KC Royals: Danny Duffy Signs One Year Deal

The Kansas City Royals avoided arbitration with Danny Duffy, signing the 26-year-old left-handed starter to a one year, $2.425 million contract.

Duffy had submitted a $3 million arbitration bid while the Royals had countered with $1.75 million. The contract covers Danny Duffy’s first arbitration-eligible season.

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KC Royals general manager Dayton Moore continues to sign his arbitration-eligible players. After starting the season with a list of nine, the Royals now only have Greg Holland, Kelvin Herrera, and Eric Hosmer remaining as unsigned arbitration eligible players. Lorenzo Cain, Mike Moustakas, and Duffy have all agree to one-year contracts in the last four days.

Expect the remaining three to sign before the Kansas City Royals open spring training in Surprise, Arizona on February 19.

Duffy enjoyed what appears to be a breakthrough season in 2014. Duffy returned to Kansas City in late 2013 after tearing his ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow and having Tommy John surgery in 2012.

Duffy began the 2014 season in AAA Omaha, but was called up to Kansas City after an early season injury to starter Bruce Chen. Danny Duffy pitched so well that Chen never got back into the rotation. In 149.1 innings pitched, Duffy had an outstanding 2.53 ERA to go along with a 9-12 record.

As impressive as those numbers appear, however, Duffy’s peripherals are not nearly so good.

His strikeouts per nine innings (K/9) dropped to 6.8 in 2014 from 8.1 the year before and 7.3 for his career. Duffy’s walk rate improved 8.8% down from his career mark of 10.4%, but he also had an unusually good .239 batting average balls in play (BABIP. .300 was league average for an A.L. pitcher in 2014). This metric suggests that Duffy had either outstanding defense behind him, good luck, or both last season.

As a result, Duffy’s fielding independent pitching (FIP, an ERA estimate based only on strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed) was 3.83 and his adjusted FIP (xFIP, which adjusts FIP for park factors and defense) was an even worse 4.42.

In short, the sabermetric estimate FIP- (which compares xFIP numbers for every league starter) suggests that Duffy was really a league average pitcher last season (FIP- 100).

Danny Duffy’s stuff, however, is much higher grade. Duffy’s pitch chart shows a fastball that averages 93.2 but can touch 96 mph. Duffy also throws a curveball, change-up, and a nasty slider.

Danny Duffy debuted in Kansas City with 105.2 innings pitched in 2011 (with a 5.64 ERA). He appeared on his way with six encouraging starts early in 2014 with an improved 3.90 ERA and 9.1 K/9, but tore his UCL on May 14, 2012.

Duffy is the only one of four highly touted minor-league lefty starters that helped make the Kansas City Royals the top rated farm system before the 2011 season. Mike Montgomery was traded to Tampa Bay as part of the James Shields/Wade Davis deal, John Lamb is still in AAA, and Chris Dwyer left the Royals as a minor-league free agent.

Next: Comparing KC's Eric Hosmer and Paul Goldschmidt

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