Kansas City Royals 2014 Plethora of Back-end Rotation Options

Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Danny Duffy (41) Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

2. Danny Duffy, LHP

Unlike Chen, Danny Duffy has had his fair share of struggles in a Royals uniform. In his short three year career, he has had early season-ending injuries in two of them.

It’s hard to get an accurate reading of what kind of long-term pitcher Danny Duffy will be because of his injury history. Although, that doesn’t mean that the Royals don’t like the potential that they see.

Duffy is an electric, left-handed pitcher with some nasty stuff. He has 137 strikeouts in 157.1 career innings. However, with the electric stuff that he has, he hasn’t been able to control his command very well yet. Duffy has 83 walks which average out to over .5 walks an inning.

This has led to a lot of pitches and short outings.  Even so, Duffy has managed a 3.90 and 1.85 ERA in his past two injury-shortened seasons, respectively. Duffy has proved to me that he deserves that last spot in the rotation until he proves he can’t handle it or someone else proves they are more deserving.