The subtractions of Alcides Escobar and Jason Hammel lessened the burden, but there was still work to be done before they could reinstate the injured. With that in mind, the Royals made a flurry of moves on Wednesday.

Wily Peralta signs a one-year deal with a mutual option.

The Royals had held a $3 million option for Peralta for the upcoming season, but tore that up and signed him to a new deal valued at $2.25 million. There’s also a $1 million buyout on a $7 million mutual option for 2020. Basically, the Royals passed on their option for next year, re-signed Peralta for less money upfront and will most likely give him the buyout next fall which will push the total of his contract to $3.25 million. So Peralta is guaranteed at least $250,000 more for basically deferring some of the money due to him in his previous deal with the Royals.

Whew. Who knew these transactions could carry such intrigue?

But wait! According to Jeffery Flanagan from MLB.com, the contract also carries $1 million in performance bonuses if he finishes 55 games next year. For a little perspective it should be noted only six pitchers in club history have finished 55 or more games in a season. 

That’s a who’s who of Royals relief excellence. And Mike MacDougal and Roberto Hernandez. 

In other words, it’s highly unlikely Peralta will hit the mark to collect that bonus. Stranger things have happened, but take the under.

Peralta pitched OK for the Royals in relief. He sported a 9.2 SO/9 (good!) and a 6.0 BB/9 (not good!). His ERA- was 85, meaning his park adjusted ERA was 15 percentage points better than the league. But his DRA, a measure of the rate a pitcher “deserved” to surrender runs, was a robust 6.24. You look at his peripherals and can see some wicked regression coming his way, but we’re basing this off a half-season (34 innings) performance.

With so many questions surrounding the Royals bullpen, Peralta remains a long shot to be an impact arm, but it’s difficult to argue against any player at that price. Remember, this is a pitcher with a negative WARP for four consecutive seasons, although two and a half of those came as a starter. In relief, his slider worked well and the fastball (a two and four-seam mix) played up a couple of ticks. But as noted above, he can’t consistently hit the strike zone. In other words, Peralta contains multitudes.

He’s my current nominee to be next year’s Brandon Maurer when it comes to effectiveness out of the pen.

With this signing, the Royals currently have close to $70 million committed to six players. Depending on whether you believe the Royals are truthful about a budget of around $90 million for next year, that leaves roughly $20 million to divvy among 19 players.

Nate Karns declines assignment to the minor leagues and becomes a free agent.

The Karns era in Kansas City comes to a disappointing end. Acquired for Jarrod Dyson from Seattle ahead of the 2017 season, injuries derailed a promising career. 

Karns had Thoracic Outlet Surgery in early July in 2017 after just nine starts. He was sidelined in spring training this year with elbow inflammation and never made an appearance. 

The right-hander made $1,375,000 in his first season with the Royals and in his second season of arbitration eligibility, made the exact same amount last year. MLB Trade Rumors projected Karns to make $1.4 million this year.

If Karns could ever get healthy, his stuff is promising enough that he would be a welcome addition to the Royals rotation. That the Royals decided not to keep him around indicates that he’s still not right. There are a few other candidates currently occupying the 40-man roster who could easily be jettisoned.

Jerry Vasto is claimed off waivers by the Chicago Cubs.

Vasto was acquired at the trade deadline from Colorado for Drew Butera. The left-handed reliever made five appearances and threw 3.2 innings. It was difficult to make a judgement one way or another about his potential, but he figured to be in the mix for a full-time bullpen role for the Royals. That he made it all the way to the Cubs (the 28th in order out of 29 teams), reflects that Vasto is just another fungible bullpen arm. 

According to Roster Resource, the Cubs currently have 41 players for the 40-man roster, so Vasto could be on the move again soon.

And with that, the Royals current 40-man roster stands at 37 players with Jesse Hahn, Jorge Soler and Cheslor Cuthbert still needing to be activated off the 60-day DL. There’s still some maneuvering ahead, but with the Royals constrained by budget, it’s still shaping up to be a very quiet winter.

The 60-day DL Guys

Jesse Hahn, Nate Karns, Cheslor Cuthbert and Jorge Soler all are currently not counting against the roster, but will be in short order. Soler, barring a trade, is sticking around. The other three all have a case for getting non-tendered. None are expected to make much, with MLB Trade Rumors projecting the three to make a combined $4.2 million or so, but two of the three didn’t even make a big league appearance last year and the third was anemic offensively for the second straight year before an injury lingered and kept him out.

If I’m running the show, I probably non-tender both Hahn and Karns and try to get them back on minor league deals. I think that might be the way the Royals go, but you really never know with them. They always march to a different beat. With Cuthbert, I’m probably cutting bait and just saying goodbye. While he’s younger than Hunter Dozier, he never showed the power that Dozier has and doesn’t have the positional flexibility. And both may be passed up soon anyway by some of the minor leaguers working their way through the system.

So with cutting bait on those three, the Royals could call it a day and be done for at least the time being as that would put them at 39 on the roster.

The Minor Leaguers Who Need to be Added

But that 39 number comes before players who need to be added to the 40-man to avoid being selected in the Rule 5 draft. The Royals have done a really nice job of knowing who they were likely to lose and not protecting those they aren’t, but there are quite a few decisions to make this year.

Nick Dini and Xavier Fernandez are both catchers who could be solid and might attract attention as big league backups right now. The Royals are so rich in catching that they really can’t afford to add them unless they make some cuts elsewhere. This won’t thrill people, but I’m guessing they don’t add Frank Schwindel either because they feel he’s a good risk to not be lost. D.J. Burt is eligible as well, and he’s a guy they may lose, but I just don’t see how they can use a 40-man spot on him either. The same is true for Donnie Dewees. They have plenty of fourth outfielder types, so if they lose him, oh well.

I believe there will be plenty of conversations about adding Jecksson Flores who broke out in 2018 at Northwest Arkansas and hit .314/.363/.440 while playing all over the field. Elier Hernandez also could get some consideration, though I think the Royals ultimately will risk losing him after he posted a sub-.400 SLG in both stops last season. The big questions are on the pitching staff.

Jonathan Dziedzic, Arnaldo Hernandez, Jake Kalish, Foster Griffin, Scott Blewett, Gerson Garabito, Ofreidy Gomez and Jon Perrin are all starters who are eligible for the Rule 5. Josh Staumont, Gabe Speier and Yunior Marte are all relievers eligible.

Hernandez, Blewett, Griffin and Staumont seem to me to be the likely pitching staff additions, and potentially Yunior Marte. The team likes Hernandez a lot while Blewett has had a fantastic AFL showing. Add them to Flores who I think gets the nod and that’s five new players and maybe even six if they do add Marte.

And now we’re back in trouble with 45 members.

The DFA Crew

So now it’s time to cut some players, and probably a lot of them, which means decisions the Royals don’t want to make will have to be made. To me, there are at least five obvious cuts to start. Bubba Starling, Paulo Orlando, Burch Smith, Brandon Maurer and Andres Machado can all be cut without even thinking twice. The Royals will likely think twice on all of them, but I think (hope?) they make the right call. That leaves questions on a few guys.

Ramon Torres had a similar rise to Flores, but took a big step back in 2018 and with Adalberto Mondesi and Nicky Lopez’s rise, the opportunities there for him are few and far between. I think he goes. Now we’re back in a situation where they could just stop, but it helps to have a little wiggle room, so I think they need to find one more cut. The easy answer is Ben Lively to me. He’s a depth guy and nothing more. That said, I wonder if they’d look at a DFA of Jason Adam with the idea that they could bring him back on a minor league deal. Either way, they’re down to 38, which is a good place to be for the moment.

I think it’s worth noting that Rosell Herrera may not make it through the spring, though I think he’s safe until at least then. The Royals may break camp with Lopez, and if they do, I think Herrera’s spot is the one to go and he’s out of options.

One other name to watch is Samir Duenez. He had a nice 2018 in Northwest Arkansas, hitting .279/.352/.464 and I really liked him as a prospect a couple years ago, but with Ryan O’Hearn hitting like he did in the big leagues and Nick Pratto coming on in the second half, Duenez might be in no-man’s land. I don’t imagine he loses his spot now, but his day of reckoning might be coming.

Trade Candidates

There’s really not much here that could clear a 40-man spot. Danny Duffy would have been a trade chip if he had a good season and/or was healthy, but neither really happened, so they’re not moving a guy at his lowest value, especially when they don’t want to move him anyway. They could flip someone like Jerry Vasto or Tim Hill to a team looking for a LOOGY, so that’s something to watch for. Or one of them could easily be let go as well, though I don’t really expect that.

Some would argue that Whit Merrifield should be in this list, and they might be right, but the odds the Royals trade him are so low that it’s not worth talking about. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but they’ll have to have their socks knocked off and it’s starting to get cold and they don’t want bare feet. I mentioned Jorge Soler earlier as well. Either he or Jorge Bonifacio could be moved, but the Royals need Soler’s potential and Bonifacio isn’t exactly coming off the best campaign to trade. I suppose it could happen, though, and that would open up another spot.

So that’s what the Royals are facing this offseason. It’s a lot of work for a team that isn’t likely to win more than 75 games and even that may be optimistic, but they’ll really have to work to massage this roster to get down below the 40-man and with so many fringe players, this might be a season-long struggle for them. But hey, at least it’s something to talk about!

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.

It’s with good reason. Karns, of all the Royals starting pitchers, seems to have the most untapped potential.

It seems odd to be dropping an “untapped potential” into a profile of a 30-year old, but Karns’s road to Kansas City has been a bit of a winding journey. He’s made appearances for four different teams and thrown just over 300 innings in his big league career. Almost half of those innings came in 2015 when he was starting for the Rays.

Still, eyeball that PECOTA projection:

131.1 IP, 126 H, 130 SO, 53 BB
4.19 ERA, 4.54 DRA, 1.5 WARP

A strong strikeout rate, an ERA a tick below league average, and the WARP is projected to be the highest on the pitching staff. See what I mean about PECOTA loving Karns?

It may be a little difficult for you to buy a projection that optimistic. Last year, his first with the Royals as the bounty in the Jarrod Dyson trade, Karns made just nine appearances and threw 45 innings before injury short-circuited his season. He underwent Thoracic Outlet Surgery (the surgery du jour for pitchers in the non-Tommy John Division) and is supposedly progressing well after starting his offseason throwing program in November. They even allowed him to keep the rib!

So why is PECTOA so bullish on a pitcher who made just a handful of starts in 2017 and has had yet to throw an entire major league season as a starter? Let’s start with the curve.

Of regular practitioners of the curve, the knuckle curve in particular, only two starters throw the pitch with more velocity than Karns. From Statcast, here are last year’s top five on velocity with the curve.

With the curve, Karns doesn’t generate a ton of spin relative to the hardest throwers, but the velocity of the pitch seems to be enough to generate a sharp 12-6 drop that completely befuddles hitters. Last season, a full 48 percent of curves that Karns threw that hitters offered at were missed. On top of that, 28 percent were fouled off. That’s a wicked low contact rate on his curve. The Karns plot is just to the left of his name, a tick under the 50 percent line.

Given the swing and miss proclivity of the Karns curve, it’s little surprise it was his most effective pitch. Opposing batters hit just .167 on plate appearances ending with a curve. They slugged a paltry .264 with a .097 ISO. Of the 51 strikeouts Karns registered in his abbreviated season, 36 of them, or just over 70 percent, came courtesy of the curve.

Over the last couple of seasons, Karns has leveled out his usage on the curve. It used to be, he would break one off more frequently against right-handed batters. Now, hitters from both sides of the plate see it with regularity. If Karns is ahead in the count, it’s a 50-50 chance the next pitch will be a curve, no matter what side of the box the hitter is positioned. It’s the same rate when there are two strikes. To say the curve is Karns’s put-away pitch is underselling it.

What happens in the rare instance where a hitter puts the Karns curve in play? Good things. Over 61 percent of all curves put in play off of Karns are hit on the ground. That’s a better than 3:1 GB/FB ratio. In today’s game with the ball being, ahem, juiced, that’s exactly what you want out of a pitcher.

In this day where smart teams crave pitchers who get strikeouts, one plus pitch does not a starter make. And this is another reason why PECOTA loves Karns so much. His change-up is effective as well.

The change features about 7 mph difference from his fastball. Karns extends his arm a little further from his body than his other pitches when he unleashes the change and lowers his slot on the vertical plane. The pitch comes out of his hand initially looking like it could be the curve, but rolls with arm-side fade. It’s not the same kind of swing and miss pitch as his curve, but it’s damn effective. He registers a just under 30 percent whiff rate on swings and a foul ball rate just over 30 percent.

This is the ground ball pitch. Last year, Karns got a worm burner on just over 63 percent of all balls put in play against his change. Add it all together and you have a pitcher who generated a ground ball rate of just under 50 percent, the highest of his career. When hitters are making contact, it’s not that strong. The average exit velocity against his change was 81.1 mph which was Jason Vargas territory.

Where Karns did get in trouble last year was with the gopher ball. (Join the club.) He surrendered nine in his 45 innings of work in 2017. A couple of things to note. First, his HR/FB rate was an elevated 19.6 percent. It’s fair to expect some normalization should he be healthy enough to pitch an entire year in the rotation. Think somewhere between 12 and 14 percent. Second, six of the nine home runs came off his fastball. Of those, four came on the first pitch of a plate appearance. A fifth was offered on a 3-0 count to Joey Gallo. The Karns fastball is a decent pitch, but when a hitter is setting dead red, there’s a danger it could leave the yard.

Still, the Karns arsenal, with two plus pitches that play well off the fastball, suggests a pitcher who can step forward in a rotation desperately seeking quality arms. The most important question surrounding Karns this spring is how well he progresses off his thoracic outlet surgery.  Should he see a full recovery, there’s no reason to think the can’t fulfill his PECOTA projection and challenge for the role of best starter on the staff. Despite his age, the potential upside is still very much in play for Karns.

Let’s take a look at the options in the order I think they’ll slot in the rotation, with their PECOTA projection highlighted:

Danny Duffy (137 IP, 4.41 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, 116 K, 49 BB, 1.2 WARP)
I’ll bet on Duffy to beat that projection. He’s had his share of injury issues in the past, but I think he can get past the innings and he hasn’t had an ERA that high since his rookie season. No, Duffy hasn’t become a true ace yet, though he can look like one for stretches. Over the last four seasons and change, he’s thrown 636.1 innings with a 3.41 ERA and 3.84 FIP. Since re-entering the starting rotation in 2016, he’s thrown 308 innings with a 3.86 ERA, 8.7 SO/9 and 2.3 BB/9 while allowing just 289 hits. Duffy may not be a “true ace” but he’s very good.

Ian Kennedy (180 IP, 5.39 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 153 K, 72 BB, -0.6 WARP)
That’s not a good projection for the guy who probably opens the season as the number two. He’s not exactly a fan favorite and he comes by the projection honestly after his horrific season in 2017, but I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion he’ll be that bad. Keep in mind that from 2014-2016, he threw 565 innings with a 3.84 ERA and 4.10 FIP while striking out a batter per inning. He’s into his 30s now, so let’s not pretend like he couldn’t have just completely fallen off a cliff, but I think there’s something to the hamstring injury sabotaging his 2017. Kennedy’s potential for continued implosion is a big reason why the depth is so important, but if the rotation is actually going to be good in 2018, the Royals will need Kennedy to be 2016 and April 2017 version.

Jason Hammel (165 IP, 5.07 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 126 K, 59 BB, 0.1 WARP)
Hammel’s season is probably contingent on him getting out of games before he can implode, which given the bullpen options seems risky to bet on that. In 2017, he was a more than serviceable three or four starter the first two times through the order before getting pulverized the third time. If he’s left in consistently to face a lineup a third time, these projections might be about right. I think he’ll start the year as the third starter, but will be the worst starter in the rotation when it’s all said and done. While the projections aren’t great for anyone, Hammel is the one I’m least confident in that he can beat them.

Jake Junis (131 IP, 5.10 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, 114 K, 43 BB, 0.1 WARP)
Junis is probably the guy, second to Duffy, who I think is most likely to beat the projection. After getting demoted following a rough start in July, he came back in August and threw 62.1 innings with a 3.61 ERA and a 1.11 WHIP with just nine walks. If he does that over a full season, the Royals are in business. I think I’d expect a little bit worse, but the control is for real and that slider can be downright nasty when he’s on. No, he’s not an ace and he’s likely not a number two even, but a quality number three is worth something, so I wouldn’t be surprised if his ERA is a full run lower than the projection and the counting stats are considerably better as well.

Nate Karns (131 IP, 4.19 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 130 K, 53 BB, 1.5 WARP)
PECOTA projects Karns as the Royals best starter in 2018, which wouldn’t shock me all that much, I guess. But I’m also a bigger Karns fan than most. Of course, he’s coming back from Thoracic Outlet Syndrome surgery and his health has always been a question. He showed flashes in May before getting hurt of what he’s capable of, throwing 22.1 innings in four starts with a 2.01 ERA, 32 strikeouts and just four walks. If you could guarantee me he’d make 25 starts, I’d say there’s a good bet he’d end up as the Royals best starter, but that’s just not a guarantee you can make with Karns. The strikeout and walk rate seem about right, but I think if he’s good to go, the WHIP will be lower because I think he’s harder to hit than that, so I’d bet on him beating the projections by a bit. Even if he can only give 15-18 starts, the Royals will be better for them, provided he’s recovered sufficiently from the surgery.

Jesse Hahn (73 IP, 4.25 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 58 K, 30 BB, 0.7 WARP)
Hahn is projected to spend a fair amount of time in the bullpen by PECOTA, and I think he will, but I think he’ll get some starting opportunity if he’s any good, with a lot of question marks in terms of injuries ahead of him. He’s the sixth starter, and it wasn’t long ago that he was looked at as a very solid middle of the rotation piece. Injuries have derailed him, but you have to wonder how good the rotation could be if Hahn was used in tandem with Hammel. The sinker will play for Hahn, and if he’s healthy, I think there’s a good chance he bounces back. If nothing else, the stuff should play up in the bullpen to make him an interesting candidate. I’m not sure why, but I think Hahn either way beats his projection or he’s way worse. The in between wouldn’t be the worst thing, so maybe Royals fans should hope for that.

Trevor Oaks (31 IP, 4.51 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 25 K, 10 BB, 0.2 WARP)
I think Oaks is probably the seventh starter on this team, which is a big improvement over Eric Skoglund from last season. I didn’t mind the trade of Scott Alexander to get him because I like Oaks as a middle to backend starter. His ground ball tendencies should play well, but I worry a bit that he might throw a few too many strikes given that his stuff isn’t elite and big league hitters will be able to do damage against him. I think he spends much more time in the big leagues than the projections, but I’d say the rates are probably about right.

Eric Skoglund (73 IP, 5.11 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 60 K, 25 BB, 0.1 WARP)
Sam Gaviglio (52 IP, 5.32 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 39 K, 19 BB, -0.1 WARP)
Miguel Almonte (61 IP, 4.83 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 59 K, 27 BB, 0.3 WARP)
If these guys are starting a lot of games, the season is off the rails. Of course, they’re already only projected for 66 wins, so how on the rails was it to start? I think if any of them are your eighth or ninth starters, you’re probably fine, but, again, you don’t want to get to them too often.

Kyle Zimmer (25 IP, 5.56 ERA, 1.53 WHIP, 25 K, 12 BB, -0.1 WARP)
PECOTA projected Zimmer to get starts. I just found that funny.

And that’s it. The rotation has some depth and has some opportunity to beat projections and, I think, actually be pretty good. Some things need to fall in place for that to happen, so it’s far from a guarantee, but if you’re looking for a strength on a projected 66-96 team, it may possibly be in the rotation.

Since teams are sitting around twiddling their collective free agent signing thumbs, we’re left to mark time by the mandated deadlines as they pertain to roster construction. Last week, it was adding players to the 40-man roster to protect them from the upcoming Rule 5 draft. (Wheeeeeeeee!) This week, it’s the deadline to tender arbitration eligible players contracts for the 2018 season.

A brief refresher (because, otherwise, this would be a really short post) on what this means. Teams must tender contracts to their arbitration eligible players by Friday at 7 PM, or they become free agents. Tendering a contract doesn’t mean team and player have agreed on any kind of deal. It’s merely the team signaling the intent they are willing to reach an agreement with said player. They’ll have a few weeks to hash out terms of a contract. If they don’t, they’ll exchange numbers for the purpose of heading to arbitration which is where things get really fun.

We’re a way off from that marker, though. And despite the lack of movement on the free agent front, his deadline still has the ability to be slightly entertaining.

The Royals have four players eligible for arbitration. Of those, Kelvin Herrera will cost the most to keep on the roster for 2018. Herrera was a Super Two, so this is his fourth and final year of being eligible for arbitration. (Although he basically skipped a year by signing a two-year deal ahead of the 2015 season.)

The algorithm at MLB Trade Rumors predicts a salary of $8.3 million for Herrera. That’s some kind of coin for a guy who plies his trade from the bullpen, but if that’s the actual mark for the right-hander he still wouldn’t be the highest paid reliever on the club (Hello, Joakim Soria at $9 million.) Despite his struggles last season – a career-worst 4.25 DRA, 1.35 WHIP and 0.5 WARP – his peripherals weren’t all-time awful. His 8.5 SO/9 and 3.0 BB/9 were respectable enough for a reliever. He’s probably miscast as a closer (we all remember he was removed from that role at the beginning of September), but has some potential value as a late inning reliever. That all makes his estimate feel a bit high. Arbitration favors the counting stats and his innings pitched and strikeouts were career lows. His home runs allowed was tied for a career high. Then there was that whole thing about not being able to hold the closer role.

The question facing the Royals is can Herrera recover to provide a little over $8 million in value? The bet here is, if we value one WARP at somewhere between $8 and $8.5 million, he can. Herrera averaged around 1.9 WARP in the five seasons prior to the last one, so it’s not difficult to see him as a bounce back candidate. Health permitting and provided he finds a cure for the extreme gopherballitis he was fighting last summer.

This isn’t really a difficult decision. Herrera will be tendered.

Moving on, Brandon Maurer is next in line. He made $1.9 million last year in his first season of arbitration eligibility. As documented, he struggled prior to his arrival in Kansas City and then took his struggles to another level with the Royals. Overall, he was worth -0.6 WARP. Still, he has a 96 mph fastball and features league average swing and miss rates. If the Royals can fix the control issues that plagued him at the end of last year – and the spike in home run rate – he has some intriguing upside.

MLB Trade Rumors predicts a contract in the neighborhood of $3.8 million. That’s a nice neighborhood. The upside and the relative low cost for a live bullpen arm make this an easy one as well. Maurer will be tendered.

Up next, we come to Nate Karns. You’ll remember Karns was acquired from Seattle for Jarrod Dyson. He was supposed to be a reliable back of the rotation starter, but those plans were derailed after only 45 innings when he hit the DL and ultimately underwent thoracic outlet surgery. Look, the Royals weren’t going to win the division with Karns in the rotation the entire year, so maybe if we squint hard enough we can find the silver lining that he should receive just a modest bump in pay as a first year arbitration eligible player. MLB Trade Rumors predicts a bump to $1.4 million for the starter.

The risk here, like with all pitchers, is injury. Aside from his season cut short last year, he’s topped just 150 innings once in a professional career that dates back to 2011. Still, the price is going to be right. Another slam dunk. Karns will be tendered.

Finally, we have reliever and local product Mike Morin, a late season waiver claim from the Angels. Morin found success a couple of years ago on the strength of a quality change-up. That pitch deserted him in 2016. Then, in 2017 his fastball and slider left him as well. And when you’re a reliever with three pitches that have gone missing, you’re left with… Nothing.

MLB Trade Rumors predicts a modest bump for Morin to $700,000. They also listed him as the Royals lone non-tender candidate. That’s possible, but unless the Royals think there just isn’t any way Morin is a major league pitcher, it’s difficult to see them cutting him loose when you figure a reliever making the league minimum would cost around $150,000 less that what he stands to earn next season. At the very least, he seems worth a flier to bring to spring training to see if anything changed over the winter, or if Cal Eldred can help him rediscover the magic of the change. He’s not as definite as the previous three mentioned, but from here it looks like he gets tendered.

Maybe that wasn’t as exciting an exercise as I thought. Somebody light the damn stove.

• I guess the best place to start is the man of the hour, Mike Moustakas. He’ll be the first Royals player to participate in the Home Run Derby since 1991. He’s also just been the beneficiary of the love Royals fans have for voting as he’s an All-Star for the second time thanks to the final vote that concluded yesterday afternoon. But maybe more importantly, he’s inching closer and closer to breaking the embarrassingly low franchise home run mark of 36. At 25 now, he’ll need just 11 over the team’s last 78 games, which should be more than doable for him. In a way, the break is coming at a bad time as he’s kind of gone nuts ever since the Royals first headed out to the West Coast a little less than a month ago. In 23 games, he’s hit .283 with a bad .299 OBP, but he’s posted a .652 slugging percentage with 10 homers in that stretch. He has six homers in his last eight games. As Hud would say, the Moose is definitely loose and now he gets to take some hacks close to where he grew up. I may even try one of those Stouffers Fit meals he was peddling last offseason. I’m a believer.
• While I think most people are off the idea that the Royals should sell, there are still some who think that trading pending free agents is the best course of action. While I was fully on board with trading off parts before this stretch, I don’t see how you can now, and I also don’t think you gain a whole lot from making those trades now. Considering the return for rentals who aren’t pitchers, I think the value the Royals receive from making another run with this group and then taking the draft pick compensation (likely a comp round first rounder for all three of Eric Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain and Moustakas if they don’t re-sign in Kansas City) is a similar value to what they’d receive if they traded. While they would get players who are farther along in their professional career than someone they would draft next June, I don’t know the players would necessarily be better than those they could draft. It’s not just the players they’d be able to draft but the fact that their draft pool allotment would jump considerably and allow them to take a player who might want more money than most teams can afford in the draft. When you add in the idea that this group could make another run and currently does sit in position to make the postseason, selling is entirely off the table to me. As for buying, I believe they should work to supplement this team, but I don’t want them to go too crazy unless they’re getting back controllable talent.
• I mentioned what Moose has done since the Royals headed West to San Diego, but another player who has kind of quietly turned things around since that point is Alex Gordon. He’s hitting .247/.310/.481 in his last 23 games with four homers and 15 RBI. No, that isn’t anything fantastic but given what he provides on defense that’s more than enough, especially if he’s going to remain at the bottom of the batting order. That trip coincides roughly with when he finally brought some adjustments from batting practice to the game. It’s always nice when a positive change occurs after an adjustment has been made, one way or another. That makes it feel much more real. Anyway, it may very well be true that the Alex Gordon we fell in love with in 2011 and 2012 will never be back, but this version is a very useful piece on a championship club. Him continuing to hit like he has is a big key to the Royals offense continuing to put up runs and win the games necessary to make October crazy in Kansas City once again.
• If the Royals are buying, one area I’d fully expect them to look to upgrade would be at starting pitcher. There’s all sorts of uncertainty around Nate Karns and if he’ll even be back this season, so they will likely need one more piece. Nick Cafardo recently wrote that he thinks the Royals will target top of the rotation arms, but Cafardo also routinely has been very wrong regarding the Royals plans, so I’ll go ahead and file that away and not worry about it. I think mid-rotation arms are a much more likely target, and there are actually a few who could make sense. My list of who I think will at least be in rumors includes Andrew Cashner, Jhoulys Chacin, Marco Estrada, Scott Feldman, J.A. Happ, Derek Holland, Ivan Nova (though I don’t think I can see him traded), Dan Straily and Edinson Volquez. Volquez’s walk rate concerns me, but I could also see Dayton Moore having interest in sort of getting the band back together. Straily would be really intriguing because of the tons of control he has left, but that would also make him more expensive. None of these names will make the Royals favorites for anything necessarily, but they would all help to round out a rotation that has been better than expected this season.

• There has been a lot of talk about the unwritten rules of baseball this week. It stems mostly from Jarrod Dyson laying down a bunt in the sixth inning of a game where Justin Verlander was throwing a perfect game. You didn’t ask for my opinion, but that’s the great thing about Friday Notes. You’re going to get it anyway. I’ll quote Herm Edwards here. You play to win the game. Jarrod Dyson’s game is speed. He puts the ball on the ground, he runs real fast and sometimes he’s safe at first. The Mariners were down 4-0 in the sixth inning to a pitcher with an ERA in the mid-4s as a team scoring about 4.8 runs per game. Is a four-run deficit game over? Not in my eyes it isn’t. There is no time in which an opposing team should stop trying to do everything they can to create runs for their team. Okay, that’s not true. I did have that opinion until Hunter Samuels made a good point in the BP KC break room about it being like a 12-0 game or something. At that point, don’t bunt, there’s no need. But what Dyson did on Wednesday night is not only okay in my book, it’s encouraged.
• Travis Wood has an ERA of 6.51 this season, which is just terrible, but if you’ve been following this team for more than a couple weeks this season, you’ll know that it’s pretty impressive given where he was not too long ago. At the end of April, he had an ERA of 18.56. At the end of May, it was basically cut in half to 9.17. After allowing two runs in 1.2 innings on June 4, though, Wood has thrown 8.1 consecutive scoreless innings over six outings. And maybe more importantly, he’s walked just one while striking out six. So the question is what’s different. I don’t know if this is making a huge difference, but prior to his recent stretch, Wood had thrown four-seam fastballs more than half the time and very few two-seamers. He was throwing his cutter a little more than 20 percent of the time and throwing some changeups and breaking balls. Since, he’s reduced his four-seam fastball usage to about 33 percent and thrown two-seamers a bit more than 25 percent of the time. He’s also thrown his cutter a bit more while pulling back a lot on his changeup. Opponents haven’t gotten a hit on his cutter, slider or changeup and have hit just .167 against the two-seamer. Prior to that game on June 6, he’d allowed a .342 average and .463 slugging percentage on his fastball while his slider and curve were destroyed (in admittedly limited samples). Look, it’s just a few games, so we’ll see if he reverts, but he appears to have moved away from what wasn’t working in search of something else and he’s found a solution.
• On the flip side, Jorge Bonifacio has had some tough times since moving to the number two spot in the lineup. He’s still getting his home runs with three in 15 games, but he’s been striking out quite a bit. He’s been beaten with fastballs lately, but I had a hunch he was being pitched away with breaking stuff more. Strangely enough, that hunch was wrong. Pitchers have actually been more over the plate with the curves and sliders lately and stopped going to the spot low and away that they tried to attack in his first 40 or so games in the big leagues. I’m not entirely sure yet if that’s a good sign or bad, but I feel like part of why they stopped going to that well is because he just wasn’t swinging. My hunch is that he’s just going through a bit of a slump, but watching young players try to adjust is always really interesting because you can learn quite a bit from them. The guys who can’t adapt aren’t long for this league. The ones who can usually can find their way to a nice career. I think Bonifacio is a smart enough hitter with a good enough plan at the plate that he’ll adjust and get through this, but it’s worth watching, especially while Jorge Soler is raking in Omaha. Note: I am not suggesting they demote Bonifacio and bring up Soler right now. I’m just making the point there are alternatives if it should come to that.
• As Jeffrey Flannagan noted on Twitter the other day, a decision will have to be made on Brian Flynn by Sunday as that’s the end of his 30-day rehab assignment. That means he will need to be activated from the 60-day DL and placed back on the 40-man roster. Now, Flynn has had a rough go of it in Omaha with two especially bad outings, but he still needs a spot and the Royals currently don’t have one. I see a couple options. The first is that Hunter Dozier with a broken hamate bone could be transferred to the 60-day DL and Flynn can take his spot. The second is that Nate Karns could be transferred to the 60-day DL. At this point, he’s been out since May 20 anyway, so he likely won’t be back within 60 days. That would delay the decision. And the third is to just drop someone from the 40-man. Miguel Almonte having a nice season probably saves him, but the obvious choice is Chris Young, who does provide a valuable service of pitching innings so other people don’t have to, but let’s be real. You’d still rather have a better pitcher on the roster than that. I’m not sure Flynn will be in the big leagues since he has an option left, but he’ll definitely need to be added to the 40-man, so it’ll be interesting to see what the move is.

Yankees Vitals

Royals vs. Yankees

Offense

Pitching

Projected Lineup

The Matchups

Monday

Pineda matched up with the Royals last week and got the win, but he didn’t exactly pitch great. He gave up four runs (three earned) in six innings and only struck out five while walking two, which was tied for his season high. Just to recap from last week, Pineda throws a cutter more than half the time at 94-95 MPH and mixes a slider nearly 40 percent of the time. The rest are changeups, which have been pretty bad for Pineda this year with a .455 average allowed and .727 slugging percentage. One thing is that he’s had some troubles with is the home run ball, and Brandon Moss and Savlador Perez are both seem locked in right now, so hopefully they can take advantage of the small dimensions of Yankee Stadiuml.

Vargas had his first truly bad start of the season against the Yankees, and it happened just the way I expected it would. His changeup wasn’t working and the rest of his stuff wasn’t good enough to make up for it. The Yankees right-handed power is concerning against him, so if the changeup isn’t working again, it could be big trouble. I honestly believe this is why the Royals are working with 14 pitchers for the time being. Chris Young and Mike Minor are likely not available, so Miguel Almonte is needed, you know, just in case.

Weather: 62°, Wind SE 3-6 MPH, Mostly Cloudy/Overcast, 40% Precipitation

Tuesday

Montgomery is the other rematch for the Royals in this series. It’s surprising they were able to hit him because they struggle with lefties and with pitchers they haven’t seen much. His five runs allowed were a career high for him, but he did only give up four hits with the big blow being a home run off the bat of Mike Moustakas. Montgomery mixes five pitches: a fastball at 92-93 MPH, a sinker at a similar velocity, a changeup, a curve and a slider. The fastball has been effective, while the changeup and slider have been outstanding. The curve and sinker, though, have been what hitters have gotten the job done against him. He doesn’t have the home run issues Pineda does, but he also doesn’t have especially great stuff, so he could get touched up. Montgomery has had a reverse platoon split this season with a .248/.329/.349 line allowed against righties and a .250/.348/.600 line against lefties.

Duffy hadn’t looked especially good in his last few starts before facing the Yankees last week, but he built on his last few innings against the Orioles in his previous start and ended up striking out 10 over seven shutout innings that the Royals desperately needed. It’s tough to shut down a team twice in a week, and Yankee Stadium is difficult on all pitchers, but I’m hopeful Duffy can continue what he’s shown over his last 10 innings or so.

Weather: 68°, Wind E 3-6 MPH, Mostly Cloudy, 20% Precipitation

Wednesday

The Royals get their first look at Severino this season, and he’s been much better than he was last season. His ERA approached 6.00 and he was shifted to the bullpen, but back in the rotation this year, he’s been outstanding. His strikeout rate is one of the best in baseball and he’s continued to show good control. The only thing that isn’t top level for Severino this year is the fact that he isn’t consistently getting deep into games. He has gone seven or more innings in half his starts, but he hasn’t gotten more than 5.2 in his other four.

Like Pineda, Severino doesn’t throw many pitches, but he throws them well. He relies heavily on a fastball at 97-98 MPH. His slider is the money pitch with two strikes, as he has recorded about 70 percent of his strikeouts with it. He also throws a changeup, and while it’s been excellent this season, he still hardly uses it. The fastball is worth noting, as he’s allowed a .291 average on it with a .481 slugging percentage. Those numbers aren’t elite or anything, but they’re good enough to knock him out of games. A couple things stand out in his splits. For one, he’s had trouble at home. His strikeouts and walks are about the same home and road, but he’s posted a 5.09 ERA at home compared to 2.25 on the road. A lot of it is just noise, but some of it is that the home run ball has been a problem for him in his four home starts. My one piece of advice for the Royals is to work the count to get him out of the game. Part of the reason for that, is that he’s allowed a .150/.150/.300 line on the first pitch this season, so that’s pretty bad.

Hammel in New York seems like a poor fit and a recipe for some disaster. He was supposed to go in the Minnesota series but had his start moved back a few days with the rainout and the uncertainty over Nate Karns. In his last start, he gave up five runs over six innings against the Yankees and it was an improvement over his previous start. His strikeouts had been ticking up, but then in his last start he got only three swinging strikes and didn’t record a single strikeout. He needs a good outing here, but with the rotation’s health in question now, he’s got some time.

Weather: 69°, Wind SE 4-8 MPH, Mostly Cloudy, 30% Precipitation

Thursday

It’s been a bad season for Tanaka. He had a 3.12 ERA in 75 starts in his first three seasons in the big leagues, but you can see where his numbers have gone this year. What’s weird is that it looked like he was turning things around when he gave up one run over 16 innings in his last two starts of April, but he’s had a brutal May. In 18 innings over four starts, he’s given up 22 runs on 34 hits with 10 home runs allowed. Add in a hit by pitch and he’s allowed 40 base runners in those 18 innings. It’s been bad.

It’s not a velocity issue. That’s remained consistent. He relies mostly on a sinker, slider and splitter and he mixes in a cutter four-seam fastball and curve. So far this year, nothing has been hit softly. The splitter and slider have been the best in terms of suppressing hits. He’s allowed an .861 SLG on sinkers and a .455 average with a .727 slugging percentage on sinkers. But like I said, not much has gone right for him. He’s allowed a .519/.552/1.148 line on the first pitch, which is beyond terrible. When he’s behind in the count, opponents hit .358/.500/.830 against him, which is truly awful. He’s allowed a .957 OPS the first time through, 1.014 the second time, .857 the third time and .952 the fourth time. The moral of this story is that there’s a lot of opportunity to hit Tanaka.

Miguel Almonte will make his first big league start for the Royals in this one, but not his big league debut. He made nine appearances for the 2015 Royals (earned a ring!) and went 0-2 with a 6.23 ERA over 8.2 innings. The home run ball bit him in those appearances as he allowed four, so that’s not great. The prospect shine is basically completely gone from Almonte after he had to be dropped a level to AA, but he fared quite well there this year as can be seen from his statistics. Nobody doubts the talent, so maybe he just needed a little more time. Still, this is a tough lineup to find out against, so hopefully he can give the Royals four or five quality innings.

Weather: 64°, Wind SE 5-10 MPH, Mostly Cloudy, 40% Precipitation

I really don’t think I like this series for the Royals. I do like the way the bats are hitting the ball out of the park, which could be good in Yankee Stadium, but I don’t like the way they’re pitching right now. I think they find a way to split the series, but the wins they get will be close, so they’ll need things to go right to make sure they actually do get them.

Twins Vitals

Twins vs. Royals

Pitching

Offense

Twins Projected Lineup

The Matchups

Friday

Santiago has had a better season than the numbers would indicate. Prior to his last start, he had posted a 2.76 ERA through his first seven and was averaging about six innings per start. Regression comes at you fast, though, and he allowed six runs in 2.2 innings against the Indians his last time out to see all his numbers balloon. With those six runs came three home runs, which doubled his season total. Now the question is if he can get back on track and shut down the Royals like he did in the season’s opening week or if he’ll continue to regress more to the pitcher he was when he came to the Twins initially last season.

He’s mostly a two-pitch pitcher throwing his four seam fastball about 60 percent of the time and his changeup about a quarter of the time. The changeup is often a very, very good pitch, but it does flatten out from time to time and, when that happens, it’s quite hittable. He also mixes in a curve, slider and a cutter. This season, the power has come on the fastball. He’s allowed five home runs on that pitch, but the cutter and slider have been hit the hardest in the limited sample we have of them being put in play. The Royals have largely struggled against lefties, but Santiago has allowed a .429/.571/.905 line to them this season, so something’s gotta give here. He’s also found a way to actually be better in the third time through the order this season, which you don’t see all that often.

Karns has been very, very good his last few times out, but he’s returning to the scene of where his ERA got out of whack in the first series of the season when he gave up four runs in 2/3 of an inning in relief against the Twins. As a starter, he has a 3.63 ERA and has found the strikeout pitch of late, fanning 26 in his last 12.1 innings. He’s recorded 18 swinging strikes in each of his last two starts and has been in double digits in that category in his last five starts and in six of seven total. He’s not likely to get too deep into games, but if he can keep doing what he’s doing, five or six innings of that will be just fine.

Saturday

The Twins acquired Mejia from the Giants in exchange for Eduardo Nunez, a player who I thought the Royals would try very hard to acquire this offseason. That doesn’t have anything to do with Mejia, but I’m still surprised they didn’t. It’s also interesting in a way that he made his big league debut and only appearance of the season last year against the Royals. He’ll turn 24 in a month and is actually a pretty decent prospect, though there’s still plenty of work to be done for him.

Mejia throws two fastballs, a changeup and a slider, but he lives on the fastballs that average about 93 MPH with some movement. If you’re looking for a pitch that’s been most effective in his four big league games, you likely won’t find one as they’ve all been rocked pretty hard. Of the 16 hits he’s allowed in 11.2 big league innings, nine of them have gone for extra bases. That seems bad. There’s not much of a big league sample, but Mejia has yet to pitch more than five innings and hasn’t even been able to complete three innings in two of his starts. Of course, he’s a young lefty, so the Royals might have some serious trouble.

Kennedy will make his return in this one, and the Royals and Royals fans couldn’t be more excited. He’s missed his last two starts with a hamstring issue and is still coming off his worst start of the season against the White Sox when he allowed five runs in 4.1 innings before having to exit. All in all, Kennedy has pretty much been Kennedy this season, only with slightly fewer strikeouts than you’d expect. The Twins power concerns me against Kennedy, but he didn’t allow a home run in a loss to them in early April, so maybe now that the offense is going a little better, he can continue that.

Sunday

Hughes is a cautionary tale for why you don’t give players new deals when you don’t have to. He signed a three year, $24 million deal prior to the 2014 season and was really good. He posted the best strikeout to walk ratio in big league history. So the Twins tore up his deal and gave him a five year deal for $58 million instead. Since then, he’s gone 16-18 with a 4.90 ERA in 257.1 innings over two plus seasons. You see what he’s done this year. Not great, Bob.

Hughes has seen his fastball velocity drop from the 93-94 he threw with in 2014 to about 90 MPH in 2017, which is probably a big chunk of the cause of his struggles. He throws that a lot, too, about 42 percent of the time. He also has a solid curve, a cutter and a changeup. The fastball actually hasn’t been crushed too bad. That’s been reserved mostly for the changeup and the cutter. Nothing has been hit poorly, though, so Royals hitters should enjoy seeing both a righty and a righty they should theoretically be able to hit. This is kind of crazy, but in at bats that end on the first pitch, Hughes has allowed a .632 average and a 1.263 slugging percentage. That accounts for three of the seven home runs he’s allowed this season. But even if the Royals swing early and don’t find success, Hughes has found struggles the third time through the order, allowing a .349/.391/.605 line when facing a lineup a third time.

Hammel has been terrible. There’s no way around it. He’s made eight starts this season. Two have been very good. One has been acceptable. The rest have been downright bad. That’s going to have to change. As it stands right now, the Royals don’t really have another option and they aren’t going to move away from a guy in the second month of a two-year deal, but he’ll be pitching for his rotation life soon enough. There were some encouraging signs from Hammel after moving to the stretch exclusively, but he was brutal against the Yankees on Tuesday and will need a bounceback in this start to gain some confidence, both in himself and from the organization.

With lefties going in the first two games and the Royals being stymied by the Twins this season, I probably shouldn’t feel very good about this series, but I feel like they find a way to take two of three by beating one of the lefties and Hughes.