Kansas City Royals: 2014 and 2015 bullpens were something special

In the 2014 and 2015 postseasons, the Kansas City Royals had an absolute dominant bullpen. Any time the Royals had the lead heading into the seventh inning, the game was basically over.

That hasn’t been the case in this year’s World Series between the Astros and the Dodgers. Los Angeles supposedly had a tremendous bullpen, much like the Kansas City Royals had during their two World Series appearances. Unlike the Royals, however, the Dodgers pen wasn’t all that good at protecting leads.

In the first five games during this World Series, the Dodgers bullpen gave up 14 runs. Closer Kenley Jansen, who was one of the hottest closers on the free agent market last year and dominated for the Dodgers this season, blew a save and looked to be a shell of himself.

The Astros bullpen wasn’t good either (though they stepped it up in Game 7), but they weren’t thought of to be all that impressive headed into the World Series. Los Angeles definitely had the advantage there.

When looking at how hittable those bullpens were, especially LA’s who was thought to be the second coming of what Kansas City did, it has to make Royals fans appreciate what they had in 2014 and 2015. Those bullpens were elite and it’s entirely possible that we won’t see another unit like that for a very long time.

In that 2014 postseason, the Royals bullpen was on lockdown with the trio of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland closing out games from the seventh inning on. In 2015, Holland missed the playoffs, but Wade Davis stepped into that closer role without any troubles whatsoever.

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When the Royals starters would be pulled out of games, there was no doubt that the Royals pen would protect the lead and then hand things over to Davis to shut it down. Even guys like Danny Duffy, Luke Hochevar, and Chris Young stepped up when they were asked to, with Hochevar getting the win in Game 5 of that 2015 World Series.

A lot of teams have tried to recreate what the Kansas City Royals had during those two seasons, but we’re seeing that it’s nearly impossible to do so. What the Royals had in the pen during those two seasons was historic.

We all knew we were witnessing something special in those two seasons and it’s been fun watching other teams try to recreate it, but come up short. Dayton Moore hit it big with the H-D-H trio and kept the ball rolling in 2015 with Ryan Madson stepping up in the pen.

While other teams will keep trying to replicate the 2014 and 2015 Kansas City Royals bullpens, we’ve seen now just how difficult that is. It makes those runs even sweeter.