KC Royals: 3 arbitration players that won't be back for the 2024 season

Change is coming to Kansas City. It has to. The KC Royals are below .500 for the seventh season in a row and last in a woeful AL Central. Faces are changing in the front office, experienced ballplayers may be on the move, but more change is needed at 1 Royal Way.

The KC Royals need pitching help, but not from these three.

The MLB roster shifts in many different ways through the offseason. One way that the Royals and other teams retain players is through arbitration. The gritty of that process is this: players under team control negotiate with the team and determine their salary for the upcoming season. Third parties and counsel can get involved with the negotiations later on down the road, but it boils down to players talking salary with the team who own their playing rights.

In some cases, a team can non-tender a player if they think his arbitration raise is greater than his worth in the coming season. For example, the Royals non-tendered Jake Brentz and Nate Webb last offseason. That opened two spots on the 40-man roster and made them free agents.

Looking at the pitching side of the house, there are some clear non-tender candidates in Kansas City. General Manager J.J. Picollo said that both the bullpen and rotation needed improvements ahead of the 2024 season. The idea of addition by subtraction exists everywhere, even in the MLB. MLB Trade Rumors published their projected arbitration salaries, thanks to Matt Swartz's formula. Who are some players the Royals will be better without paying in 2024?

Taylor Hearn

Projected arbitration salary: $1,700,000

Let's get this one out of the way. There was no positive way to slice reliever Taylor Hearn's time in Kansas City. It started with the Royals acquiring him shortly after he was designated for assignment by sending away fan-favorite Nicky Lopez. That trade happened nearly three months ago, but fans have not forgiven the Royals for that move still.

Hearn had a deep hole to dig out of with Royals fans. He only dug deeper once he took the mound. He made his Royals debut on August 10 in a losing effort against the Boston Red Sox. He allowed his first run two days later against the St. Louis Cardinals, then the wheels fell off a week after he made his debut. All told, Hearn was a net negative pitcher in a Royals uniform.

FanGraphs has a statistic called shutdowns and meltdowns. Shutdowns are good for pitchers when they increase their team's winning percentage by a certain amount. The opposite is meltdowns, where the pitcher is a negative contributor. In Hearn's eight appearances, he had no shutdowns and three meltdowns. That is hardly a positive look.

How can the Royals justify paying him nearly $2 million next season? They can't. He was a below-replacement pitcher with no peripheral metrics to say he would turn things around. Kansas City was his third organization this season for a reason.

The Royals bullpen is bad, but Hearn only made it worse in his limited time.

Josh Taylor

Projected arbitration salary: $1,300,000

Out of all the veteran relievers optioned to Triple-A Omaha to start this season, Josh Taylor had the best season of all of them. That is not saying much though. Philosopher Michael Scott once said, "The only time I set that bar low is for limbo." Well, that group set the bar even lower.

The Red Sox sent Taylor to the Royals in exchange for former top prospect, shortstop Adalberto Mondesi. Like this list, Mondesi was set to see a raise in arbitration and the Royals likely did not see his worth and jettisoned the maligned infielder. It is hard to believe that the Royals likely won this trade, as Mondesi did not play an inning for the Red Sox in 2023.

Once Taylor made his Royals debut, he was a pleasant surprise. He had some meltdown performances, such as a three-run inning surrendered to the Baltimore Orioles on May 2 or the subsequent two-run inning against the Oakland Athletics three days later. But he struck out batters at a great pace in his first 15 games, fanning 34% of opposing batters. He still walked 11% of batters, but it was a great tradeoff for him throwing 65% of his pitches for strikes.

When a pitcher suddenly struggles, it usually signals the worst. Taylor had back-to-back multi-run outings in late May. His fastball lost velocity, his location was not as sharp, and Taylor just did not look like himself. He made his last appearance for the Royals on May 27. Kansas City placed him on the 15-day IL the next day, citing left shoulder impingement. A month later, MLB.com's Anne Rogers reported that Taylor needed surgery on his lower back.

That is the last that we have heard of Taylor. Ne rehab, no bullpens, nothing. Taylor missed all of 2022 with a lower back strain, making the surgery and his limited availability over two seasons a major concern. I am not opposed to the Royals re-signing him to a minor-league deal, but paying him arbitration money seems like a sizeable gamble with little payoff.