http://kansascity.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/11/15/searching-for-the-bullpen-solution/ Just another Baseball Prospectus Local Sites site Mon, 19 Aug 2019 20:28:35 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1 http://kansascity.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/11/15/searching-for-the-bullpen-solution/#comment-40977 Fri, 16 Nov 2018 13:00:29 +0000 http://kansascity.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=44156#comment-40977 […] Craig wrote about the Royals bullpen roles yesterday and the KC Baseball Vault team talked about them on the podcast that you can click the links to read and listen to respectively, but I wanted to weigh in as well. Some of my thoughts will likely overlap, but that’s okay. I think the Royals do have an opportunity to find a way to build a really effective pitching staff with the talent they have, which is something we’ve talked about a little bit over the last few months. In guys like Jorge Lopez, Heath Fillmyer, Eric Skoglund and even Jakob Junis and Danny Duffy, the Royals have pitchers who I think you can count on for at least six outs in a big moment in games. I know that’s weird to include a couple of those guys in there, but even Skoglund flashed a really good curve at times and if he can figure out how to get some consistency out of that, his long arms can make him a big weapon with that pitch. They’ll still need starters. I don’t think it’s sustainable to not have anyone shooting for 175-200 innings in a rotation, but I do believe the Royals talent on hand puts them in a great position to take advantage of some unorthodox thoughts. Think about opening a game with someone like Duffy and stacking with righties and letting him go three or four and then moving on to Junis to finish things out against all these righties with his nasty slider. That’s just one example, but I do think the Royals would do well to find a different approach as they’re rebuilding looking toward their next contender. And for those who say Ned Yost is too rigid, I do agree that it might be a factor, but I always go back to him being the one to put Alex Gordon in the leadoff spot, which made all sorts of sense, but was seemingly out of character for Ned. That’s not to say it proves he’s forward thinking, but it does prove that he can be, so we’ll see, I guess. […]

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