With the first year of a rebuild in the books, and contention seemingly far in the future, it’s not a surprise the Royals list is thin and relatively uninspiring. All told, they have six arbitration eligible players on their roster. Odds are strong the club will non-tender most of this list.

The Royals have close to $67 million committed to five players for 2019, but are reportedly dicing payroll into the $85 to $90 million territory. That means every dollar counts. 

Brandon Maurer
2017 Salary – $2,950,000
2018 Estimate – $3,100,000

Maurer’s claim to fame is last winter he became the first player on Dayton Moore’s watch to go all the way to the arbitration hearing. He lost. Still, he pocketed a cool sum of cash in a season he provided an 8.9 K/9, a 7.2 BB/9 and a 2.0 HR/9 while posting a -0.5 WARP. Really, pick your metric. He stunk up any ballpark where he took to the mound.

He’s eligible for arbitration for the second time and is coming off the worst season of his career. In his best seasons, he’s a decent reliever. Averagish, if we can coin a term. In other words, he’s the kind of guy you sign in February as you’re in the final stages of piecing together a bullpen for a million or two and hope he can keep you in the game in the sixth inning. He’s not someone a rebuilding team needs to tender a contract to.

The guess here is he’s non-tendered and picked up by a mid-level team early in spring training.

Wily Peralta
2017 Salary – $1,500,000
2018 Estimate – $2,800,000

There’s always one. Peralta’s contract makes this an interesting conversation. He signed last year to a one year deal with a club option for $3 million with a low $25,000 buyout. Peralta entered last season with just under five years of service time which means the Royals could decline the option, pay the buyout and proceed through the arbitration process. In other words, could Peralta get more than the $3 million coming to him by entering arbitration?

MLB Trade Rumors takes the under. It’s not under by much, so is it worth it for the Royals to decline the option for a potential savings of around $200,000? Obviously, these are estimates so there’s no guarantee that Peralta would get the above amount. By the rate stats, Peralta wasn’t much better than Maurer: a 9.2 K/9, a 6.0 BB/9 and a 1.0 HR/9 along with a -0.5 WARP. But he saved 14 games for a team that lost 104 after spending almost half the season in the minors. Don’t forget in the arbitration process, counting stats like saves tip the scales rather disproportionately. He never blew a save, but pitched a clean inning in just four of his 14 opportunities.

The Royals of the Allard Baird era probably would’ve non-tendered Peralta to save money. The Moore era is decidedly different where the team generally does the right thing. We can debate whether or not bringing Peralta back at that amount is a good move, but there’s a very small chance the Royals will go this route to save a few dollars. They will pick up his option for 2019 at $3 million.

Jesse Hahn
2017 Salary – $574,000
2018 Estimate – $1,700,000

That’s quite a bump for a pitcher who threw only six innings in the minors last year. Hahn had surgery to repair his UCL sometime around early August with a timetable for his return estimated at around six months. If everything goes according to plan, he should be ready to go at the start of spring training. 

The Royals don’t have the luxury to wait to later in the rehab process to see how things are going. But health has always been a concern and he’s coming off unproven surgery for his injury. Plus, the most innings he’s ever thrown in a season is 115, back in 2014. He seems a candidate for a non-tender where the Royals negotiate a smaller contract with some incentives he could reach if healthy.

Nathan Karns
2017 Salary – $1,375,000
2018 Estimate – $1,375,000

All even for Karns who, like Hahn, had his season entirely short-circuited by injury. He had thoracic outlet surgery in July off 2017 and, after making a few appearances early in spring training, missed all of last year with an elbow injury. 

His stuff is tantalizing and his injury history is depressing. He’s another non-tender candidate who the Royals could bring back on a smaller deal as Karns needs to prove he’s healthy enough to get back on the field.

Cheslor Cuthbert
2017 Salary – $573,500
2018 Estimate – $1,100,000

We won’t blame you if you forgot about Cuthbert. He’s missed time over the last couple of seasons with foot, wrist and back issues. And when he’s been in the lineup… Ugh. Let’s just be kind to the infirm and say .215/.278/.313 over the last couple of seasons (and .252/.303/.378 in 830 career plate appearances) doesn’t get the job done. 

But the third base spot is up for grabs. Hunter Dozier didn’t play well enough to earn it for next year and there’s no one ready in the wings. The Royals could throw some money at Cuthbert and let him and Dozier battle it out. Plus, this estimate feels high given his injury history and lack of production. But when the estimate is already that low, we’re just quibbling over a couple thousand of dollars.

Brian Flynn
2017 Salary – $573,500
2018 Estimate – $1,000,000

Flynn is young, left-handed and has had decent success in the two seasons where he saw extended action out of the bullpen. At this price, he’s worth it to keep around for the bullpen depth. With a 5.6 K/9, a 4.2 BB/9 and 0.6 HR/9 last summer, he was the kind of reliever who you don’t necessarily want to give valuable innings to, but there’s still a place in a bullpen for someone like Flynn. 

The guess here is the Royals will tender him a contract for 2019.

Assuming the Royals tender Flynn and exercise the option on Peralta, that would push the 2019 payroll to around $71 million for seven players. If we’re to believe the Royals are serious about bringing payroll down to under $90 million, that leaves at most $19 million for the remaining 18 players. It’s certainly doable, but that just sets up the offseason to be one of the most boring winters in recent memory. 

For awhile, the bullpen wasn’t so much the problem as three pitchers – Blaine Boyer, Jason Grimm and Brandon Maurer. That’s actually still true. Just look at these numbers for fun.

Whole Team

Sans MGB

Even though 13 percent of the bullpen’s innings brought the unit’s ERA up a full point, I don’t think it’s fair to say this bullpen is actually any good if you exclude those three. For one, Maurer is still on the team and he’s even thrown four straight scoreless innings somehow. Plus, the same 13 percent of innings going the other way belong to Kelvin Herrera who isn’t even on the team anymore and Brad Keller who is now in the starting rotation. So let’s just say that even though those three are a big ol’ gas can, the bullpen is still a problem. In fact, take a look at the numbers without Herrera and Keller:

So yeah, losing Keller and Herrera from the bullpen hurts quite a bit. Just for fun, here’s what the current crop of relievers have done this year:

All this makes me think back to Dayton Moore’s statements about how he’s embarrassed by this season and how they’re going to do better in 2019. The Royals are 34-78. The bullpen has been responsible for 24 losses. Some of them are not their fault, but they’ve given up leads in 12 games and lost 12 tie games. The offense shoulders some of this blame, but this isn’t about them. This is about the bullpen that is one of the worst we’ve seen in a long time in Kansas City. I’m just pulling a number out of thin air here, but even an average bullpen probably wins, let’s say, six of the games with a  blown lead. And maybe pulls out four of the 12 ties. I’m not even talking about a good bullpen, but an average one. So give the Royals 12 more wins and they’re 46-66. They’re still horrible, still picking top five or six next year, but it’s less disheartening.

Those numbers are exactly why I believe the Royals are going to do something silly and spend some money or player collateral on the bullpen. I understand to some extent. At least a portion of developing big leaguers is winning games, and this bullpen is a deterrent to winning games. And if the Royals end up trading for some long-term assets in the bullpen, I’ll be a lot more okay with that than if they try to make a free agent splash. So what could the 2019 bullpen look like?

Let’s start with the incumbents. The Royals best three relievers right now are, I hope you’re sitting, Kevin McCarthy, Brian Flynn and Wily Peralta. All have been fine, but none of those three should ever be better than maybe the fourth best reliever in a bullpen. I think they all have their place in a big league bullpen if there aren’t better options, but they need to do better. Glenn Sparkman and Jason Adam have shown flashes of being acceptable as well, though Adam obviously allows too many home runs right now and I think Sparkman falls in the same category as the first three eventually.

There are a couple minor league options. Richard Lovelady is the obvious here, and I think he’ll be up in the big leagues soon enough and it’s pretty clear he’s part of the future plans. Josh Staumont has been in the rotation and the bullpen this year, but as a reliever has excelled in many ways this year. The issue is that he’s still walking way too many with 35 in 44.2 innings out of the bullpen. Still, 65 strikeouts in that time is pretty attractive. And they also have Jorge Lopez, who they received in the Mike Moustakas deal. The Royals are figuring out his role right now, but I’ll play spoiler and tell you he ends up in the bullpen. He hasn’t been good yet and has control issues like Staumont, but a 95 MPH fastball and a plus curve could be a nice combination.

Looking to free agents, I could see the Royals signing a guy to close with the idea of maybe flipping him in July. Cody Allen is out there and maybe his struggles push him to a team like the Royals, but I still think he gets a deal with a contender. David Robertson will be a free agent, but I can’t imagine he’ll enjoy going from a team like the Yankees to the Royals unless he’s desperate to get a closer’s job and nobody else is offering one. Your better bets here are guys like John Axford, Brad Brach, Brad Ziegler or maybe someone like Justin Wilson.

And looking at some trade targets, maybe they see if they can get Ken Giles right if he doesn’t do well in Toronto. The Mariners are always a possibility to trade with and they have Alex Colome setting up for Edwin Diaz and might want some youth somewhere. I bet the Rockies would gladly move away from their Bryan Shaw deal. Or their Jake McGee deal. Or their Wade Davis deal. That’s a lot of money to absorb in any of those deals, so they’re unlikely, but you never know what can be worked out.

The point is, right or wrong, the Royals are probably going to be making some bullpen moves unless a few players step up over the last couple months of the season. I don’t think they’ll be spending huge money or anything, but it’s difficult to look at what this bullpen has done so far and how Dayton Moore feels about this season and not think there are changes coming. Is it worth it to win 71 games instead of 64? I don’t believe it is, but I have a feeling the front office disagrees and they get the final say for better or for worse.

I had some real nice stuff here about the Royals making some progress and starting the second half with some fire and vigor and the appearance that they’d like to be a semi-respectable baseball team again and for eight innings, that looked to be the case.

Eleven pitches into Brandon Maurer’s relief effort and that was no longer the case.

The Royals have made a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but Monday night’s effort was particularly cruel. There was good pitching. There was some outright sterling defense. There was solid hitting up and down the lineup. And then Maurer showed up and it was over in a matter of moments. One dude crapped it away for the other 24 and that, more than anything else, is why Brandon Maurer has to go. Losing is one thing. Losing when 24 guys did everything they had to in order to win and one didn’t is something else.

Tonight it was Heath Fillmyer’s turn to be the hero… or would’ve been, if his trash bullpen had allowed things to work out for him. Making his second start, the righty turned in a solid performance, going 6.2 innings and striking out six while scattering three hits and allowing just two runs.

That’s going to sound like Fillmyer was out here missing bats and making life easy for the eight guys behind him, but that’s not quite the truth. In fact, the defense made Fillmyer’s life considerably easier, starting in the first inning with a 6-4-3 double play, continuing on Hunter Dozier’s diving stop an inning later and culminating in first baseman Salvador Perez (yep) making a behind-the-back flip to Fillmyer for an out in the fifth and Whit Merrifield nailing a cross-body throw to Perez to get Jose Iglesias by a millimeter two batters later.

Offensively, Lucas Duda did most of the heavy lifting, driving in all three early runs thanks to a two-run single in the first and another in the fifth to score Jorge Bonifacio after his double. The Royals pounded out 13 hits against the Tigers, who are bad at pitching, but then the Royals are pretty bad at hitting; they’d take 13 hits against a quality Double-A team some nights.

By the time Alcides Escobar ranged deep in the hole to backhand a Nick Castellanos bouncer and make the play at first to start the seventh, the Royals were collectively just showing off defensively. Fillmyer nearly got out of the seventh, but a walk to Victor Martinez and a bloop single by Jim Adduci got him a trip to the showers; Kevin McCarthy allowed a James McCann single to score Martinez, then moved Adduci and McCann up 90 feet after Drew Butera allowed a ball to get away. Then Iglesias singled to plate Adduci. 3-2 game. Bullpen making everyone nervous again.

But hey presto, the Royals got one back in the home half. Pinch-hitter Mike Moustakas greeted Daniel Stumpf with a double, then scored on a pinch-hit single by the recently-acquired Brian Goodwin. And McCarthy, rewarding Ned Yost for the trust I don’t think anyone else ever would’ve placed in him, got three groundouts in the eighth to keep the Tigers in check.

The Royals, by rights, should’ve added another run in the eighth. Butera led off with a single, moved to second on a Merrifield sac and then didn’t score… from second… on Rosell Herrera’s double. I’m not sure what Mike Jirschele did or did not see there and in the moment, it merely seemed odd rather than something the game turned because of.

But that’s the thing when you have Brandon Maurer in your bullpen—you can’t have too many runs. It followed a typical pattern of Maurer bed-crapping behavior. Jeimer Candelario led off with a bloop single, which always leads to rockets—Victor Martinez doubled into the rightfield corner, Adduci to the left. Eleven pitches, three hits, four strikes, two runs.

[ferrisbuellerlifecomesatyoufast.gif]

Jason Hammel, who also has seen better days, gave up a first-pitch double to McCann after replacing Maurer, which obviously he did. That put the Tigers ahead, and even though Hammel managed to get out of the inning with no further runs allowed, come on… you don’t think the Royals were coming back from that gut-punch, do you? Goodwin singled in the ninth, but that was that.

Your Tweet of Despair

It’s hard to put into words the rage that I feel when I see that Brandon Maurer is coming into pitch in the 9th inning in a close game. #Royals

— Jeremy C (@jayinlincoln) July 24, 2018

I hope Heath Fillmyer takes a big ol dump in Brandon Maurer’s hat. #Royals

— Brian Spano (@kcspano) July 24, 2018

Brandon Maurer was the pitcher Bob Uecker would get hits off of. #Royals

— sjpence (@sjpence) July 24, 2018

As you can see, we had some real contenders for tonight’s Tweet of Despair, and that’s not even including the ones I had to cull for swear words.

The Bright Spot: How’s about Goodwin riding into town and collecting two hits on his first night? How about Butera going 3-for-3 and sniffing .200 for the first time in a while? How about Lucas Duda driving in three runs and continuing to look like enticing trade bait?

The Nadir: WELL I WONDER WHAT IT COULD POSSIBLY BE TONIGHT.

The Next Step: If you’re not careful, this is the sort of kick to the collective sternum that sets off a time-wide funk and lengthy losing streak. Burch Smith will try to stop that by taking the ball tomorrow against Jordan Zimmermann, 7:15 p.m. (CT) in Kauffman.

Or something like that.

My concern here is that, since winning back-to-back pennants, the top brass at 1 Royal Way has had some noticeable whiffs—in fact, if not for the Jon Jay hijacking, which mostly amounted to trading an asset (Jay) at the height of its value for two lottery tickets (Elvis Luciano and Gabe Speier), the best they can claim to have done trade-wise is either moving around deck chairs on the Titanic (Brett Eibner for Billy Burns) or swapping players of similar stature and value (Alec Mills for Donnie Dewees). Or they’ve just taken a straight-out L.

The history is bleak. But we’re gonna get through this, just you and me and Johnnie Walker. Think about these deals in terms of what we know about the Royals and how Dayton Moore, Lonnie Goldberg and Co. operate. They’d rather have the guaranteed asset over perhaps holding out for asset appreciation (when their own asset could get hurt or become devalued) and they don’t mind paying 120 cents on the dollar to get their man (overslotting Brady Singer, although in the long run that might look like chump change if he pans out). It may not make sense, but you will start to see the pattern.

Jose Martinez for Cash – May 2016

Look, a fringe prospect on the wrong side of 25 years old and only able to give you corner outfield/first base/DH time does not have enormous value, and even I’m willing to grant that.

I also recall myriad holes real and imagined around surrounding the lineup at this time, with Paulo Orlando getting extended run in right field, Eric Hosmer’s impending free agency beckoning in two seasons, Kendrys Morales being old and just tons of opportunities forthcoming to take a flier on a guy who had just hit .357 with 13 homers and 97 RBI in the minors… and they just cut bait on Martinez. Since then, Martinez is a .304 hitter across parts of three big-league seasons in St. Louis. He’d probably hit fifth in Kansas City this season, and then nobody ever would’ve said, “Hey, I think we should go get Lucas Duda.”

Wade Davis for Jorge Soler – December 2016

I’m Team Jorge. Was at the time, remain so now. Using good arms to acquire quality bats, particularly when those quality bats are under team control for an extended period of time, is a good move.

I like Jorge and I’d rather have him over Davis. One might be on the next good Royals team, the other stood no chance of that and only the most pie-in-the-sky optimists regarding 2017 ever thought otherwise. Don’t trust them. Trust me. Trust Jorge.

Then envision a scenario where the Cubs call in December inquiring about Wade Davis’ services. Names and numbers are exchanged. Ultimately, Dayton says thanks but we’re going to sit on him for now, we’ll pick this up if/when we’re out of the race.

Fast-forward to mid-July. The Cubs, boasting a back end of the ‘pen featuring Carl Edwards, Pedro Strop and Hector Rondon, are desperate to keep the chance of a repeat alive. The Royals are the Royals. Soler is still on the table; but now, so is Victor Caratini. Or Duane Underwood Jr. Heck, maybe Justin Steele. Or maybe another contender has a Godfather offer on the table because they NEED a closer and have better offerings than the Cubs. My point is that you don’t have to do that in December.

But, you cry, what if Davis gets hurt?

Then Herrera is your big chip and you start a bidding war for him. This isn’t hard, gang.

Jarrod Dyson for Nate Karns – January 2017

The logic is sound. Karns is younger, he has a relatively high ceiling and his best is better than Dyson’s, a speedster with a glove who can do those things and not much else.

Karns also can’t stop getting hurt and probably won’t be seen again until 2019 at the earliest, when he’ll be in his age-31 season. Here’s been his starts by season since 2013 across all levels:

• 2013: 26
• 2014: 29
• 2015: 26
• 2016: 15
• 2017: 8
• 2018: 0

This is a bad trend. On the flip side, Dyson has obviously regressed, as speedsters tend to do as they enter their mid-30s, but he remains a solid defensive presence and can steal you a base at any point.

Let’s put it another way: if everyone were healthy, the Royals would trot out Bonifacio, Gordon, Jorge Soler, Whit Merrifield, Adalberto Mondesi, Mike Moustakas, Alcides Escobar, Sal Perez and Hunter Dozier as a semiregular lineup in some combination. There’s an alternate universe where that is Bonifacio, Gordon, Whit, Mondesi, Moose, Soler, Sal, Jose Martinez and Dyson (giving the #NeverEsky camp a real win); a swap of Dyson and Martinez for Dozier and Escobar* makes a bad lineup suddenly semi-intriguing, with speed and hitting and even some defense!

(*–to make this work, it’s Sal, Whit, ‘BERTO and Dyson up the middle, Martinez and Moose on the infield corners, Gordon in left and the Jorge’s alternating between DH and right field.)

Again… the logic here was sound. Get younger, get team control, acquire proven pitching because you never know with pitchers. But what Dyson meant—as the bombastic hype man, the clubhouse presence and veteran swagger—couldn’t be replaced. He might not have made this team a contender, but if there was one guy to stand a deliver a Blutarsky (“What’s all this lying around s***!?”), it would’ve been Dyson.

Brandon Maurer, Ryan Buchter and Trevor Cahill for Esteury Ruiz and Matt Strahm – July 2017

Ruiz is the 11^th-ranked prospect in the Padres system and Strahm had carved out a role for himself before his patellar tendon exploded last season and is in the process of doing so again in 2018 in San Diego.

Cahill was a bust in Kansas City, Buchter went to Oakland as Brandon Moss Tax and Maurer is unplayable. Other than that, good trade. I’m still mad about this and unlikely to get over it for some time. Never, ever, evereverever, EVER give up on a toolsy 18-year old to rent three pitchers unless one of them is in-his-prime Bob Gibson or comparable.

Melky Cabrera for AJ Puckett and Andre Davis – July 2017

I’d put it at probable-to-likely that neither Puckett nor Davis ever turn into anything of significance at the big-league level, but the Royals elected to send both to a division rival in order to… block one of their only promising young players from regular playing time.

This was stupid at the time, even if you did think the Royals might snag a Wild Card spot in 2017 (if you do think that, for real I would like to sell you some waterfront property I own in Idaho. Gorgeous stuff, real steal); Cabrera hit 14 points better than Bonifacio and had no power. A year later, one’s languishing in Triple-A and the other just returned after a PED suspension. You’ll never guess who!

Scott Alexander and Joakim Soria in three-teamer that netted Erick Mejia and Trevor Oaks – January 2018

Another example of panic-trading when it wasn’t necessary. Soria (relatively) struggled in 2017, but he also has a long history of success at the big-league level and could be a trade chip in July. Alexander is a left-handed pitcher who can throw hard, so those guys will always hold some value.

Oaks has exhibited nothing to this point to make me think he’ll ever be much more than a Quad-A player. Mejia is 23 years old, has five career at-bats above Double-A and is on his third organization. I think they could’ve done better than that six months later unless Alexander robbed a liquor store.

Miguel Almonte for cash – April 2018

INT. A hospital room, many years from now. DAVID LESKY lays in a hospital bed, surrounded by family, including his 11 grandchildren. He beckons the youngest to come closer, hoping to impart a last bit of wisdom.

LESKY: [hoarse whisper] Th… the Royals kept Blaine Boyer and DFA’d Miguel Almonte.

FIN.

Kelvin Herrera for Kelvin Gutierrez, Blake Perkins and Yohanse Morel – June 2018

“Meh,” is not the reaction you hope baseball has when you cash in your one sure-fire trade chip 45 days early, but that seems to be what the baseball world has decided.

Gutierrez and Perkins were mid-tier prospects before the draft; Clint Scoles, Royals Prospect Guru™, when reached via Slack, said he’d put Gutierrez around 15^th and Perkins outside the top-30, post-draft, and Clint knows more about this than anybody, so I trust his judgement.

Morel could be something; he really could! He’s also 17 years old and has thrown 15 professional innings. But nobody knows; it would be cool if the Royals got one guy for a valuable closer that seemed likely to contribute before 2021, if at all.

The upshot here is that things could’ve been better for the Royals had they elected to eat some of Herrera’s money as the cost of doing business. Instead, they give plate appearance bonuses to Escobar for hitting .195. I’ll never understand baseball.

tl; dr: The Royals would rather make the safe move with a B- ceiling over the risky move with a D- floor and an A+ ceiling.

The Royals lost, they do that a lot. Tonight they lost in a way that was slightly different given how 2018 has gone—by planting hope against a far superior team and then squandering it away in predictably Royals fashion.

Fast-forward to the fourth inning, because Ian Kennedy and Lance McCullers Jr. didn’t allow much more than a couple of walks in the first three frames. That’s when the Royals broke through thanks to Hunter Dozier, who rewarded the trust placed in him—after all, he could’ve been sent down when Lucas Duda returned, but instead Paulo Orlando was optioned—with a three-run home run to score Salvador Perez and Alex Gordon, who each singled.

Kennedy gave two runs back in the home half. Jose Altuve’s one-out double started the troubles, which Kennedy compounded with a wild pitch that moved Altuve to third. Carlos Correa drove him in with a sac fly, then Yuli Gurriel drove a change-up into the Crawford Boxes for a solo homer.

A leadoff single by Mike Moustakas in the sixth, a one-out single by Josh Reddick in the seventh… victimless crimes, ultimately.

The Royals had a chance to add one in the ninth when Lucas Duda hit a one-out single and the fastest man on the team, Adalberto Mondesi, pinch-ran for him. Everyone in the building knew Mondesi was taking off sooner or later, none moreso than Brian McCann behind the plate. Mondesi got the jump and beat the ball there, but Carlos Correa channeled his inner Javier Baez and slapped a perfect tag on Mondesi—review ruled him out, and out he was. That made it 3-2 going into the ninth.

Where Brandon Maurer was given the ball. Royals Twitter was… displeased.

find somebody who loves you as much as Ned Yost loves pitching Brandon Maurer in high leverage spots

— Brandon H. (@BHIndepMO) June 24, 2018

Brandon Maurer but why #royals #raisedroyal

— wait wut (@theantifascist) June 24, 2018

Oh you have got to be kidding me with Brandon Maurer for a save chance

— Ryan Landreth (@ryan_landreth) June 24, 2018

On the one hand, you hate this move for all the baseball reasons you can think of—Maurer entered play with an 11.37 ERA and was in Omaha a couple weeks ago and had not ONCE looked like a professional pitcher of baseball’s this season. On the other, maybe if he looks competent for a few weeks, some sucker will take him off Kansas City’s hands.

This was not his fault.

I mean, it was his fault, because that’s what it says on the line score—the game-tying run was charged to Maurer, because those are baseball’s scoring rules. But what happened was less about him than it was about luck and baseball and how sometimes things just don’t go your way.

After Maurer gassed Correa—two upper-90s four-seamers, followed by two nasty sliders for the punchout—Gurriel dribbled (can’t really think of a better word for it) a grounder through the hole between Moustakas and Alcides Escobar for a single, followed by a duck-fart of a single to center from Josh Reddick that moved pinch-runner Jake Marisnick to third. All Evan Gattis had to do was lift a sac fly to tie the game, but he nearly won it had it not been for Alex Gordon’s catch-of-the-year candidate—given the difficulty and relative high stakes compared to what Kansas City usually encounters—that forced Reddick to scamper back to first. Maurer kept playing with fire by walking Marwin Gonzalez but a first-pitch ground out from McCann sent the game to extras.

Tenth inning… meh.

Eleventh inning… slightly more excitement, mostly of the Royals own construction. Alcides Escobar (the guy who has played 400+ straight games because of his flawless defense) short-hopped a throw that Dozier couldn’t corral at first to put Marisnick on, but after he was moved over on a Reddick bunt, he was stranded at second by a surprisingly competent Burch Smith (two innings of no-hit ball).

It all went haywire in the 12^th though. Collin McHugh struck out the side, so the Royals were playing for a tie regardless but of course the (Justin) Grimm Reaper struck again. After issuing a leadoff walk to George Springer, an Alex Bregman pop up got down behind Hunter Dozier and Ryan Goins and in front of Rosell Herrera, with Springer moving to third and Goins issued an error. Grimm put Altuve on but Correa delivered the walk-off blow to even the series.

Just did the math. Justin Grimm and Brandon Maurer appearing in the same game gives the @Royals a negative win probability.

— Seth Atkins (@SethAtkins) June 24, 2018

That kinda sucks. However…

And with that, the Kansas City Royals are the sole owners of last place overall in Major League Baseball This season has been success beyond our wildest dreams — Matt LaMar (@LaMar_Matt) June 24, 2018

The Bright Spot: Poor old Ian Kennedy. Seven innings, four hits, two earned, five strikeouts… and the best he can do is a no-decision. Get that man a scotch on the house. The Nadir: Whit Merrifield was 0-for-5 with four strikeouts, his first career four-K game as a big-leaguer. He had not struck out three times in a game this season prior to Saturday; in fact, he only had eight three-strikeout games in 298 career games. Whitley’s had better days.

Whit Merrifield had never struck out four times in a major-league game until now. But does the golden sombrero count if it’s donned in the 11th inning?

— Maria Torres (@maria_torres3) June 24, 2018

The Next Step: Jason Hammel faces a team that he owns a career 2.85 ERA against on Sunday, while Gerrit Cole comes in after getting an extra day off following his season-high 116 pitches on Monday. 1:10 p.m. (CT) at Minute Maid Park you could potentially see something special—a bad Royals team take a series off the defending champs.

Brandon Maurer and Blaine Boyer are is a bad pitchers and I’m really hopeful that they’ve he’s been DFA’d (or, frankly, outright cut loose) by the time you read this. But in the event that they haven’t he hasn’t been (Note: One down, one to go!), I want to illustrate for you, dear reader, how gut-punchingly bad they have he has been, both this season and through the larger arc of their his careers.

Blaine Boyer

Hello, precipitous decline in fastball velocity!

Boyer’s fastball is a tick below 92 mph, averaging 91.8 through the first threeish weeks. Of the 104 MLB relievers with 50 or more fastballs offered to this point in the season, it’s well below the league average (93.3) and 78^th overall, ahead of Nick Goody, Dan Jennings, Bobby Poyner and Warren G. Harding, the last of whom was the 29^th President of the United States, has been dead for almost 95 years and likely didn’t have a great fastball when he was alive.

Last year, Boyer threw 384 fastballs, averaging 94.2 mph. The year before, 92.8 on 573 pitches. The fastball might be washed, kids. The fastball doesn’t come back for 36-year olds unless MLB decides to suspend PED testing and if that happens, we’ll get my beautiful son Jorge Bonifacio back in the lineup and I won’t care what Blaine Boyer is up to anyway.

Should you (wrongly) think, “Well, Boyer has other offerings, just throw less of the fastball,” I’m here (rightly) to correct you. Boyer’s breaking ball may be one of the most hittable pitches in baseball. Here are the locations for balls in play off Boyer’s breaking offerings this year. They’ve averaged 90.4 exit velocity. Seven have gone for hits—that .500 average is fourth-worst in baseball.

The exit velocity on the breaker has climbed from 81.4 mph to 90.4 mph in three years. The opponent average (and I’ll cop to a small sample this year) has gone from .275 to .329 to .500. His spin rate (2470) is the highest it has been since StatCast started keeping track in 2015, so that’s likely not the issue at hand. Is Blaine Boyer bad? Sure seems like it!

Effective velocity vs. actual velocity? Nearly a mile per hour slower, tied for 159^th of 244 pitchers with at least 100 pitches to their credit. And that’s an improvement! Two years ago, the difference was a full mile per hour, in the wrong direction. Bad. This is bad. All of it. Wither Miguel Almonte?

Here is where I’d like to point out that Boyer has been BABIP’d half to death over the last couple of years, from .328 to .376 to an insane .444 this season. BABIP can be a nouveau riche stat depending on how long you’ve been analyzing some analyticals, and can still provide a useful 10,000-foot view of a situation like Boyer’s (because, again, he’s bad), but it doesn’t take much effort to separate fact from fiction. Isolating line drives from other plate results, we find some things.

1. Line drives results give us opponent BABIPs climbing from .587 to .806 but which drop back to .714 this season. Which… understandable, right? Line drives are hard-hit balls by definition.
2. All other results are down in the low-to-mid .200s (.231 down to .202 to .273 this year).
3. So… is Boyer getting crushed by BABIP, or is his BABIP high because most of the softly-thrown, poorly-located pitches he throws opponents are able to smack the living bejeezus out of?

It’s here that our article takes a turn, because your originally scheduled Brandon Maurer content now has to be replaced by an altogether different question: of the two, who are unquestionably on the shortlist for worst relievers in baseball at present, what was it about Boyer that kept him with the big club while Maurer went down? Other troubles aside, Maurer still throws hard and has some value to recoup should he put together a few weeks—somebody is always gonna take a flier on the guy whose fastball sits 95 mph (see Royals, Kansas City, just last year). Unlike Boyer (9.64 BB/9), Maurer isn’t currently walking a man per inning. Give me the guy who will at least bother to throw strikes.

Conclusion: Brandon Maurer has been trash for all of 2018, but he’s at least been the kind of trash you can trick somebody else into throwing out for you. Blaine Boyer has been more like a bag full of diarrhea-filled baby diapers; that’s gonna be your mess to clean up.

In back-to-back days, Kennedy and Hammel pitched a combined 12 innings. They allowed seven combined hits and no runs to the Cleveland Indians, a very good team with the deepest lineup the other side of Houston. That is not inconsequential; it’s not necessarily indicative to a return to whatever form was successful for them, and it was also bitterly, miserably cold but still—if the duo is simply competent, it raises the Royals basement from 100 losses to 95.

That probably wasn’t as positive there at the end as I thought it sounded in my head. And it’s gonna get worse, because Brandon Maurer was involved but we should be positive as long as we can here.

Hammel mixed and matched his pitches well enough to keep Cleveland off-balance for the duration of this appearance, particularly leaning on the breaking stuff early and often the later he got into the appearance. There’s probably been a better Hammel appearance, but I can’t recall it; six shutout innings of the prohibitive favorite on one of the coldest days in Progressive Field history is what you’d call a halcyon performance, if you knew what halcyon meant (it denotes a period of time that was idyllic and peaceful, you leptons).

Offensively, the Royals kept (stop me if you’ve heard this one) creating chances only to shoot themselves in the collective foot. Three times in the first four innings, the Royals put a man on only to hit or run into a double play—and in the other inning, Bradley Zimmer made a strong throw to the plate to cut down Jon Jay on a Mike Moustakas single to end the third inning.

The worm finally turned for the Royals in the fifth. After Alex Gordon reached on a single, Cam Gallagher hit a slow roller that two-hopped to Jose Ramirez at third. Gallagher, not the fleetest of foot, somehow beat out the relay from Jason Kipnis to Yonder Alonso, cutting down Gordon but keeping the inning alive for Jon Jay.

On an 0-1 count, Jay roped a triple over the head of Zimmer in center, who crashed into the wall at an awkward angle, allowing Gallagher to chug from first to the plate before he was able to get the ball back in. 1-0 Royals.

The Royals had another chance in the sixth after Mike Moustakas led off with a single; unfortunately, just before Jorge Soler’s double, Yan Gomes back-picked Moose at first to clear the slate. But at that time, Hammel was still rocking and rolling and little did we know how crucial that moment would ultimately be.

In the seventh, Tim Hill replaced Hammel after 88 pitches. We can make arguments for him being replaced too early (just 88 pitches, whereas his opposite number Mike Clevinger tossed 110) or too late (he was well into the third time through the order), but it was moot in the seventh as Hill worked a quick 1-2-3 inning. So quick he was allowed to start the eighth.

This was a pivotal moment in the game, because Hill led the eighth with a four-pitch walk of Bradley Zimmer (according to the plate ump, you draw your own conclusions)…

who promptly stole second on Justin Grimm. This allowed Francisco Lindor to bunt him over to third with one away, at which point things got weird. An excuse-me swing by Jason Kipnis was gathered by Grimm, but his throw pulled first baseman Whit Merrifield (yeah) off the bag, even if it did keep Zimmer on third. Another grounder, this one from Jose Ramirez on weakly hit garbage back near the mound, brought Zimmer home to tie it up.

The Royals went meekly (Soler and Ryan Goins struck out, Alcides Escobar flied out in the ninth), which somehow meant that it was Brandon Maurer Time! For the literal life of me, I can’t figure out what it is anyone sees in Maurer, who is more flammable than The Human Torch at this point. He walked Alonso, ran a full count to Gomes and then threw him a knee-high fastball that Gomes poked over the wall. Game, Not-Royals.

Bright Spots: Soler collected his first three hits of the season and before you jump for joy, let’s describe them:

• An inside-out other ground ball into right in the second.
• A flyball Zimmer couldn’t quite get to in center in the fourth.
• A flyball that Zimmer/Tyler Naquin lost in the sun in the sixth.

Average exit velocity on these “hits”: 84.5 mph according to baseballsavant.com. Don’t give me any of that “Jorge’s back!” bilge. The big fella needs to barrel one sometime soon. Oh, and Hammel looked good as we discussed.

The Nadir: Maurer warming up during the Royals half of the ninth, everyone on Twitter predicting Kansas City’s imminent demise and then it happening anyway. Groupthink moments like that make Twitter kind of fun, but real life a little unbearable.

The Next Step: Jake Junis will square off against Felix Hernandez as the Royals kick off a seven-game homestand, first against the Mariners and then the Angels. Monday’s first pitch is slated for 7:15 p.m. (CT).

The group they break camp with for the opener on Thursday will most assuredly look different by the All-Star break. Hell, it’s likely there will be plenty of turnover before the end of April.

Still, the first pitch of the season has yet to be uncorked, and the lineup looks to be fairly settled, so what else are we going to do? (Spring training is too damn long.)

Let’s start with the known relief quantities. If you want to get a picture of how different 2018 will be from the last several seasons, look here. This is a limited subset of the bullpen with only Kelvin Herrera and Brandon Maurer as the relievers currently to be trusted.

Ned Yost is back to declaring only Kelvin Herrera and Brandon Maurer as bullpen locks. Justin Grimm and Rule 5 pick Brad Keller seem safely on the team. Same with Blaine Boyer. The rest … who can say?

— Rustin Dodd (@rustindodd) March 25, 2018

Justin Grimm lost his arbitration case with the Cubs (he asked for $2.475 million and was awarded the club counter at $2.2 million) and was then released in mid-March. He gets roughly $530,000 of that, plus the additional $1.25 million he agreed to with the Royals. Grimm has seen a steady decline in his performance since his peak in 2015 when he posted a 1.99 ERA in just under 50 innings.

Last summer it was an increase in home run and walk rate, combined with a decrease in strikeout rate that contributed to his struggles. No pitcher can overcome those self-inflicted obstacles. The question is whether he can curb the trends. His HR/FB rate was a ridiculous 22%, so let’s just feel good about the assumption he can reduce his HR/9.

For those of you still jonesing for the Dayton Moore to Atlanta connection, we present Blaine Boyer. Boyer was selected in the third round of the 2000 draft by the Braves and made his major league debut all the way back in 2005, when Moore was director of player personnel development. Boyer is difficult for hitters to barrel, but still allows too many baserunners to be completely trusted.

He’s in camp as a non-roster invitee, so the Royals will have to dump someone from the 40-man if he’s going to stick.

Already on the 40-man roster are a pair of Rule 5 selections in Burch Smith and Brad Keller. This is the tricky part where we will veer into the statistical realm of Spring Training. Keller has thrown 10 innings and whiffed 14 while posting a 2.70 ERA. The caveat here is that his Baseball Reference OppQual score which measures the quality of opposing batters he faced is a weak 7.1. BR defines that as around Double-A quality. Read into that what you will.

Meanwhile, Smith has whiffed 16 in 12 innings of work. His ERA of 7.50 and 24 total baserunners allowed could be alarming if you are one to read heavily into exhibition baseball performance.

As Rule 5 picks, both Smith and Keller can’t be optioned directly to the minors, They first have to pass through waivers and then offered back to their original teams. (The Rays and Diamondbacks, respectively.) They also have to serve at least 90 days on the active roster, or we repeat this whole drill next season.

Brian Flynn is out of options and is the lone southpaw in consideration here, so it’s difficult to understand why he’s not considered a lock at this point. He’s also looked sharp this spring with a 1.98 ERA in 13.2 innings of work. He’s whiffed 10 and walked just one.

Apparently, Wily Peralta is still in the mix, although it’s difficult to understand why. He’s had a miserable spring to this point with a whopping 24 baserunners in just eight innings of work. I don’t give a damn about your sample size. When those are your numbers…woof. Peralta was signed to a $1.525 million contract for 2018, which means the Royals are on the hook for just over $380,000 if they cut him before Opening Day. He will reportedly stay in Arizona on Monday to throw a pair of innings in a minor league game.

That’s an eight man bullpen to open the year. While the Royals are saying they have only two “locks,” it really looks like they have six or seven, depending on where you stand with the two Rule 5 guys. The real question at this point is whether they want to gamble about $1.2 million on Peralta making the tradition to the pen.

There are still other options. The Royals are reportedly considering keeping Eric Skoglund with the club as a middle reliever. It’s difficult to understand the logic behind that move should it come to fruition, as he’s much more valuable as a starter. And if the Royals see him as a fit in the rotation in the future, he should open the year in Omaha. Speaking of Omaha, he will start the Royals final exhibition game against the Storm Chasers on Monday.

Tim Hill was protected by the Royals in the Rule 5 draft and could be rewarded with a spot on the Opening Day roster, although he represents the longest long shot. However, the Royals want him to work on his slider, so it looks like Triple-A is the destination.

And all the roster intrigue isn’t limited to the bullpen. All indications are Ryan Goins will make the team which means another 40-man roster move is forthcoming.

Opening Day is just around the corner. The bullpen questions have yet to be settled, but don’t discount the Royals’ ability to spring a surprise roster move or two before everything is set for Thursday.

In spite of all that, he figures to at least start the season as a key member of their bullpen, especially if they end up moving Kelvin Herrera in the next few weeks. If I had a place to put a bet down, I’d put the majority of my money on Maurer in the closer’s role if Herrera isn’t with the team. Does it really matter if the Royals are going to be bad? Probably not. But I think it’s easy to remember the days of guys like Ambiorix Burgos and Ricky Bottalico, and even on a bad team, watching blown leads can be infuriating.

Somehow, the pitcher who put up those ghastly numbers for the Royals last year managed to post a 3.00 ERA in 2015. That came with a 3.15 DRA and 3.33 FIP. He gave up less than seven hits per nine and had a perfectly respectable walk rate of 2.6 per nine. One thing that wasn’t great was his strikeout rate of just 6.9 per nine innings, but he was a legitimately very good pitcher. That was a weird year for him. His ground ball rate of 47.7 percent was the highest of his career by a good amount. His soft contact percentage of 24.5 percent was also the highest of his career. So yes, the strikeouts were down, but he got a lot of weak contact on the ground. That’s a good recipe for success.

So what’s different?

The first thing I noticed was a big change in his pitch usage.

You can see that in 2015, Maurer threw his slider a little more than 43 percent of the time compared to about 29 percent of the time in 2017. You might look at that as the start and end of the problem. All he needs to do is throw more sliders and he’ll be good again, right? Well, not so much. In 2015, his slider was a fantastic pitch. When batters swung, they missed it 35 percent of the time and they hit .167 with a .244 slugging percentage against it. In 2017, they still swung and missed a decent amount (31.3 percent), but they hit .274 with a .438 slugging percentage.

While it’s easy to see the slider success in 2015 compared to 2017, I think it’s fair to wonder if we’ll ever see that kind of success from him again. He missed the end of that very good season with a shoulder issue. He hasn’t been the same since then. I’m not sure if this is necessarily anything, but his vertical release point in feet by month in 2015 was as follows:

There’s more of the same in 2016 and 2017 with the release points remaining around his August 2015 number, sometimes even lower. It’s been a different pitch since then, with much less velocity in 2017 and less movement as well. Quite simply, it hasn’t been nearly as good.

Take a look at his vertical release point on all his pitches in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Without having a chance to actually talk to Maurer at this point, I can’t know, but you have to wonder if the shoulder injury has been the reason for this.

You can see that his release points on all his pitches were considerably higher during the 2015 season before they began to fall off as the season progressed and before his season ending injury. There has been some variance for sure, but the breaking ball has remained significantly lower than when he was pitching so well a couple seasons ago. Again, maybe this means nothing. But it sure seems to me like he’s either still fighting through that shoulder injury or he developed some bad habits while he was and now he’s struggling to get back to where he was.

This isn’t necessarily horrible news for the Royals. If he’s actually healthy, this could very well be a mechanical issue that can be fixed. We don’t yet know what Cal Eldred’s proficiencies are, but if he’s been deemed worthy of being a big league pitching coach, you’d think he could impact this in a positive way.

And a good Brandon Maurer could mean a lot of great things for the Royals. If they decide to take advantage of this ridiculously slow free agent class, maybe they can add some pieces that can put them close to contention for a wild card spot. I’m not counting on it, but stranger things have happened. If Maurer is good, he helps that push. And if they’re as bad as they seem destined to be in 2018 and Maurer is good, he’s pretty much an ideal trade chip as a reliever who is pretty affordable and only has a year and a half left on his deal.

But if Maurer is still hurt, and don’t forget that A.J. Preller is the one who traded him, this is likely a sunk cost. Shoulder injuries are terrifying, and pitchers sometimes just don’t come back from them. If he can’t get the vertical movement on his slider back because his shoulder doesn’t allow it and his fastball continues to get beat around like it owes someone money, this just isn’t going to work. Maybe this is too simplistic, but I think it all starts with the shoulder and the slider for Maurer. If one is working, the other is working. And if they’re both working, he can get it done. I have my doubts that either will be working, but if he’s healthy, I think there should be a glimmer of hope for the Royals that he can at least be somewhat effective.

• I hope you’re reading this early because the non-tender deadline for players is tonight (Friday, I mean duh, it’s Friday Notes) at 7pm central. Craig broke down the candidates, and while I generally agree with his assessment, I’m still not sure it’s worth it to even worry about Brandon Maurer. Yes, I’m particularly jaded about him because I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed watching a Royals pitcher less than I’ve enjoyed watching him. That includes Kyle Davies and Round 2 of Lima Time. I know it’s “only” $4 million or so, as estimated by MLB Trade Rumors, but I also know that $4 million isn’t nothing and I just don’t trust him to be a competent big league reliever. The flip side of the argument is that the Royals aren’t likely to be especially good in 2018 and an extra $4 million to spend and the subtraction of Maurer wouldn’t change that. So, in that case, why not see if he can’t harness a 97 MPH fastball to put up a season like he did in 2015 when he posted a 3.00 ERA and 3.15 DRA? I get that. I really do. But man, I don’t see a lot of improvement happening with him. While FIP likes him a lot more than other indicators because he’s struck people out the last two years and mostly didn’t walk him, the quality of contact against him made for a nasty DRA, which has only been below league average once, and it was that magical (for him) 2015 season. I’m not going to be upset if they don’t non-tender him, but I’d vote for him to go.
• It’s kind of funny how the MLB offseason is a bit of a butterfly effect. For example, the Red Sox have been seen as the most likely landing spot for Eric Hosmer for a number of reasons. Now, they’re rumored to be in contact with the White Sox regarding Jose Abreu. Of course, if they get Abreu, the need for Hosmer is gone, which limits his market. Without the Red Sox (and Yankees) involved, his market in general becomes extremely difficult to predict. In another scenario, talks between the Giants and Marlins are moving forward regarding Giancarlo Stanton. If that came to fruition, it would likely take the Giants out of the market for Lorenzo Cain. Now, there are still a few teams who could have interest in Cain, so his market doesn’t exactly crater without the Giants involved, but given their need and history of paying older players, they seemed to be his best bet to come close to the contract he’s likely looking to receive. So far, no real rumors have derailed the market for Mike Moustakas, though the Angels did say they’re more worried about second base and have Luis Valbuena to man third base for them, so maybe that’s a story to watch in the future. The point is that at least one of these guys may end up falling into the Royals collective laps, which wouldn’t be great, I don’t think. I’ve talked a lot about the draft compensation they’ll receive for all of them, and I think that’s just too valuable to the franchise to give up to bring these guys back on the contracts they’ll want. But it’s still very interesting.
• I was reading through a recent Keith Law chat and someone asked if he saw a way the Royals could contend in 2018. He didn’t see it. Honestly, I don’t either, but if I squint, I think I know the formula. I talked a few weeks ago about how I think the combination of Logan Morrison at first and Hunter Dozier at third would be as valuable as Hosmer/Moose in 2018. So signing Morrison (or someone like him) is the first step. Then, Raul Mondesi needs to show his 2017 time in Triple-A was no fluke and he can hold down shortstop at the big league level competently. He’ll also need to stay healthy, which he’s had trouble doing over the course of a full season. Alex Gordon needs to bounce back and Jorge Bonifacio needs to continue to develop. They probably need to sign a guy like Jarrod Dyson or Austin Jackson to play center field and hope they don’t crater. Then in the rotation, they need health and some luck and also some depth signings. They also need to sign probably one legitimate big league reliever and get bounceback seasons from Kelvin Herrera and my favorite non-tender candidate, Brandon Maurer. But really, that’s it. They do all that, and they could easily maybe be fringe contenders. Yikes. Okay, maybe you have to do more than squint.
• It’s always fun to try to predict which relievers the Royals bring in to spring training who end up actually winning a spot on the club. Back in 2015, it was Ryan Madson defying all odds to get the opportunity. Chien-Ming Wang was the 2016 winner of the lottery, and I guess you could say Peter Moylan was that guy in 2017, even though he was a part of the 2016 team. It only takes one team to really screw this up and give a big league deal to one of the free agents, but there are a few guys who spring to mind for me as pitchers who get that NRI to spring training and make the club. John Axford has been largely terrible for awhile, but he was once good, so that’s a possibility. Casey Lawrence had a pretty terrible debut with the Mariners and Blue Jays, but he’s exhibited outstanding control in the minors and uses a sinker that has sort of worked at times. He might be worth a flyer. Maybe my favorite possibility here is Asher Wojciechowski, who was once a decent prospect and just hasn’t done anything. He’s seen his strikeout rate kick up a bit in the past couple seasons and has good enough control. Hey, you never know. The odds are the non-roster invitee who makes the team will be someone we haven’t thought of, but these three names could be on the Royals radar.