Kansas City Royals: Miquel Almonte designated for assignment
By Britt Zank
The Kansas City Royals made a roster move as they designated pitcher Miquel Almonte for assignment.
The Royals made the move to DFA Miguel to clear roster space for Abraham Almonte. Abraham is a 28 year old outfielder the Royals claimed off waivers from the Cleveland Indians.
Abraham is a switch hitter who served an 80-game suspension in 2016 for PED use. In 389 plate appearances in 2016 and 2017 he only amounted a .249 batting average, .304 on base percentage and .384 slugging percentage. Not exactly a young player with high upside.
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In return for this older outfielder who is only 5’9 with little speed and no power, the team traded away one of it’s top young pitching prospects. Before this goes any further I should point out that saying he’s a top prospect is in terms of his status in this Royals system. Miguel is not someone on the radar of any national rankings.
While nobody expected him to be the next Yordano Ventura or Zack Greinke, he was still the top pitching prospect in the Royal system. With how bad the bullpen has looked through three games I was fully expecting MIguel to get called up into the pen in the next month. That appears to be a long shot now.
In seven seasons as a professional pitcher, Miguel has an ERA of 3.80 and 2.65 strikeout to walk ratio. He showed signs that he could be a great addition to the pen with the outside chance he could transition to a back end of the rotation role.
One reason for this questionable move could be injury. Jeffrey Flanagan has reported that Almonte has been dealing with posterior shoulder soreness. We have seen in 2018 the Royals appear to be tired of pitchers battling injuries.
Miguel Almonte was battling posterior shoulder soreness.
— Jeffrey Flanagan (@FlannyMLB) April 2, 2018
Miguel is not the first top pitching prospect to be DFA’d this season. Kyle Zimmer, the former first round pick, was DFA’d prior to opening day. That makes two of the Royals top pitching prospects released within a week. This raises some concerns for fans as the Royals are at the beginnings of a rebuilding mode and they dump two high profile prospects.
It seems you’d want to at least let these guys get a look at the big league level before you just give up on them. However, general manager Dayton Moore has earned the right for fans to trust his moves. He delivered a championship to a franchise once rated the worst in all of professional sports, he’s allowed some room to rebuild.