitcher Andrew Heaney, who took the Dodgers up on their one-year, $8.5 million offer. But as our FanSided colleagues at Yanks Go Yard aptly point out, Heaney’s departure may be a loss in name only. A starter by trade, Heaney split time between the rotation and bullpen after coming to New York in a trade deadline deal with the Angels, and was 8-9 with a 5.83 ERA between the two teams. Kansas City’s rotation is already shaky; adding Heaney would have made it shakier.

Are there any Yankee free agents left who could help make new KC general manager J.J. Picollo’s job a bit easier?

Two veteran pitchers’ health & age issues should give the KC Royals pause.

At first blush, Corey Kluber should interest Kansas City. The two-time American League Cy Young Award winner (2014 and 2017) made his name in Cleveland by winning 20 games once and 18 three times. He has 18 complete games and eight shutouts in an era when six-inning starters draw raves; his 3.19 11-year ERA affirms his stinginess on the mound.

And he threw a no-hitter this season.

Nevertheless, the Royals should pass on Kluber. He gave the Yankees a decent 5-3, 3.83 season with a no-no to boot, factors he’ll cite to extract from them, or another club, more than the $11 million he earned in 2021. Kluber may require more to land than Kansas City is willing to or should pay, especially for a starter who’ll turn 36 in April.

Then there’s his health. A right shoulder sprain kept Kluber on the Injured List from late May until late August; opponents slashed .308/.375/.467, and he gave up 16 runs in 26.2 innings over the six games he started after he returned. He was 4-3, 3.04 before going on the IL. Whether the injury drove those former numbers remains to be seen.

Darren O’Day’s case is similar. Day, 39, spent almost all of May and June on the IL with a rotator cuff issue before a hamstring injury forced him back to the List in early July, required surgery, and cost him the rest of the 2021 campaign. He can be an excellent reliever—he’s 40-19, 2.53 in 616 relief appearances since breaking in with the Angels in 2008—but the KC Royals should avoid adding a 39-year old to the bullpen, especially one with his recent injuries.