Kansas City Royals: Who Would Royals Protect in Expansion Draft

DANNY DUFFY

This is one of the most obvious ones listed here because Danny Duffy is the ace of the KC Royals and any general manager with a working brain would want to steal him off another team’s roster.

Duffy has had an up and down career, but lately, he’s found his groove. Duffman has become the ace of the Kansas City Royals and it came about during the 2016 season when not much else was going right for the boys in blue.

Duffy’s 2016 season saw him break the record of strikeouts in a game with 16. He finished the year kind of shaky, but had a 3.51 ERA in 26 starts that year. He was the unquestioned ace heading into the 2017 season, especially with the passing of Yordano Ventura, who would have easily made this list as well had it not been for his tragic death earlier this year.

Every team in Major League Baseball strives to have their one true ace in their rotation and it makes it even more glorious when that ace was developed in their own farm system. Danny Duffy is the guy who wanted to be a Royal even when no one else did and that’s what makes him so important to this team and to this city.

He’s only 28 years old and will be pitching solid baseball for years to come, so there is no way the Kansas City Royals would let Danny Duffy get swiped from their team. He’d definitely be protected in an expansion draft.