Kansas City Royals: Will Kyle Zimmer ever make it to the major leagues
The Kansas City Royals are still fighting to be relevant this season and they could use all of the help they can get. Could former 2012 first round pick Kyle Zimmer eventually help the team out this season?
When it comes to frustrating draft choices, Kyle Zimmer has to be up there as one of the most frustrating. Zimmer, the fifth overall pick of the Kansas City Royals in 2012, has yet to get a Major League call up, but that is mostly because he’s always injured.
Since being drafted in 2012, Zimmer has frequently been sidelined due to some sort of injury. According to Rustin Dodd of The Kansas City Star, Zimmer had a cleanup of his elbow during his rookie season, had a strained back muscle in 2014, and underwent surgery on his shoulder after 2014. This season he missed nearly two months due to shoulder soreness.
In the past two years, Zimmer has only pitched in eight total games, and the hope that he could come up and contribute for the big league club keeps dwindling down as time passes.
Zimmer’s best season came in 2015 when he appeared in 24 total games (and started seven of them) throwing in 64 innings with a 2.39 ERA. The healthiest season he had was in 2013 where he started 24 games, pitched 108.1 innings, and recorded a season ERA of 4.32.
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Zimmer pitched two scoreless innings of relief for the Omaha Stormchasers, the Triple-A squad, on Tuesday night. His stats that season aren’t bad, but it’s the whole “staying healthy” aspect of the game that has plagued Zimmer’s career.
Maybe Zimmer can stay healthy for the rest of the season and the Kansas City Royals can eventually use him in some sort of reliever role, but it’s just tough to depend on the kid when he hasn’t been able to stay injury-free.
To make matter worse, Kyle Zimmer’s younger brother Bradley got his MLB call-up this season for Cleveland. He was drafted two years later and made it to the big leagues sooner than his big brother. Maybe that will be some sort of motivation for Kyle Zimmer, but sports have taught us that once you’re injured, it’s hard to not get re-injured.
The KC Royals could really use Zimmer’s services, as both the rotation and bullpen need some help. Even if Kyle Zimmer can only make it to the majors as a reliever who comes into blow out games, that’d be a small victory for the Royals because it’s starting to feel like he’ll never live up to the hype.