For years, the Kansas City Royals have operated with far too much patience and blind faith in their homegrown “talent.” After a rough 2021 campaign, Brady Singer was brilliant in 2022, but then was pretty bad again in 2023, but the Royals rode him for 29 starts and his spot in the rotation never appeared to be remotely in jeopardy. In 2022, Daniel Lynch made 27 starts with an ERA over 5.00 and appeared to be locked into a rotation spot in 2023 before an injury ended his season. The same could be said for Kris Bubic after his 27 start, 5.58 ERA season in 2022, though he seemed to have turned a corner before Tommy John Surgery ended his year. Jonathan Heasley was also given 20+ big league starts that year with an ERA over 5.00 and had every opportunity to earn a role in the big league rotation in February. Back in 2021, Brad Keller was given 26 starts with an ERA over 5.00 and was penciled right into a rotation spot again when the 2022 season rolled around.

Look, I’m not going to sit here and act like the Royals had a *ton* of better options. My biggest gripe with the Royals handling of their young arms all along was the handling of their time in the minor leagues before they were just expected to carry a big league rotation. Here is a list of the number of AAA innings that the aforementioned arms had before entering the big league rotation for the first time:

– Brad Keller: 0

– Daniel Lynch: 0

– Kris Bubic: 0

– Brady Singer: 0

– Jonathan Heasley: 0

– Carlos Hernandez: 0

I mean, they literally didn’t allow a SINGLE one of their major pitching prospects see AAA time before shoving them into a big league rotation. Carlos Hernandez and Kris Bubic hadn’t even seen AA time. To be fair, Jonathan Heasley was a late-season call-up and got six AAA starts the next season before rejoining the big league team, but that wasn’t the criteria for the initial list.The only pitching prospect the Royals had that actually got AAA time was Jackson Kowar and he was somehow worse than the rest of the bunch, ironically. 

Over the last three or four seasons, the Royals have done absolutely nothing to even give off the impression that theremight be REAL competition for rotation spots. They brought in Zack Greinke, Jordan Lyles, and Mike Minor, sure, but those were pretty clearly signings that were designed to be placeholders and innings eaters rather than stalwarts in a competitive rotation. None of those three guys were ever making so much money that you couldn’t just move them to the bullpen and they sure as heck weren’t pitching well enough to demand a starter’s job on the big league roster. The Royals front office gift wrapped the big league rotation to their young arms and served it up to them on a silver platter. Not a single one of them, outside of Brady Singer’s 2022 season, did ANYTHING to warrant keeping that job secure long-term.

They really haven’t even tried to bring in any meaningful, long-term relievers. Certainly nobody that was guaranteed a spot regardless of performance because they just had too much invested into them. The Royals have given their homegrown pitchers EVERY opportunity to be successful in the big leagues and not a single one of them has been so good that they just HAVE to give them another chance as we head into 2024. They’re certainly going to, right? Brady Singer is absolutely going to be in the Opening Day rotation barring an injury. His 2022 season was outstanding and you don’t have five better options at the moment. 

The difference between this year and years past is that they are, at a minimum, sending a message. Seth Lugo is coming to town on a $45M deal. He will make every start that he is healthy enough to make for a minimum of the next two seasons. You can lock that into stone. The Royals moved their prize trade chip last summer for Cole Ragans, who immediately locked up his spot in the 2024 rotation with a dominant effort in the Royals rotation. The Royals brought in coveted relievers in Will Smith and Chris Stratton, who we can immediately lock into big time bullpen roles in 2024. James McArthur, another arm the Royals traded for, was OUTSTANDING to finish last year and also appears to be locked into a bullpen role in 2024.

At present, the Royals pitching staff is still nowhere near good enough to even pretend to be a contender in the AL Central in 2024. There are rumors that the front office could still be looking to bring in more help, but I wouldn’t expect it to be needle moving, necessarily. They could also be in on a trade for someone like Edward Cabrera, though at this point I’d say those odds are closer to 20% than 50/50. If you made me guess right now, here are the 13 pitchers I would predict to be on the Opening Day roster next March (who are currently in the organization): 

– Cole Ragans

– Brady Singer

– Seth Lugo

– Jordan Lyles

– Chris Stratton

– Carlos Hernandez

– Will Smith

– James McArthur

– Nick Anderson

– Taylor Clarke

– John McMillon

– Alec Marsh

– Matt Sauer

That’s a rough guess but that’s as good as it gets at the moment. Jake Brentz, Josh Taylor, Angel Zerpa, Daniel Lynch, Steven Cruz, and Jonathan Heasley all figure to make a run at the roster, and the Royals only have one lefty reliever on my list, but it’s not the most important prediction at the moment.

The real point in all of that is how those players were acquired. Only four of the 13 were brought up in the organization and only two are what I would deem to be “locks” for the Opening Day roster. Now, we can have a separate conversation about how bad the Royals pitching scouting and development teams are, but that’s a different issue. For the time being, the thing I’m choosing to focus on is the ACTUAL competition that will take place this spring for spots on the roster. Is it good competition? Absolutely not! But it is competition nonetheless and that’s something that these homegrown kids haven’t had to face a ton of in the past, which will be good for their development, in my opinion.

We’ll see how this all really shakes out. Maybe I’m blindly hoping that there will be real competition and the whole plan is to just run their own guys back out there again for another season. I certainly hope that won’t be the case. Any further additions to this pitching staff via free agency or trade would be a great opportunity to send Daniel Lynch, Jon Heasley, Alec Marsh, and/or even Carlos Hernandez back to AAA Omaha to get some work done and prove that they deserve a big league roster spot due to their performance, not simply from the fact that they were drafted by this organization.