The 2026 Kansas City Royals have a lot of good things going for them. Bobby Witt Jr. is great. Carter Jensen and Jac Caglianone are two of the most exciting young talents in the league. Only injuries could dim Maikel Garcia’s budding stardom. Noah Cameron is the best Royals starting pitcher the Royals have developed in a decade and a half. Michael Massey and Nick Loftin made big steps forward.
But the Royals are going to lose at least 90 games this season because that core can’t compensate for the rest
of the team being bad. Yes, the Royals need to have some difficult conversations that I don’t really have faith they’ll approach with an open mind—namely, that the team is better when Salvador Perez doesn’t play, and that Vinnie Pasquantino is not part of the core anymore. However, we can all agree on one thing, which is that the bullpen is terrible and it needs an overhaul.
And when I say it needs an overhaul, it needs a total, complete overhaul. Kansas City needs to be buying in bulk in the offseason.
If you haven’t been paying attention because the NFL has started, you’re not the only one, but suffice to say that the Royals have been on a skid, losing 14 of their last 19 games. While it hasn’t all been because of the bullpen, the bullpen has borne the brunt of the responsibility.
Yesterday, it was Nate Pearson giving up a single on a four-seam fastball up in the zone and not quite getting a slider low enough, a pitch which was tagged for a two-run home run.
On Saturday, it was Steven Cruz tossing a middle-middle cutter to a guy with a career .233 isolated slugging percentage.
On Friday, it was Pearson leaving a four-seam fastball up in the zone after also being responsible for the other two batters on base and a previous run in the inning:
The previous Sunday, it was Craig Kimbrel walking two and then Connor Thomas not quite getting a sweeper down enough in the seventh inning against the Boston Red Sox.
One day earlier, it was Anthony Gose throwing a middle-middle fastball to guy with a career .206 ISO.
And the triumvirate of bullpen awfulness happened on Tuesday, September 8. In the eighth inning, Thomas gave up consecutive singles to kick off the inning and then allowed a sacrifice fly on a mediocre cutter…
…and then Cruz left up a cutter to allow the Diamondbacks to go ahead in the 10th…
…and then Gose left up a slider to allow the Diamondbacks to grab the lead in the 11th.
Just in the last two weeks, that’s eight times the bullpen gave up a go-ahead run or go-ahead runs in the sixth inning or later. The Royals lost all six of those games. And in none of those cases was the bullpen trying to clean up a mess of the starting pitching’s making—it was all them.
I can only imagine what it feels like to be a Royals hitter or starting pitcher with the bullpen the way that it is. The amount of pressure that puts on the rest of the team must be intense. Yes, Jac Caglianone said that punching something in the dugout and cutting his hand was because he was frustrated at his own performance. While that might be true, I can’t help but wonder how much better of a headspace he and the other hitters would be in if they didn’t have to try and play hero ball every game. Since August 29th, the Royals have won a game where they scored fewer than five runs once.
And the biggest problem here is that there is no one person responsible. Five different guys—Pearson, Kruz, Kimbrel, Thomas, and Gose—were involved in the above examples. As a unit, 23 different guys have thrown at least five innings for the bullpen; 14 of them have been tagged with at least one loss, 10 have an ERA of 5.00 or higher, nine have had at least one blown save, and only one has struck out a quarter or more batters faced.
You could look at the Royals and say, “Man, if it’s just the bullpen, that’s fixable!” Unfortunately, the issue is that the Royals probably need to go out and find 10-15 new bullpen arms next year if they want to find a few that aren’t bad.
Seriously; look at the list of pitchers the Royals have used in the bullpen this year and tell me who can be relied on moving forward. Do you want Alex Lange and his sky high career walk rate back? Trust a 32-year-old Lucas Erceg after posting a K-BB% of 1.4% next year? Any interest in Mason Black (career 5.53 ERA) or Connor Seaboldt (career 7.36 ERA)? Think a 39-year-old Craig Kimbrel can hold down a big league job?
There are, genuinely, only two guys who you can mark down as probably being able to contribute semi-competent innings next year. Daniel Lynch IV is one, and one of the only genuinely good bullpen arms on the team. Steven Cruz is another, though not in a closer role.
Outside of that, you cannot convince me that any one of those other 21 guys would be a net benefit to Kansas City if they pitched a single inning for the team in 2027 (non-injured division). So here’s hoping Costco has a sale on arms, because the Royals need to be shopping the aisles hard.
