I wish the Royals could have moved Kris Bubic and Daniel Lynch IV to the pen earlier

They’re doing well there.

The 2018 Kansas City Royals MLB Draft was a huge opportunity to reshape the franchise. The Second Golden Age was officially over, as the core position player group was no longer under contract, the minor league system was depleted, and it was officially time to look to the future. Additionally, due to the free agent departures of Eric Hosmer and Lorenzo Cain as well as a prime competitive balance pick, the Royals had four of the first 40 picks and five of the first 58 picks.

Kansas City responded by selecting a college pitcher, Brady Singer, with the 18th overall pick. With their next pick at 33rd overall, they selected a college pitcher, Jackson Kowar. The very next draft selection was a college pitcher, Daniel Lynch. At 40th overall, the Royals selected a college pitcher, Kris Bubic. The 58th overall pick was, of course, a college pitcher, Jonathan Bowlan.

In short, there was a lot of hype about the draft class. At the time, the Royals and the fans dreamed about getting multiple quality starting pitchers out of that group. And about three years ago, I wrote that Royals fans should temper those expectations. I looked at pitchers selected between 2000 and 2015 who were plucked from a four-year college, selected between picks 15 and 50, and signed with the team that drafted them. Roughly one in 10 selections from that group has accumulated 10 or more career Wins Above Replacement, which is not a lot.

I summed it up with this:

In this light, the struggles among the Royals’ group of college pitchers isn’t concerning. Rather, it is the norm for college pitchers to struggle. Pitching is hard, and there are very few players in a draft with truly elite tools and pitches relative to their peers. Remember: barely over 3 in 10 college pitchers selected between picks 15 and 50 make a positive impact on a big league club.

What does this mean for the Royals? It means that we can probably only realistically expect one to stick around to be an above-average starter—something akin to Danny Duffy, who is almost right at 20 career WAR—if we’re lucky. Making it to the big leagues is a big step, but to get more than two long-term, useful rotation pieces in the same draft would be a miracle.

That was three years after the draft. Six years after the draft, and lo and behold the 2018 draft has settled into what the historical data has shown. Kansas City has indeed ended up with one above average starting pitcher and only one above average starting pitcher: Brady Singer, their top pick in the draft (and I know there are legions of Royals fans jumping up and down to yell that he’s not an above average starter, which is another story). This isn’t to say the Royals’ draft was bad—in fact, the draft was a fantastic one; the 2018 draft has so far produced a whopping 9 MLB players so far for Kansas City.

As for the other starting pitchers, well, they haven’t really panned out as starters. Kowar’s career ERA in 74 innings is over 9.00, which is honestly impressive. Bowlan has pitched a few innings in the big leagues, but he hasn’t ever really fully come back from Tommy John surgery. Speaking of Tommy John surgery, Kowar had to have it this year after being traded to the Mariners, and Bubic also had it last year after a few years of mediocre performance. Lynch has managed to avoid TJ, but has had a variety of other injuries to deal with and thrown more than 68 big league innings only once in his career.

But for Lynch and Bubic—the two most skilled pitchers in the non-Singer category—they’ve suddenly found some new life in the bullpen this year. And in the past when they’ve pitched out of the pen, the difference in performance has also been stark. Overall, both players have been hugely different, and while neither has quite ascended to “killer reliever” status, they’ve been perfectly serviceable bullpen arms at the least.

This is not really that big of a surprise. Starting pitchers do better when put in the bullpen for a few key reasons. One, they can abandon pitches that aren’t good since you don’t need to get through a lineup multiple times. Two, you can throw harder because you don’t have to save anything for your sixth inning of work. And three, you can be deployed to maximize platoon splits and minimize exposure to strings of opposite-handed hitters.

One thing I want to be clear about is that it would be silly for the Royals to have made decisions about pitchers based on the fact that Singer was a success and because there are rarely multiple starting pitcher successes in a single draft. That’s backwards thinking, and I don’t think it’s what happened. The Royals kept Bubic and Lynch as starters because they needed them, and because even mediocre starting pitchers are more valuable than relievers.

But you still need relievers, and in hindsight it should have been clearer that Bubic and Lynch weren’t really cut out for the roles they were thrust into. Could they have turned into useful starters in a different organization? Maybe! However, it’s not like either’s injury woes would have magically improved.

Some of the best relievers the Royals have had were starters that couldn’t cut it. Wade Davis is the patron saint of that situation, but Joakim Soria was one as well. Kelvin Herrera was a starter through his age-20 season. It’s common. And I’m glad that Bubic and Lynch are getting a chance to shine in a place where the Royals sorely need some help.