KC Royals: Demoting Richard Lovelady sends poor message to fans
The KC Royals made the decision to demote relief pitcher Richard Lovelady to Triple-A and that shows the team isn’t wanting to put the best possible players on the field. That’s not a good message for the fans who back this team.
The Kansas City Royals have been playing a lot of doubleheaders recently and they made a fairly big decision prior to Game 1 on Saturday. That decision was to option reliever Richard Lovelady to Triple-A Omaha and call up Brian Flynn, who was activated from his rehab assignment.
While Lovelady had dropped off a bit after his nice start in the majors, he’s not the person who should be getting sent down. The Royals could have opted to DFA either Chris Owings or Lucas Duda, but instead demoted a relief pitcher who is hopefully going to be a major part of the rebuild.
For the record, Owings is slashing .141/.203/.234 while Duda, currently on the injured list, is slashing .174/.304/.326. Neither of these guys will be a part of the Royals rebuild yet for some reason Dayton Moore and Ned Yost are enamored with them and keep them around.
https://twitter.com/royalsclubhouse/status/1132300919801044992
The tweet above, courtesy of Clubhouse Convo, shares a similar sentiment as the purpose of this article. Clearly the Royals don’t see the team pushing for any type of playoff spot (which isn’t crazy to believe at this point) and don’t want to waste service time on some of their prospects.
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That isn’t fair to Lovelady, who was doing just fine in the bigs. He appeared in 16 games, throwing 12.2 innings for an ERA of 4.26 and a WHIP of 1.42. His most recent outing didn’t see him record an out and his ERA went from 3.55 to 4.26 with that one run allowed in limited work.
It’s pretty frustrating that even with clear players needing to be let go from the team, the Royals continue to demote key prospects who need to take their lumps in the big leagues. Lovelady is the most recent victim of the unfair demotion and Kelvin Gutierrez was sent down last week.
The KC Royals aren’t going to be a playoff team, but in two years (at the least), they could be contending again and they need to get guys like Richard Lovelady time in the majors so that when those bigger games arrive, they’re ready for the moment.
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It’s also not fair to the fans to not even put the best possible players on the active roster each and every game. Owings and Duda have no business being on this roster yet Lovelady got bumped in order to keep them both around.
Do better, Dayton Moore.