4 big roster changes the KC Royals should make for 2024

Not even their recent seven-game winning streak, the longest the KC Royals have put together since 2017, can hide any of this distressing season's ugliness. The club is 41 games under .500 after losing two of three games in Philadelphia over the weekend and has little, if any, chance of overtaking fourth-place Chicago to avoid finishing last in the American League Central.

These Royals aren't good, or anywhere close to it. They'll probably win 50 games, but might not. The pitching isn't consistently satisfactory, nor is the hitting. And because the present big league roster won't produce any measurable improvement next season. general manager J.J. Picollo must be ready to make significant changes when baseball's winter arrives.

Here are four players (besides Taylor Clarke and Matt Duffy, identified recently by Kings of Kauffman's Jacob Milham as players who should have been traded last week but weren't) who shouldn't return.

The KC Royals shouldn't bring back starting pitcher Jordan Lyles next year

Saying Jordan Lyles is having a bad first year in Kansas City states the obvious. Signed as a free agent last December, he didn't win a game until June 24 and has won only twice since. And he triumphed in those two appearances despite giving up eight runs in 10.2 innings. His 3-12 record really is as bad as it looks—he's tied with teammate Zack Greinke and Colorado's Kyle Freeland for the most losses in the majors this year. His 6.24 ERA exceeds his career 5.20 by more than a run.

Lyles' numbers don't warrant another season with the Royals, but the two-year contract under which he's set to make $8.5 million next year does unless the club can move it. To do so and make room for younger hurlers, the Royals need to find a willing trade partner, in which case they may have to pay at least part of Lyles' 2024 salary, or let him go and potentially eat it all.

Following either course is something the Royals should do.

The KC Royals also shouldn't bring back starting pitcher Zack Greinke

This one hurts. A lot. But it's time for the Royals to gracefully part ways with Greinke, the probable future Hall of Famer with whom they reunited last season and re-signed just before spring training began this year.

Why? Because Greinke really isn't Greinke anymore, not the dominating hurler he was as recently as 2021 when he went 11-6 for the American League pennant-winning Astros. Since then, he's pitched only for the Royals, for whom he's 5-21 (1-12 this year) after losing to Philadelphia Sunday.

To be fair, a frustrating lack of run support plagues Greinke from time to time, but pitchers don't lose 16 of 26 decisions because of poor run support alone. As his 5.53 ERA this season proves, Greinke must shoulder much of the blame. Sunday marked the fifth time in 21 starts that he's given up five or more runs (he handed the Phillies five), and he's yielded six once, seven twice, and four four times. Opponents are hitting .286 against him.

Unfortunately, much of the magic is gone from the tank that's propelled the 20-year major league veteran to 224 career wins. No longer can the Royals assume Greinke, who turns 40 in October, will provide consistently good starts.

Perhaps Greinke, who knows himself and his pitching better than anyone, will retire; unless he soon recaptures some of his old magic, that would make sense.

But under any circumstance, saying goodbye to Greinke will be hard.

The KC Royals shouldn't pursue Brad Keller after he becomes a free agent

Although he's been a Royal since 2018, cutting ties with Brad Keller should be easy. He is, after all, not invaluable or untouchable—instead, he's the most unsolvable of the Royals' many pitching mysteries, the hurler who owns a pair of club Pitcher of the Year awards but can't put together two consecutive consistent seasons.

Splitting time between the rotation and bullpen in 2019, Keller went 9-6 with a 3.08 ERA to win his first Bruce Rice Pitcher of the Year award, then slumped to 7-14, 4.19 in 2019 before repeating as the Pitcher of the Year with a 5-3, 2.47 effort in the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign.

But then came two straight unsightly Keller seasons, 8-12, 5.39 in 2021 and 6-14, 5.09 last year. And he was 3-4, 4.36 this season, and had been battered for 11 runs in his last 13 innings, before shoulder issues forced him to the Injured List in mid-May. Keller then spent nearly the maximum-allowed 30 days on a minor league rehab assignment, giving up 17 runs in nine innings, before the Royals called him back to Kansas City without activating him.

Whether he returns to action this season remains to be seen. Injury-shortened campaigns aren't new to Keller: arm fatigue caused the Royals to shut him down in late August of the 2019 season, and a right lat issue meant he didn't pitch past August in 2021.

He also becomes a free agent after the World Series. Given his erratic performance and unfortunate late-season injury history, he's someone Kansas City shouldn't pursue.