Kansas City Royals: Heath Fillmyer could be breakout candidate in 2019

Every year, there’s a member of the Kansas City Royals who performs at a much higher level than we expected him to. My prediction for that honor this year goes to pitcher Heath Fillmyer.

This time last year, Kansas City Royals fans probably didn’t know who Heath Fillmyer was. The organization acquired him when they sent Ryan Buchter and Brandon Moss to the Oakland A’s. Jesse Hahn was brought over in that deal too.

Fillmyer had a nice rookie season for the Royals, throwing in 82.1 innings and posting an ERA of 4.26 and a WHIP of 1.336. Those numbers don’t look great, but he’s only 24 years old and the sky is absolutely the limit for this kid.

Baseball Reference projects Fillmyer to still have an ERA over four in 2019, but to record 80 strikeouts and even notch two saves.

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Fillmyer was mostly used as a starter last season, making 13 starts and four relief appearances. In those starts, his best performance came against the Cubs in early August. That game saw Fillmyer go seven scoreless innings while only allowing three hits. It definitely helped that his offense gave him nine runs of offense, but still… Seven shutout innings is impressive for a 23 year old in his first year.

What I like about Heath Fillmyer, at least from what I saw of him in 2018, is his ability to eat innings. In the final month of the 2018 season, Fillmyer went at least seven innings in all but one game. The most runs he gave up in one of those seven inning appearances was four, but the Royals still were able to get him the W, winning 6-4 over the Twins.

I did a post on potential Royals starters a few weeks ago (see link below) and I stated several times in that post that I don’t think Fillmyer will make the rotation initially. I do, however, think he will make it a few months into the season whether it be due to injury to another starter or a starter underperforming (looking at you, Ian Kennedy).

From there, it’ll be Fillmyer’s time to shine. He really did look promising in year one and if he can build on that in year two, the Royals rotation could be set up nicely over this rebuild.

We see a players exceed expectations all the time and no one has really mentioned Heath Fillmyer as being a vital part of the Royals this year. I think he’ll become a household name in Kansas City after the 2019 season. I truly believe that. Hopefully I’m right!