Sept. 5: Manager Ned Yost confirmed that Duffy’s season is over, Flanagan tweets. With the team’s most veteran arm done for the year, Jakob Junis will be the most experienced arm heading up a six-man rotation. Brad Keller, Heath Fillmyer, Jorge Lopez, Eric Skoglund and Glenn Sparkman could all be in line for starts down the stretch.
[Related: Kansas City Royals depth chart]
Sept. 4: Royals left-hander Danny Duffy exited tonight’s start after being charged with three runs in just two-thirds of an inning, with the team later announcing that he exited due to a left shoulder impingement. Following the game, Duffy told Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com that he expects to be shut down for the rest of the season (Twitter link).
While there’s been no formal declaration from the team just yet, the Royals have every reason to exercise caution. Kansas City was mathematically eliminated from postseason contention quite some time ago and was never considered a contender heading into the season. Duffy is quite arguably the team’s most important starter, as he’s owed $46MM from 2019-21 as part of a five-year, $65MM contract extension he signed prior to the 2017 season. He already missed 10 days due to a left shoulder impingement last month, and he’d struggled for much of the season even before landing on the disabled list.
Duffy, 29, was the Royals’ best starter from 2016-17 but saw his ERA balloon to 4.88 following today’s ugly outing. His strikeout rate has remained in line with his mark from 2017, but Duffy’s walk, home-run, ground-ball, line-drive, hard-contact and swinging-strike rates have all gone in the wrong direction. Prior to tonight’s start, Statcast measured the average exit velocity of balls in play against Duffy to be up by 2.1 mph from 2017 — further lending credence to the notion that he’s surrendering far too much hard contact on the season.
Had Duffy been healthier in 2018, he’d no doubt have seen his name kicked around the rumor circuit in the weeks leading up to the non-waiver trade deadline — and possibly even into the month of August. However, there’s little reason to think the Royals would even entertain the thought of selling low on Duffy. In fact, the Royals may not even be eyeing as lengthy of a rebuild as was once expected. General manager Dayton Moore told the Kansas City Star’s Maria Torres back in late July that he and his front office deliberately targeted upper-level prospects in some of this summer’s trades, hoping to infuse some youth into the roster and to put together a more competitive club as soon as 2019 or 2020.
If they are actually competitive next year, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. That seems borderline impossible
No one expects us to be competitive next year. I think we’ll be exciting but inconsistent next year. Competitive but not a playoff team in ‘20. 2021 is he magic year.
Did I hear this right? You think the Royals are a playoff contender by 2021? Who in the farm is going to contribute? The White Sox, Indians, and Tigers all have better odds at being competitive by then.
I don’t see how the royals are even competitive in 2020. You have one of the worst farm systems in the game. Your best player is a catcher. That typically doesn’t age so well. Aside from him and Merrifield there isn’t a ton of positives on the offensive side. Maybe Brett Phillips is a quality CF and maybe Jorge soler finally busts out but that still leaves you with a below average pen and rotation. I think that’s way too optimistic.
Our system lacks upper level talent right now, but the talent in A-ball is there. We absolutely have to hit on one or two of the college pitchers we drafted this year for my admittedly optimistic timeline to come true. We have offensive talent on the big league roster right now, if those guys can improve over time and then be supplemented by some guys like Pratto and Lee and Matias, plus one or two of Singer, Kowar and Lynch to supplement promising young pitchers like Junis, Fillmyer and Keller. I’m not worried about the bullpen, sat what you will about Dayton Moore, but he’s proven he can build a bullpen. You’ll see Richard Lovelady and Josh Staumont next year.
This team reminds me of the 2011 team, that improved substantially in 12, 13 and 14. I know you guys will say that guys like Hosmer and Moose were more highly regarded prospects than any of our current players, which is true, but you’re also the same people who constantly say the suck so pick a side.
The royals were built at the right time. This is the wrong time. Tigers are further along in their rebuild. The White Sox are much further along and the Indians are still good with a pretty solid system still in place. It’s going to be awhile for KC unless they start finding gem after gem and the Chisox/tigers prospects flop. The twins are still there too, though I don’t know what to say about their future. The royals are right where my orioles are right now. It’s going to be awhile.
So if every prospect exceeds expectations and advances extremely quickly, and every current ML player develops much more than anyone believes is possible – well then you’re saying there is a chance?
And all of this will take place in an organization still waiting around for the likes of Bubba, Zimmer, Hunter, Vallet, etc to deliver on the talent KC insists they have?
By the way, having typed that out I realize that those are all high profile 1st Rounders from each of 2011, 12, 13 & 14, correct? And they have a combined 90 ML games of 13% below average production – all of it from Dozier? And overall, of the 15 1st Rounders the Royals have selected since 2010, the only 3 who have some type of real ML time are 3 guys currently in other organizations? (Colon, Manaea and Finnegan? …and yet this is the club you believe is going to bat a thousand with it’s more recent picks, despite no talent evaluators seeing it??
Valet wasn’t a first rounder. Zimmer was injury. Starling I can’t argue with, but it wasn’t a bad pick at the time. We were going to pick one of the pitchers and they went 1-2-3 so we got left holding the bag at 4 and Starling was a high ceiling kid from KC. Obviously didn’t work, but I don’t think it was a stupid pick.
My bad, Vallot was a sandwich pick so 1st Round*
I think the Royals really missed the boat when they didn’t entertain offers to trade him a year ago.
The team may not be wanting to eye as long of a rebuild, but they will experience it none the less.
Sickles had the organization ranked dead last in this seasons review, having this to say:
“30) Kansas City Royals: Not much to be excited about here at all, as the farm will provide little in the way of impact help anytime soon and has just mediocre depth in role player types.”
Trading for a few marginal guys with ML time already is hardly going to change that
Is he too drunk to pitch??????
Junis is not the most experienced starter we have in the bizarro 6-man rotation.
Ian Kennedy sucks, but he’s starting this weekend and has more experience than Jakob Junis.
GM DM sure wish you would have moved on to Atlanta or anywhere else for that matter. Your dumpster diving hobby has grown tiresome.
What are the chances that he’ll be any better in 2019? There doesnt seem to be any single fixable reason for how poorly he did this season
Question – Braves are in need of a quality catcher for this several year run it looks like they are about to go on … Braves and Royals may match up for Salvador Perez and be able to offer a decent package – and i know the fans and organization loves him rightfully so – … what would be a decent proposal ?
this isn’t a legitimate prosposal but as a Braves fan would you do Toussaint for Perez straight up?