Kansas City Royals clearly trying to improve bullpen for 2019 season

When looking back at the 2018 season, the bullpen was the weakest area for the Kansas City Royals. Dayton Moore is trying to put together a better bullpen for this upcoming season.

The Kansas City Royals‘ bullpen was a disaster last season, finishing the league ranked second to last in bullpen ERA. With names like Burch Smith, Blaine Boyer, and Justin Grimm, it was hard to wonder how Royals fans ever thought their bullpen stood a chance last season.

Well, Dayton Moore saw how terrible the Royals relievers were last year and he’s doing something about it in 2019.

Over the past week and a half, Moore and the Royals have brought in Brad Boxberger, Jake Diekman, and just recently signed Drew Storen to a minor league deal. Boxberger has closer experience and will likely compete with Wily Peralta for the closer’s role while Diekman is an all around reliable reliever and will help mentor the younger guys in the pen.

As for the Storen signing, he’s a 31 year old with eight years of major league experience. He’s always been a reliever throughout his career, but missed all of 2018 due to injury.

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He’s spent some time as a closer, but over the last few seasons that hasn’t been his role. Storen is only on a minor league deal, so we’ll have to see what, if anything, the Royals get out of him during Spring Training.

It’s nice to see Moore adding MLB relievers who can come in and help the bullpen improve in 2019. Yes, the Royals are still rebuilding, but they have prospects who will hopefully be a part of this rebuild and can help the team in the bigger moments several years down the road.

Bringing these veterans will help get those younger guys to that point. What can’t happen is these guys end up blocking some of the prospects, but hopefully if they pitch well enough, the Royals can flip them to another team at the trade deadline for more prospects.

When we last saw Drew Storen, he wasn’t doing great in Cincinnati. He had a 4.45 ERA and 1.463 WHIP in 54.2 innings thrown before missing all of 2018 due to injury. Storen has had some good seasons throughout his career, so hopefully the Royals can get some kind of production out of him.

Dayton Moore saw how poorly the Royals bullpen performed last year and he’s made it his mission to find some help this offseason. Will it pay off in the long run?