Kansas City Royals: Rotation Taking Shape for 2017

The Kansas City Royals had a pretty lousy starting rotation for the majority of the 2016 season. During the team’s recent winning ways, however, the starting rotation has come into its own. Have we seen the possible rotation for next season?

Heading into this season, the starting rotation was probably the biggest question mark on the team. That proved to be right early on, as the Royals had one of the worst rotations in the entire league.

Now, however, the starting rotation has flourished.

Danny Duffy has been magnificent and has become the left-handed ace that the Royals were hoping he’d become. He currently has a 2.66 ERA in 35 games and 19 starts. He started the season off in the bullpen and was put into the rotation due to injuries to other starters.

If next season began tomorrow, Duffy would be the number one guy in the rotation. The Royals have even been in contacts with Duffman about an extension, which would be wise for both sides. Duffy’s pitched in 138.2 innings so far.

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Likely at the second spot of next year’s rotation would be Yordano Ventura, who seems to feed off of Duffy’s gem performances. Ventura had a rough beginning to the season, so his ERA still isn’t spectacular (4.27), but he’s lowered it quite a bit. Ventura has thrown 145.1 innings to this point.

The third guy in next year’s rotation would likely be Ian Kennedy, who the Royals signed to the second biggest contract in team history this past offseason. Kennedy was brought in to eat innings for the boys in blue, and he’s done just that, twirling 148.1 innings thus far.

Kennedy has an ERA of 3.58, which has lowered a lot in his past few starts. He’s been absolutely incredible in the month of August. His August ERA, in case you were wondering, sits at 0.67. Wow! He’s only allowed two runs this month.

[Matt] Strahm has been unreal out of the bullpen so far for the KC Royals, striking out 19 batters in 10.2 innings of work.

The fourth and fifth spots could be interesting for the Kansas City Royals next season, as Edinson Volquez isn’t under contract and we’re not entirely sure if Jason Vargas will be ready to re-join the rotation or not.

Say Volquez does return to the Royals, he’ll be back on a qualifying offer worth $16 million and would probably be the team’s fourth guy in the rotation. Is that amount of money worth it for a fourth spot guy?

If Volquez doesn’t return, however, Vargas could be a nice fourth option in the rotation.

The intriguing option for next season in the rotation is Matt Strahm. Strahm has been unreal out of the bullpen so far for the KC Royals, striking out 19 batters in 10.2 innings of work. He has an ERA of 0.00 for the month of August and a 0.84 ERA overall.

Kansas City Royals: Rotation Taking Shape for 2017

By Leigh Oleszczak | Aug 26, 2016

The Kansas City Royals had a pretty lousy starting rotation for the majority of the 2016 season. During the team’s recent winning ways, however, the starting rotation has come into its own. Have we seen the possible rotation for next season?

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