Lucas Erceg is having a moment

The 29-year-old took a long road to get here, but he’s here

Kansas City has a decent history of dominant closers over the past 20 seasons. Since 2005, a relief pitcher who pitched at least 60 innings has logged an ERA of 1.60 or lower 54 times. Six of those seasons have been by Royals closers - good for 11 percent.

From Joakim Soria to Greg Holland, Wade Davis, and Kelvin Herrera, Kansas City had it good for a long time. However, since Davis’ dominant 2016 campaign, the Royals haven’t had a cyborg in the back of the bullpen. Scott Barlow had some good years, and even Ian Kennedy was serviceable, but nothing special.

In fact, since 2018, only the Toronto Blue Jays have had less production from their relief pitchers in the American League. Needing bullpen help, Kansas City added Hunter Harvey and Lucas Erceg. While Harvey has been a non-factor thus far, Erceg is looking a whole lot like a dominant back-end arm.

Since the above tweet, Erceg has logged two more scoreless innings, including two saves against first-place teams. It is a small sample, to be sure, but his peripherals look the part. He is in the 98th percentile for average exit velocity and average fastball velocity. He is right on the edge of the 90th percentile in strikeout percentage and whiff percentage. And importantly, he cut his walk rate in half from his rookie season.

In other words, he is not just looking like a reliever the Royals can trust, but a reliever the Kansas City wants with the ball in his hands. That sentence is almost incomprehensible, considering he was drafted not as a pitcher, but as a third baseman.

The Brewers took Erceg out of Menlo College in the second round of the 2016 MLB Draft. By 2018, he was the fourth-ranked prospect in Milwaukee’s system according to MLB.com. However, he struggled the next two seasons and was even worse playing independently in 2020 after not playing a single minor league game with COVID-19 canceling the season. By then, he was struggling with alcoholism and depression.

In 2021, he split time between third base and the mound, having not pitched since his sophomore year at California. It isn’t uncommon for position players to convert to pitchers. Kenley Jansen did it, but he was an undrafted free agent. Erceg was a legitimate prospect who got nearly double the at-bats Jansen got in the minors. Just over two years ago, Erceg had a career 5.07 ERA in the minors and gave up 11 earned runs in his first 15 ¹⁄₃ innings at AAA Nashville.

In other words, it was very likely that Erceg would never play a Major League game. He was struggling so badly in the 2023 season that when he was called into his manager’s office in Nashville, he anticipated a demotion. He finished off 2023 strong in Oakland and got off to a terrific start in 2024 for a middling A’s team about to leave town. He was good, if not unspectacular.

Now, he finds himself in the middle of a pennant race on a team that desperately needed a stopper in the bullpen. And he has been spectacular. He possesses a devastating slider, a changeup that looks far better than it has performed, and he’s under club control for the rest of the decade. J.J. Piccolo took a gamble on Erceg, sending three players to the A’s for the little proven reliever.

It’s still early, but it looks like the decision is paying off, not just for this playoff run, but for the distant future. And the Royals absolutely have to have it work out. Kansas City’s bullpen ranks 26th in ERA and 24th in fWAR. As we complete the fifth month of the season, the Royals’ playoff odds continue to climb. They have a 6.5-game cushion in the Wild Card standings, including a 1.5-game advantage over the Twins for the second Wild Card, and have a one-in-three shot to win the American League Central to go with a 90% chance at making the postseason. This is no longer a fever dream. We are entering September. And the Kansas City Royals will very likely play their first postseason game since 2015.

Despite that, manager Matt Quatraro’s circle of trust in the bullpen is still small. The presence of Erceg doesn’t fix that, but it helps. And it’s fitting that a team nobody thought would be here in April has to lean on a reliever that wasn’t even a pitcher just a few years ago.