Royals, please set Walter Pennington free
The Royals bullpen is desperately in need of strike outs, it is time to add the obvious source
The Royals bullpen continues to be a source of anxiety, blowing the only lead they had in the Yankees series and one against the Mariners as well. No one in the pen inspires confidence in me right now. James McArthur got off to a nice start, but May was a disaster and June has been meh at best for him so far. John Schreiber has followed a similar trajectory, though his June has been pretty good excepting yesterday’s home run. Zerpa seems to be useful, but only if used correctly (not in late inning/high leverage). Ditto for Will Smith. The addition of Sam Long has been welcome, but he is not a late inning shut down sort of guy either. They need a lot more than a few middle relievers and maybe two back end arms if McArthur gets back on track.
There are two main problems making it harder to bring up Walter Pennington, but neither stem from him specifically. One is the handedness in the bullpen. Long, Smith, and Zerpa are all left handed. Adding Pennington would make half the pen southpaws. The other problem is that Pennington is not on the 40 man roster. Let’s discuss these two issues.
First, handedness seems like a problem, but that argument just doesn’t work when most of your right handed pitchers are not getting right handed batters out, so you don’t actually have a platoon advantage. Chris Stratton has definitely been better against righties, but a 4.44 FIP and 4.26 xFIP are not ringing endorsements of his ability to be a righty killer. Nick Anderson has been worse against righties than he has against lefties giving up a .704 slug versus same handed batters!! Bringing in Dan Altavilla probably doesn’t help based on his history, but he has thrown 2.2 innings so far this season and that is far from enough to draw any conclusions. He can strike people out, which is nice, though history suggests insanely high walk rates will wipe out any benefits from his Ks. Meanwhile, Pennington has been mowing down left and right-handed batter in the minors. Righties have a .464 OPS against Pennington and he has struck out 42 of the 99 opposite handed batters faced. I think he can handle not having the platoon advantage just fine.
On to the 40-man roster. There will need to be a space cleared to bring Walter up. Again, that should be of basically no concern. The 40-man currently includes Jake Brentz, Colin Selby, Austin Nola, and Tyler Gentry. I would be willing to discuss a couple of other guys as well, but these seem like the obvious options.
Brentz was a decent reliever for the Royals...in 2021. Since then everything has been injury and struggle. He had a 13.50 ERA in AA to start this season, then was moved to Omaha for reasons I can not fathom. He has also posted a 13.50 ERA there. He is 29. I feel bad for the guy, but it is time to move on. Selby is not terrible, but he is a mop up guy at best. You can find those everywhere for basically nothing. He is fungible. Austin Nola is nice to have in case Salvy or Fermin get hurt, but light hitting back-up catchers are again cheap and not hard to find. Finally, Gentry looked like a prospect after 2022, but has fallen off since. His first run at AAA last season, he posted a 103 wRC+ and this season has dropped that to 57. He is 25, so not really old, but not really young any more either. John Rave is slightly older, but hitting and Nate Eaton as well if they need bring up a fourth outfielder.
This seems like an obvious call. I do not know why they are waiting. My conspiracy mind says that they kind of want to lose a few games and avoid having to spend any of their limited prospect capital in trades. JJ Picollo has said they are already seeking trades though, and their actions in the off-season don’t jive with that sort of sandbagging approach. This division is winnable, and they should try to win it. So, please set Pennington free.