9 2021 KC Royals are gone, but how are they doing?

The inevitable change baseball’s winter brings didn’t bypass the KC Royals. Once the 2021 season ended, and despite a three-month transaction freeze wrought by the lockout, the Royals reunited with veteran starter Zack Greinke and picked up some free agent pitchers.

And they lost some players.

Gone to retirement, and deserving of induction into the club’s Hall of Fame, is reliever and former franchise hero Wade Davis.

And the Royals didn’t bring back hurlers Greg Holland, Mike Minor, Kyle Zimmer, Scott Blewett, Ervin Santana and Jakob Junis, or infielder Hanser Alberto and first baseman-outfielder Ryan McBroom.

Where are those players now? How are they doing?

Three former KC Royals pitchers aren’t working while another is trying to.

Despite some recent success, the woes of Kansas City’s starting rotation are such that a spring training trade the club made with Cincinnati was at least mildly surprising.

The deal came two days before the Royals’ first Cactus League game and sent starter Mike Minor, who was preparing for the final year of his two-year KC contract, to the Reds for reliever Amir Garrett. Unfortunately for Minor, and while Garrett hasn’t surrendered a run in five appearances, Minor soon suffered shoulder soreness, landed on the Injured List, and hasn’t thrown a big league pitch this season. He gave up six runs on five hits (including two homers) in a rehab appearance for Double-A Chattanooga two weeks ago and continues working toward a return to the Reds.

Greg Holland elected free agency after the 2021 season and was on the Rangers’ roster for 12 days earlier this month, but the club DFA’d him and he hit the free agent market again after going 0-1 and giving up five runs in 4.2 innings.

Yet to catch on with a big league organization are pitchers Jesse Hahn and Ervin Santana, although Santana went 2-1 with a 3.86 in five starts for Lucey in the Dominican Winter League.

Two pitchers who were with the KC Royals last year now toil on the farm.

It’s been almost 10 years since Kansas City used its first pick of the 2012 draft on righthanded pitcher Kyle Zimmer. Little did the Royals know Zimmer would never meet expectations.

Zimmer was inconsistent and hampered by injuries during the six full seasons he spent in the minors before the Royals gave him his first big league shot in 2019. He appeared 15 times for the club that year but gave up 22 runs in 18.1 innings.

He was much better, though, in 2020 when he posted a 16-game 1.57 ERA and claimed his first major league win, and appeared to be finally reaching his potential when he went 4-0 with a 3.57 ERA in the first half of last season.

The second half was a far different story. Opponents battered him for 18 runs—15 of them earned for a 7.23 ERA—in 18.2 innings.

He finished the year 4-1, 4.83, but it wasn’t good enough for Kansas City. As part of their late-November moves to set the 40-man roster for Rule 5 draft purposes, the Royals DFA’d and then released him.

Zimmer, however, caught on with Cincinnati during spring training. He’s now pitching for the Reds’ Louisville Triple-A affiliate and, working exclusively in relief, is 1-1 with a 6.00 ERA and nine walks in six innings.

Scott Blewett spent seven years in the Royals’ organization but didn’t get to Kansas City until 2020, when he pitched in two games and struck out four and gave up a pair of runs in three innings. The Royals used him three times last season; he fanned another four and allowed only a run in five frames.

Blewett became a free agent after the season and signed with the White Sox earlier this month. He’s 0-0, 5.40 in three starts for Birmingham, Chicago’s Double-A club.

Nine players left the Royals after last season. One retired, others have found new teams, and some are looking for new clubs.