Kansas City Royals: Is Danny Duffy a starter or a reliever?
After not making the Kansas City Royals rotation to start the season, Danny Duffy is now pitching and thriving in their starting rotation, but is that the best place for him?
The road to the majors for Kansas City Royals left hander Danny Duffy has been long and arduous. He was drafted by the Royals in 2007, finally made his way to the majors in 2011 after moving up and down between minor league levels for a few years, had Tommy John surgery in 2012, returned to the Royals in 2013, and after a few trips back down to Triple A, Duffy had his first full season with the Royals during the year in which they won their first championship since 1985. Unfortunately for Duffy, his performance wasn’t very good. He went 7-8 and with a 4.08 ERA (4.43 FIP, 4.64 xFIP) in 24 starts.
Before this season started, Duffy was relegated to the bullpen to start the season, but worked his way into the rotation, aided by an injury to Kris Medlen, and thanks to a few good outings, has emerged as one of the more reliable starters for the Royals.
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Duffy has appeared in 26 games so far this season and has started 10. He currently sports a 4-1 record with a 3.11 ERA (3.59 FIP, 3.57 xFIP). And according to Brooks Baseball, the average velocity on his four seam fastball started up around 96.8 mph at the start of the season, went up a tick to 96.9 in May, down a little to 96.2 in June and so far in July, it’s sitting at 95.2. Last season, his four seamer’s velocity started at 94.9 and dropped down to 93.6 and 93.2 in June and July respectively so Duffy seems to see a bit of a drop in the middle of the season and the velocity starts to increase again in August.
In his last start on Saturday against the Philadelphia Phillies, Duffy lasted 8 2/3 innings, allowed only two runs, and even recorded his first major league hit. He surrendered seven hits, struck out eight, didn’t allow a walk and threw 110 pitches, 77 for strikes. It was his strongest start of the season.
The one thing Duffy seemed to be struggling with when he was first moved back into the rotation were his numbers when facing a lineup for the third time. You could say most major league pitchers experience this same issue because batters will usually adjust their approach at the plate throughout a game, but Jared Koller who writes for Homerun KC examined this issue in a piece on June 27, and Duffy’s problem was anything but ordinary.
In his eight starts this year, Duffy has only allowed two total runs in the first three innings. Two runs over 24 innings is a 0.75 ERA and something the Royals will always take, especially with recent starter struggles.However, the signs that Duffy shows in the first three innings never seem to last. In the seven starts where he gets to at least the fourth inning, he has given up 12 earned runs for a 7.20 ERA. A 6.45 ERA increase in just a three inning span is more than just a fluke.
Digging even deeper into those numbers, Koller wrote about the start Duffy made on May 27 against the White Sox in which he carried a perfect game into the fifth inning. When the White Sox batters came up for the third time, they didn’t just start hitting Duffy, they tagged him for five runs in the inning. Duffy gave up those five runs on five hits, two of the five were home runs.
And in an interesting twist, Duffy has made two starts since that piece was published, and in a weird twist, they were nearly identical. He lasted eight innings against the Cardinals that day, gave up two runs on six hits and struck out eight. He didn’t walk a batter and he threw 101 pitches. Compare that to the numbers he put up against the Phillies on Saturday and it would appear that Duffy has figured some things out.
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The good thing for Duffy is that the backend of the Kansas City Royals bullpen is one of the best in baseball so if he happens to run into trouble the third time through the order, and manager Ned Yost takes him out of the game in a timely manner, they could limit the damage. But right now, Duffy seems to have made some adjustments and he, and the Royals, are benefiting from them.