Kansas City Royals: Danny Duffy pitching way toward contract extension

Danny Duffy has quietly been one of the best pitchers in the AL this year, and the Kansas City Royals could reward him at season’s end.

Life is pretty good for Danny Duffy right now. The 27-year-old Kansas City Royals pitcher is enjoying a breakout season and has rather unexpectedly assumed the mantle of staff ace over the past few months. The defending World Series champions have won eight straight contests and nine of their last ten to bring themselves to within 3.5 games of a Wild Card berth, and Duffy’s reliable presence in the rotation has had a lot to do with that surge.

Regardless of how the current campaign ends, the Royals have to be excited about the strides Duffy has made this year. In fact, there are whispers that the team is already looking ahead to the offseason in hopes of keeping the lefty in KC long-term. In an extensive piece chronicling Duffy’s season, Rustin Dodd of the Kansas City Star mentions that while contract negotiations have not yet taken place, general manager Dayton Moore expects to address them at the “appropriate time.”

Moore continued, “Danny has been a very important part of our organization and our pitching staff. And we’ll work very hard to keep him a part of what we’re doing going forward.”

Duffy has certainly put himself in an enviable position for those upcoming extension talks. After beginning the season in the bullpen, the former 2007 third round pick made his first start of the year on May 15. In 19 outings since then, Duffy has posted a 2.61 ERA and 5.25 K/BB ratio over 120.2 innings pitched while limiting opponents to a .215/.266/.365 slash line.

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He seems to be gaining momentum, too. Nine of his previous ten outings have been quality starts, including his last seven in a row. On August 1, he racked up 16 strikeouts across eight frames against the Rays in Tampa Bay, and on the 11th he tossed a complete game at home opposite the White Sox. Since July 22, he is managing a 1.60 ERA in 50.2 innings.

Overall, Duffy leads American League starting pitchers with a 167 ERA+. Likewise, his 1.010 WHIP is also tops among AL starters. He is allowing significantly fewer hits (7.2 H/9) than he did a year ago (9.0 H/9) when he posted an underwhelming 4.08 ERA, but that is only one component of his present success. Duffy is working a career-high 9.5 K/9 rate along with a 1.9 BB/9, also a personal best. In fact, his best walk rate prior to this year was a 3.2 BB/9 in 2014, representing a major improvement.

Duffy probably wasn’t on your list of potential Cy Young candidates at the beginning of the season, but he’s forced his way into the conversation. Assuming he maintains his stellar form through the end of the campaign, he will enter the winter with a lot of bargaining power. But if Duffy’s recent comments are to be believed, he appears more interested in staying with the Royals than squeezing every last penny out of them.

Also in Dodd’s article, Duffy is quoted as saying, “I’m not trying to pull out the violin, but I want to be here. They’ve been really good to me, good to my family. And it would just be absolutely devastating if I ever had to leave. In a perfect world, I would be here forever.”

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That doesn’t mean a whole lot now, but if Kansas City is indeed proactive, you would have to like their chances at inking Duffy to an agreeable multi-year deal. At the moment he is eligible for arbitration next season and set to hit free agency the year after that. With several question marks in their rotation, it would behoove the Royals to lock Duffy up sooner rather than later.