How Challenging Will It Be To Replenish the Royals Pitching Rotation?
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Consider that 2011 is the first year that the Royals haven't featured Zack Greinke and Gil Meche at the top of their rotation since 2006, when Scott Elarton and Joe Mays got the first two starts. I don't know if things could get worse than that. Maybe they could have. My imagination isn't good enough to fathom what less of a plan would have looked like. In 2007, the Royals surged towards the middle of the AL in run prevention on the strength of 500 innings thrown by Brian Bannister, Gil Meche, and Zack Greinke. The bullpen was very strong too behind rule 5 pick Joakim Soria, and I'm trying not to ignore their contributions, but Greinke pitched much of that season out of the pen and really, this was a three man show as it's difficult in baseball today to have just three quality pitchers combine for 500 IP in a season. It's worth pointing out that the Dayton Moore Royals have never been better in the runs scored/prevented pythagorean equation than they were in his first season. They, in fact, regressed each year from 2007-2009.
The Royals were able to handle Bannister's regression in 2008 because the bullpen reached all time highs in effectiveness and because Kyle Davies looked like he had "gotten it" in September, when he threw like a number three pitcher for a month. But in 2008, more than any other year, the Royals had two ESTABLISHED starters enter the year and perform like professionals for a combined 66 starts. They had not enjoyed that in the decade prior and have not enjoyed that since (unless you want to argue Greinke/Chen in 2010). In that 2008 run environment, two established starting pitchers featuring mid three ERAs for a whole season was enough to come out on the correct side of the run prevention equation. In the 2011 offensive run environment, teams are going to need at least three established starters to get by. The 2011 Royals have Jeff Francis and Felipe Paulino. Neither really fit the bill as an "established front line starter" but behind them, its really ugly.
The only reason the Royals didn't completely fall off the map in run prevention in 2009 after their bullpen fell apart at its seams, Gil Meche's back split in half, and Luke Hochevar and Kyle Davies had a year long incompetence-fest is because Brian Bannister pitched like a decent no. 2 pitcher most of this season. Oh, and because Zack Greinke gave up fewer than two runs/start (not earned runs, mind you). Greinke kept the Royals afloat that year, though unsustainable personal means. In 2010, the Royals found no help for him, and the year of the pitcher missed Kansas City entirely. The bullpen did find solutions under Ned Yost, and the Royals managed to at least avoid increasing the runs against in a year where leaguewide offense dropped substantially.
The 2011 Royals cannot say the same thing. Four Royals pitchers (excluding Paulino) have made their season debuts in Kansas City thanks to injury: Danny Duffy, Vin Mazzaro, Nate Adcock, and Sean O'Sullivan. Not one of the three has more strikeouts than walks as a starter. The Royals top four rotation pitchers of Hochevar, Davies, Chen, and Francis have at least avoided that designation, and Paulino gives a legit fifth starter, but the results thus far for Hochevar and Davies have been embarrassing. Hochevar has regressed from 2010, and his K rate has fallen to 4.2 per 9 innings, below the K rates of Jeff Francis and Bruce Chen. That's what the Royals have. The question is: how difficult will it be for the Royals to get back to what they had?
Well, if Paulino pitches really well the rest of the year, it may not be difficult at all. It could be as simple as developing the command Duffy and Mike Montgomery in a particularly productive spring training and then going out to the free agent market much like Moore did in 2007 and getting a front of the rotation pitcher at a cost of 10 million per year. The four most important pitchers on the Royals heading into 2011 (Hochevar, Davies, Francis, Chen) could all be no better than no. 5 type pitchers next year if the player development works out that well. And then, the ability to spend money in free agency on, say, C.J. Wilson adds quality to the quantity, and the Royals have themselves a strong run prevention unit.
If things continue to spiral away for the starting pitchers this season (Paulino and Duffy struggle in the bigs and Montgomery's results remain bad in AA), the Royals then are going to be pushed towards making a trade for a front line pitcher, a potentially costly trade. And even then, the Royals still wouldn't "be there" yet. Could the Royals get maybe Chad Billingsley from the Dodgers (or Matt Cain from the Giants) for Billy Butler and Chris Dwyer? Perhaps they could, but if Billingsley and Edwin Jackson come to Kansas City next year to lead the Royals rotation, and the Royals are weakened by a middle of the order bat in order to get front line pitching, are the Royals really any closer to contending? Doubt it.
So a lot of it depends on how the Royals' current rotation progresses between now and the trade deadline. It's possible the Royals are a lot closer to a strong run prevention unit then they seem, and when they can go long stretches without throwing Sean O'Sullivan or Vin Mazzaro out there every fifth day, the overall numbers improve. This has already happened since O'Sullivan's DL stint. It's also possible the Royals aren't getting any closer at all. And it makes a big difference. The former requires a wise move and a good month or so in player development in 2012 to make the Kansas City Royals the favored team in the AL Central. The latter makes 80 wins a struggle whether or not the Royals deal a middle of the order bat to get pitching help that they've proven unable to develop themselves.
