Kansas City Royals: Starting Pitching Options

Pitchers and catchers report today for the Kansas City Royals. Baseball is finally back. What options do the Royals have in terms of starting pitchers?

In 2015, Royals starters posted an ERA of 4.34 and totaled an American League worst 912.2 innings pitched. They still found a way to win the World Series and will begin their 2016 season as reigning World Champions.

The good news is, it will be hard to be worse than 2015 in terms of starting pitching so it would appear the only way to go is up. If the starting pitching staff can improve a little on their 2015 numbers, the Royals will be in good shape in attempting a repeat performance.

The bullpen may fall off a little, but look for them to retain their dominance and help carry the staff back to the postseason for a third consecutive season. No team in baseball want’s to face the Royals’ pitching staff after the sixth inning. The Royals had a winning streak of 111 games when leading after the seventh inning that was snapped late into last season.

While there are a few pitchers that appear to have starting spots locked up, there are questions as to who will fill out the starting rotation. The Royals have a lot of options on what players they’ll use to carry the game through inning number six.

They’ve made some additions this off-season in both Major League and Minor League deals that could turn into starting pitchers for them. If nothing else, they have depth and a plethora of options throughout the season.

FanGraphs has ‘Steamer’ projections for each player on how many games they’ll start in 2016. Let’s breakdown each starting pitching option in order of projected starts from most games started to fewest games started.

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