Payroll talk is a necessary evil for a team in a market like Kansas City, but we get tired of it. We’ve talked about the payroll here at BP Kansas City quite a bit, mostly because of the comments made by Dayton Moore at his season-ending press conference. I still don’t buy it. Craig Brown has highlighted why you shouldn’t buy it either. That said, one of the tasks the Royals have set out for themselves is to rebuild their 2017 bullpen to look more like the 2013-2015 units than the group that seemed to wear down in 2016. Sure they could just go out and spend top dollar on Kenley Jansen to pair with Wade Davis, but that doesn’t do much to keep payroll from skyrocketing.
So how do they build this bullpen on a budget? I am so glad you asked.
It starts with trading Davis. Say what? Yes, that’s right. The Royals want to rebuild their bullpen and I’m telling you to trade one of the best relievers in the whole game? No, I’m not crazy. Okay, I am, but not for this. I went over the reasons to trade Wade last week. I’ll give you a quick overview. I believe the Royals have a top flight closer in place in Kelvin Herrera to take over for Davis after he’s traded. Because of that, if the team is trying to be conscious of the budget, trading him makes sense to replace his spot on the roster with someone cheaper in a less prominent role.
So anyway, you’ve got Herrera in the closer’s role, and in this scenario, I’m sticking Matt Strahm in the bullpen for the entirety of the 2017 season. As I’ve said before, I let him develop there by dominating hitters and then start the 2018 season in the rotation where he can hopefully continue to dominate. So that’s two of seven needed. The nice thing about Strahm is that since he started for much of the season in the minors and there’ll be an eye on making sure he’s ready to start in 2018, he can be counted on for multiple innings at times. That should help the bullpen from a depth perspective.
Then you have Joakim Soria still under contract. Yeah, I heard that collective groan, but what can you do? The deal is signed and I can’t imagine there’s a team willing to take that on without the Royals either taking on some of the salary or eating a bad contract. Maybe the Dodgers would do it, but you’d have to include a high-end prospect to make it worth their while, and then it’s probably not worth it for the Royals.
Anyway, that’s three guys who will make a combined roughly $14 million. There’s also Chris Young looming. He’s owed $5.75 million. I imagine he’ll get another crack at the starting rotation, and maybe his core surgery he underwent a few weeks ago will help to solve his issues. I’m skeptical, but hey, it’s the season of hope or something. I’m calling Young a reliever for the time being, which means that’s four guys for $19.75 million or so.
Let’s find three more guys who could be had for a relatively cheap deal. The key is obviously finding bargains. It’s scoping out the Ryan Madson and Joe Blanton-type deals. I’ve seen a lot of people at least mention Drew Storen. Honestly, I love the idea, but he’s a year removed from saving 29 games and two years removed from a 1.12 ERA in 65 games. I’m not saying he won’t be cheaper than you’d expect for that kind of production, but he probably won’t be a bargain either, not after he showed something in his late season time in Seattle.
The first one who comes to mind is a former Royal who hasn’t thrown a pitch for anyone since his last with Kansas City, and that’s Greg Holland. You remember Greg, right? He’s the guy who from 2011-2014 threw 256.1 innings with a 1.86 ERA and struck out about four times as many batters as he walked. He also 113 out of 124 saves, and even that number is a little misleading because a few of those blown saves were before he was closer.
Anyway, he’ll be 18 months out of Tommy John surgery when the 2017 season opens up, which is pretty much the perfect recovery time. If the Royals are trading Davis, they would do well to bring back a potential closer in a high-quality arm like Holland’s. I’m thinking a two-year deal with a mutual option, so maybe two years, $11 million with a third year mutual option for $11 million and a $3 million buyout. Go $3 million in 2017 and now we’re at $22.75 million for five pitchers.
But still, we need to find cheaper options for the final two spots. For my money (and I guess ownership’s money too), I’ll take Brian Flynn for a middle relief role. He posted a 2.60 ERA in 55.1 innings, but that ERA was misleading as he had one disaster start when the Royals had a need. He had a 2.21 ERA in 35 relief outings, but what I like about him so much is his ability to go multiple innings. He gave up just 34 hits in 53 relief innings. No, he’s not dominant, but he’d be one of the best fifth or sixth relievers in baseball.
It’s incredibly difficult to predict who could replicate the success of some of the bargain basement finds Dayton Moore has made over the years. I don’t think people expected great things out of Robinson Tejeda, for example, but the guy gave the Royals 181 innings of a 3.57 ERA. But I can tell you that someone like Carlos Torres would be worth a small deal of $2 million or so (though he had a good season and may fetch more). Or even Jacob Turner, who has been just awful, but a guy with a 95 MPH power sinker could be a nice complement to a bullpen that doesn’t have a ton of ground ball pitchers. It’s nice to be able to call on someone to get the double play.
Of course, there’s also the idea of just re-signing Peter Moylan. It sure seems like Ned Yost and the gang liked what he brought to the table and he had a ground ball rate of over 60 percent last season, so he’d fit that mold well. Maybe give him $2 million or so and now you’ve built a bullpen of Herrera, Strahm, Holland, Soria, Moylan, Flynn and Young for just about $26 million.
And now the problem is clear. With Herrera projected to make more than $5 million and Soria set to make $8 million, there’s no real way to build this bullpen on a shoestring budget. Maybe there could be a young reliever in part of the return for Davis, but in all likelihood, they’re going to have spend a little to bulk up a bullpen that wore down.
So no, it’s not the cheapest bullpen possible, but combine the pitchers listed above with guys like Andrew Edwards, Josh Staumont and others in the system and the depth is there. Maybe still take a flyer on Turner and have him working with the staff that churns out great relievers like it’s going out of style. I guess the point here is that it can be done relatively well but probably not as well as you’d hope, and I think the bullpen listed above has a chance to be pretty darn good. A lot depends on Holland returning to be at least 80 to 85 percent of his old self, but I think that’s a good risk to take. With the starting rotation, the bullpen is going to be extremely important to this team once again, and you can’t really put a price on that.