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KC Royals: Will Yordano Ventura Become Baseball’s New Strikeout King

By John Viril

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Second-year starter Yordano Ventura might have the most filthy stuff of any pitcher that has ever played for the Kansas City Royals. Can he become the first true strikeout king in franchise history?

The Royals have never really had a premier power pitcher on their staff. The closest the team has come has been Zack Greinke.

Greinke’s best strikeout year in KC saw him average 9.50 Strikeouts per 9 innings (K/9). That came in his 2009 Cy Young season, which is the only 105th best single-season K rate for a starting pitcher since 1969 (when the Royals franchise began play).

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Greinke ranked 3rd in major-league baseball with 242 strikeouts in 2009, which is the franchise’s single season strikeout mark. Greinke is also the Royals career leader in K/9, with 7.48.

Yet, Greinke is nowhere close to a true power pitcher like Justin Verlander in his prime, or Pedro Martinez (10.0 career K/9).

This brings us back to 23-year-old Yordano Ventura.

Ventura throws the hardest average fastball of any starting pitcher in the majors. Fortunately, Ventura models himself on fellow Dominican Pedro Martinez—who led the A.L. in strikeout three times between 1999 and 2002.

Yordano Ventura did ring up a good number of hitters in his rookie season. He struck out 159 hitters in 183.0 innings pitched (IP) for a K/9 of 7.74. Yet, that season left Ventura far behind MLB strikeout leader David Price (271).

Part of the reason the Kansas City Royals have never had a strikeout king is that the franchise’s pitching coaches have tended to preach a pitch-to-contact philosophy to exploit Kauffman Stadium’s spacious outfield.

The other obstacle to Yordano Ventura becoming a strikeout king is his lack of secondary stuff. Ventura throws a decent curve, but his change-up is pretty much a straight, 90-mph offering that resembles a fastball for most other pitchers.

Even so, Ventura gets a decent 33.89% whiff per swing rate with his change—probably due to the contrast with his hard fastball. In fact, it’s the pitch MLB hitters are most likely to miss, compared with a 23.61% rate for his fourseam fastball, and 33.63% rate for his curve.

That Yordano Ventura can get hitters to miss what is mostly a straight change is a testament to his overwhelming hard stuff.

Thus we’re left with an irony: for Yordano Ventura to become a true power pitcher he needs to improve his slow stuff.

Until Ventura can develop a change with better action and a bigger velocity gap compared to his hard stuff, he will not become the first strikeout king in Kansas City Royals history.

Next: Five Worst Managers In KC Royals History

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