KC Royals: Can Jandel Gustave Stick As Rule 5 Pick?

Purchasing reliever Jandel Gustave for cash was one of the most interesting moves the Kansas City Royals general manager Dayton Moore made this winter.

Jandel Gustave is a 22-year-old Dominican prospect with a fastball that touches 100mph. Gustave, however, is still raw. He hasn’t pitched above High A.

The Kansas City Royals acquired the right-handed Gustave from the Boston Red Sox, who snapped up the hard-throwing reliever in the rule 5 draft from the loaded Houston Astros system.

The rule 5 draft is a system in which minor league players become eligible to move on from the team that drafted them after 3 or 4 seasons (depending on age when first drafted) unless the club places them on their 40-man roster.

If a team fails to put a rule 5 eligible player on the roster, then the other major-league clubs have an opportunity to claim them in a draft during baseball’s winter meetings.

The kicker is that the team that drafts them must keep such a player on their major-league roster for a year or else they must offer his rights back to his original team for $50,000.

The rule is intended to prevent a player from getting stuck in a system that doesn’t appreciate his talents, or simply prevent someone from being blocked for too long.

In Gustave’s case, he happened to be part of a loaded Astros system that has too many prospects to protect all of them. Otherwise, the Astros would never expose a player with Gustave’s upside.

The problem for the KC Royals, however, is that Gustave got rocked in High A. In 2014, Jandel Gustave pitched 79.0 innings and made 14 starts in 23 games, for an unsightly 5.01 ERA.

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Gustave struggled so much that Baseball America analyst J.J. Cooper doesn’t think he can stick in the big leagues.

Yet, digging into Gustave’s minor league numbers, and looking at some of the online reports, gives some hope that Dayton Moore could have uncovered a gem.

First, Gustave appears to have suffered from some bad fortune. His Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) was a much more acceptable 3.50, probably due to an unusually high Batting Average Balls in Play (BABIP) of .373. Compounding the problem was his minuscule stand rate of 59%.

In short, his defense didn’t do Jandel Gustave any favors, and his hits seemed to be unusually bunched.

The second hopeful sign comes from his splits. As a starter, Gustave got rocked for a 6.75 ERA. As a reliever, that number dwindled to an outstanding 0.78 (in only 16.2 innings).

Scouting reports indicate that Gustave has a relatively straight fastball, with an average-to-good slider. His problem, as a starter, is that he doesn’t have an effective third pitch. He throws a change-up, but it comes in at 92 mph and is simply a slower fastball.

The third positive indication is the sharp decline in his walk rate. Jandel Gustave was wild early in his career, piling up walk rates of 24.1%, 28.8%, and 19.7% in his first three professional seasons. What makes those numbers even worse is they came against impatient rookie-league hitters.

In his last two, Gustave’s walks have dropped to 11.9% in 2013, and a much-improved 7.8% at High A in 2014.

Right now, it appears as if the Kansas City Royals intend to use Gustave as a mop-up guy, just to keep him on the roster. This intended role, plus all three of the above reasons, make you think that Dayton Moore could have found another Joakim Soria, whom the Royals claimed in the 2006 Rule 5 draft while he was pitching in the Mexican Pacific League.

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