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Royals in the Minors - Pitching Part II

By Clark Fosler | March 17th, 2008

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We continue on with our series on the organizational pitching depth of the Royals. We detailed the first five pitchers we expect to reach the majors last Friday. Today, we move on to players six through ten on our list.

6. Blake Wood, RHP, 23 in August (36 IP, 26 K, 14 BB, 3.03 ERA - Low A) - Wood was a third round pick in 2006 out of Georgia Tech and missed the first half of 2007 with a herniated disc, but he appears to be healthy once again. The big righthander (6-4, 225) sports a mid 90s fastball, a 12-6 curve and an improving changeup. Blake finished strong by striking out 57 hitters in just 33 innings in the Hawaii Winter League. PROJECTION: You may not be too familiar with Wood, but chances are you will be by the end of 2009. The injury set Wood back almost a full year developmentally, but he will still won’t be 25 until August of 2010. That should be about the time Blake starts pushing for a starting job in the majors. Once there, Wood may well profile out as a number two or three starter.

7. Rowdy Hardy, LHP, 25 (167 IP, 91 K, 16 BB, 2.48 ERA - High A) - He doesn’t throw more than 83 mph and was not even drafted, yet all Hardy has done is get batters out. As a rookie, Hardy walked just 5 batters in 80 innings and followed up with similar spectacular control despite jumping a level to High A. Not only that, buy opponents only managed to hit .239 against the soft-tossing southpaw. PROJECTION: Like many, the Royals can’t quite believe Hardy is the real deal. Expect Rowdy to have to prove himself at each and every level and probably twice at AAA. Still, Hardy may be one of those exceptions to conventional wisdom and could well establish himself as a solid three or four starter by 2011.

8. Blake Johnson, RHP, 23 in June (131.2 IP, 80 K, 33 BB, 3.28 ERA - High A) - Johnson, acquired as part of the Odalis Perez deal, was only the fourth best pitcher on the Wilmington staff, but it was a really good staff. He was absolutely lights out the last half of the season and looked every bit the part of a former second round pick. PROJECTION: The ceiling does not seem as high on Johnson as it does for some of his A-ball teammates. Still, this is a second round talent who will get a look in AA to start the season. He’ll get a look in late 2010 or 2011.

9. Gilbert de la Vara, LHP, 23 (33 IP, 26 K, 12 BB, 0.82 ERA in High A) - A great set of numbers from Wilmington, that were followed by a pretty awful 5.74 ERA in 20 innings in AA. Batters at the next level hit 120 points higher against the lefty reliever last year. It was a very similar occurence to what de la Vara experienced in his move from Low-A to High-A in the latter half of the 2006 season. PROJECTION: It seems pretty obvious that it takes Gilbert some time to adjust to each promotion, but he might well be quite effective as he starts the season once more in AA. In an organization that is seemingly full of lefthanded relievers, de la Vara is going to have to wait his turn and is likely a solid two years away from the majors developmentally. Look for him in the middle of the Royal pen sometime in late 2010.

10. Matt Campbell, LHP, 25, (56.2 IP, 43 K, 16 BB, 4.13 ERA in Low A) - Campbell was the 29th pick in the first round of the 2004 draft, but missed most of 2005 and all of 2006 with shoulder surgeries. He made one start in High-A last year, going seven innings and allowing just 3 hits and 2 runs: giving you a glimpse of what might be when Matt manages to stay healthy. PROJECTION: As this point, Campbell cannot afford another injury and needs to start moving up. Likely to start in High A this season, that puts him a good three years out from the majors - at which time he will be 28. Kind of feels like a Kyle Snyder type career.

That’s the next group of five, with one more grouping to follow. Stay tuned, as there are some exciting young arms in Part Three.

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9 Responses to “Royals in the Minors - Pitching Part II”

KC Emigrant says:

March 18th, 2008 at 5:10 am

It just hit me, but does Rowdy Hardy remind anyone else of Randy Jones, the Padres’ left-handed ace back in the 70s or so? I think he threw like in the 70s. I remember a Sports Illustrated article about him where his catcher said that Pete Rose was trying to hit against him once, muttering “come on, throw the ball” and how much people hated facing him because it would throw off their timing for the next few games.
kcghost says:

March 18th, 2008 at 5:32 am

Let’s hope there is some interesting arms in the next group because a bunch guys 23 and up in A Ball is not anything to get hopeful about.

Does anyone inform these guys who are 25+ in A Ball they need to be getting on with their lives??
Jonathan says:

March 18th, 2008 at 6:23 am

Completely random “what if,” but have any of you all thought about the state of our team if the Nunez/Milton Bradley trade went through? It would have been a straight up trade, freed up a bit of our #5/long relief logjam, and given us a proven vet (and a hothead) ala Guillen.

Where would we have spent our money this offseason? Would we have moved Teahen to 1st, and trotted out Bradley-DDJ-Guillen in the outfield? That’s a pretty solid line-up.

Speaking of which, my ideal pitching staff: Meche/Greinke/Bannister/Hochevar/Bale, shift Nunez to long relief, Tomko/Peralta/Mahay/Gobble/Yabuta/Soria in the pen. Tell DLR to go to hell, Davies to simmer in AAA aaaand CHAMPIONSHIP!
Zack Daddy says:

March 18th, 2008 at 9:18 am

Jonathan…I like your staff a lot. However, I struggle with letting a young hard-throwing lefty starter who has shown glimpses of success simply walk away. Jeremy Affeldt helped Colorado to the World Series and is much like DLR in some ways. Affeldt had/has worth and so does DLR. We should get something if we can. Problem is, if we let him walk, we potentially get nothing. If teams know we’re going to let him walk, his trade value is diminished. Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t. That’s why I despise the Tomko situation. Is keeping an overpaid guy on the roster who is not much better (if at all) for one year worth letting other young ones go–Nunez and DLR, for example.
Chief says:

March 18th, 2008 at 11:09 am

General Question: Is there a stat that takes hits/walks/strikeouts into consideration? I know OBP takes care of the first two, but it is concievable a hitter could have high avg (thus high obp) but strike out a lot.

So, is there such an animal?
Clark Fosler says:

March 18th, 2008 at 11:23 am

Chief, I’m not sure if there’s a high strikeout, high average guy with a good on-base percentage, but there are high strikeout/high walk guys. Adam Dunn, Jim Thome to name a few off the top of my head.
Grady Sizemore and Curtis Granderson both strike out a ton and they certainly are upper echelon hitters.
Jonathan says:

March 18th, 2008 at 11:47 am

ZD - Hmm. Good points, but I don’t agree with all of them.

- I do not feel like DLR and Affeldt are the same monster. Affeldt has better pure stuff than DLR, and I think he just could not find any consistency, especially since he went from rotation to pen to rotation to closer etc. I also think he might have let himself become a little lax on some bad 100-loss clubs like some vets tend to do. He was a piece of a good trade (why can’t we trade DLR too before camp breaks?!) and has been “OK” in the national league, but I don’t lose sleep over trading him. In short: I think Affeldt was better than DLR, and I don’t think we just “let him go” - I still believe that Shealy could be a big piece of our puzzle if he can stay healthy.

- I agree that I’d rather keep DLR than Tomko. Why not let DLR figure it out in the pen and maybe stretch him out to a starter if need be? Or even give him another crack next spring. But we won’t know, because that Tomko signing is not only leaving me scratching my head, but is impeding DLR’s way onto our roster. There’s no way we keep DLR over Tomko given the $3M we have tied up in him, and I don’t see Jorge beating out any of our other pitchers, either.
Zack Daddy says:

March 18th, 2008 at 1:46 pm

Jonathan…I think we agree. I simply don’t agree with letting DLR go without some sort of compensation via trade. Maybe I am misunderstanding how things work. If DLR doesn’t make the team, he is place on waivers and is available to everyone, right? If he clears waivers, he can then be assigned to our minor league system, right? So, while there’s a chance we keep him, there’s a chance we lose him and get nothing in return.

I’m not saying we can’t trade DLR before camp breaks. But, his value is diminished if teams know he’ll likely be placed on waivers where they can pick him up for nothing. I’m not arguing that Affeldt is better or worse or that we should have kept him. What I was trying to say is that they are similar in that they have both had some success but have been largely inconsistent. Another team was willing to give up a pretty good prospect in Ryan Shealy for him and Denny Bautista. Sooooo, why wouldn’t a team give up a good prospect for DLR? Maybe or maybe not. But, we didn’t have to give up Affeldt; he was under contract and didn’t face waivers. DLR can be gotten for free on waivers since he is out of options. I’d rather lose Tomko than DLR…without question. Although, I know we won’t.
Jonathan says:

March 19th, 2008 at 5:54 am

ZD - Well if you put it that way, yeah, we completely agree haha. This is what’s frustrating about the state of the Royals right now: it’s pretty clear who should and should not make our active roster, but given certain circumstances (players out of options, bad contracts tying up a spot ala Tomko) I’m afraid a couple players with SOME trade value will just be lost on waivers. Compound this with the fact that some of the clear-cut players on our roster aren’t above MLB average, and it’s easy to see we’re not optimizing our opportunity right now as we continue to rebuild. (And we ARE rebuilding - we used to just suck, but GMDM is definitely building a MTV crib)

DLR should neither be on our roster nor simply let go. Same goes for Huber, and unfortunately, I think their days in the organization are numbered.

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