Kansas City Royals: When is the next dominant bullpen coming?
By Cody Rickman
The Kansas City Royals don’t have the best projections currently for their bullpen performance with five pitchers barely above 0.0 WAR. The Royals bullpen prospects are nearly ready and could project hope for the franchise.
Kansas City Royals fans yearn for the days of the shut-down bullpen “law firm” days of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland (to some extent Ryan Madson). The 2014 and 2015 back-to-back AL pennant champions were led by one of the most dominant bullpens in the decade. So much so, that the MLB landscape was changed afterwards with playoff teams building dominant bullpens to shorten games by two to three innings.
The abrupt end to spring training has us writers postulating who will ultimately make the 2020 Royals roster. If you strictly go by the spring training statistics, you generally miss out on the purpose of spring training.
Several of the Royals bullpen arms were working on getting their fastball command early and their numbers are inflated as a result. Out of the spring training performances we can paint a decent picture of who will be in the bullpen for the 2020 season.
Projected 2020 Bullpen (projections from fangraphs.com – Steamer):
- Closer: Ian Kennedy (projected: 0.3 WAR)
- Set-up/High Leverage: Scott Barlow (projected: 0.3 WAR)
- Set-up/High Leverage/Closer: Trevor Rosenthal (projected: 0.1 WAR)
- Middle Relief: Tim Hill (projected: 0.5 WAR)
- Middle Relief: Josh Staumont (projected: 0.2 WAR)
- Middle Relief: Randy Rosario (projected: -0.0 WAR)
- Long Relief/Swing-man: Glenn Sparkman (projected: -0.0 WAR)
The 2020 bullpen doesn’t project for much in positive value, but pitchers like Trevor Rosenthal and Josh Staumont are poised to have breakout performances if they are able to consistently find the command of their absolutely filthy stuff.
Kennedy, Barlow, and Hill should each be consistent and carry over their late season 2019 success. Rosario and Sparkman each showed sharp stuff and elevated velocity in spring training to give optimism in their potential.
Chance Adams, Jorge Lopez, and Greg Holland are each in play for a reliever role as well for the 2020 season.
Adams still has minor league options remaining and may find himself starting at AAA to begin the season. Lopez will be given another opportunity to find his way as a starter as his spring training performance was outstanding. Brady Singer is knocking on the door and appears ready for the MLB challenge, so if Lopez doesn’t perform as a starter, he could transition to the bullpen to make way for Singer.
Greg Holland needs to make the roster as he was signed to a minor league contract with stipulations of becoming a free agent if he doesn’t make the MLB roster. Holland presents a difficult decision for the Royals front office.
The 2020 bullpen needs a lot of things to go right to climb back into the level of respectability. The 2019 season was marred by early bullpen struggles and the team wasn’t able to climb itself back out of the cellar as a result.
If/when the 2020 season takes place, these guys will need to perform for the Royals to have more success.