Kansas City Royals: Eric Skoglund roster spot in jeopardy

With Cactus League games getting underway, Eric Skoglund needs to take advantage of the 33 game schedule to show he can still get outs at the big league level or he will not make the Kansas City Royals roster in 2020.

Eric Skoglund must have a good Spring Training if he wants to be considered for the Kansas City Royals‘ fifth starter in the rotation and he didn’t get off to a great start on Friday in the Cactus League opener, surrendering three runs in the seventh inning.

Skoglund was selected in the third round of the 2014 draft from the University of Central Florida following his junior season. The lefty primarily came up through college and the Royals system as a starter. In the Royals minor league system, he started in 50 games before he made his Royals debut on May 30th, 2017.

Skoglund had only posted a 13-15 record in his three seasons prior to being called up to start that night. It was at a time when the Royals starting rotation had taken somewhat of a beating with three of their pitchers spending time on the DL (Danny Duffy, Nate Karns, and Ian Kennedy).

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The Royals, who were desperate need of finding a starter, made the decision to start Skoglund that night against the Tigers and Justin Verlander.

The lefty simply dazzled Royals fans that night by going six and a third scoreless innings and only giving up two hits. He retired 14 straight Tigers at one point in the Royals’ 1-0 win. It turned out to be the only real highlight so far in his career.

Skoglund has started 21 games since then (appeared in 27 total) over the last three seasons where he has gone 2-11 and posted an ERA of 6.61. He started the 2019 season with an 80 game suspension after he violated league’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program after testing positive for two substances on that list. 

After his return from the suspension, Skoglund struggled at both AAA Omaha as well as the Royals. He went 3-5 for the Storm Chasers with an ERA of 6.04 and was 0-3 with a 9.00 with the big league club.

Its hard to imagine right now that Eric Skogland is in the overall rebuild plan for the Royals as a starter, especially when looking at the up and coming young arms of Brady Singer, Daniel Lynch, and Jackson Kowar.

Skoglund’s numbers out of the bullpen make it hard to justify placing him even in that role. All of his appearances have been in games where the Royals fell behind early and simply needed someone to eat up innings in a long relief role.

In his three seasons, he has appeared five times for 11 innings out of the bullpen. In those appearances, he has given up nine earned runs. If his relief appearances innings and earned runs are taken away, his career ERA actually improves from 7.26 to 6.61.

With Dayton Moore signing Trevor Rosenthal and Greg Holland to minor league contracts, it is extremely hard to see Skoglund filling a bullpen role. That, along with the new rule change that relief pitchers have to either pitch to a minimum of three batters or finish the inning, make it a tough case to have Skoglund come out of the bullpen. Mike Matheny won’t have the luxury of simply bringing him into games to get one left-handed batter out.

Without a doubt when looking at those at Kansas City Royals Spring Training, it is clear that Eric Skoglund has the most riding to keep his spot on the roster. Let’s all hope that he can replicate his debut and give us a quality fifth starter in the rotation.