2 reasons why Bailey Falter could work in Royals’ bullpen, 2 reasons why he may not

With Michael Lorenzen’s return from the injured list imminent, Anne Rogers of MLB.com reported that Matt Quatraro’s plan is to move Bailey Falter into the bullpen.

While this may not have been the initial plan when the Royals acquired him from the Pittsburgh Pirates on trade deadline day, there’s multiple factors that have played into the decision. One outside of Falter’s control has been just how strong his fellow deadline day acquisition in rookie Ryan Bergert has performed – he sports a 3.18 ERA, 0.79 WHIP and .154 BAA in his first two starts in Kansas City.

At the end of the day though, Falter’s own perfromance is what merits this move, as he simply hasn’t been strong as a starter to start his Royals tenure. In his first two starts since joining the squad, he’s thrown to a 10.13 ERA, 2.00 ERA and .324 WHIP. These could normally be grounds for demotion, but with no options left, multiple years of control and plenty of upside to dream on, a trip to Triple-A seems all but impossible.

So, now that Falter is destined to the bullpen for the forseeable future, how will he fare? Because there’s reasons to believe he could find a rhythm, but also reasons to believe that the move may not work out.

2 reasons why Bailey Falter could work in the Royals’ bullpen

Falter has no overtly weak pitch offering this season

While certain pitches may have worsened in production this season since joining the Royals, Falter has no specific offering that heavily raises eyebrows.

None of his five pitches bares a BAA above .250 and only his splitter – his least thrown pitch at 7.8% – holds an xBA above .300.

Many relievers have a specific pitch that’s their go to offering, but not all of them have the benefit of a starters arsenal, so Falter’s five-pitch mix could be key in keeping hitters off balance.

Falter has a better track record as a reliever

Despite being solely starter since the start of the start of the 2024 season, Falter is not a stranger to pitching out fo the ‘pen.

For all but one outing in his rookie campaign in 2021 and then a smattering of relief outings throughout 2022 and ’23, he’s thrown to a respectable 3.81 ERA, 4.28 FIP, 1.08 WHIP and .237 BAA. This is actually considerably better than his career starter splits, where he only throws to a 4.60 ERA, 4.73 FIP, 1.30 WHIP and .264 BAA.

And just looking at his most recent run out of the ‘pen back in 2023, he threw to a 1.02 ERA, 0.91 WHIP and .197 BAA in 17.2 innings. It may be a small sample size and two seasons removed, but it’s still promising nonetheless.

2 reasons why Bailey Falter may not work in the Royals’ bullpen

Falter’s underlying metrics show he thrives at nothing

Now shifting to the ugly side of things, Bailey Falter’s underlying metrics this season are extremely underwhelming.

While strong metrics across the board aren’t required in the job description of relievers, most have some area that they specialize or thrive in. Some are strikeout machines, others are groundball specialists, others thrive off limiting hard-contact.

Falter is none of these things.

Looking at his underlying metrics, he sits below the 10th percentile in K-rate (6th percentile), whiff rate (6th percentile) and chase rate (8th percentile). Then from a contact standpoint, he sits in the 13th percentile in hard-hit rate, the 26th percentile in barrel rate and the 18th percentile in AVG exit velocity. He also only limits the walks by a 36th percentile margin.

His expected metrics don’t tell a great story either, as his 4.83 xERA sits in the league’s 17th percentile and his .271 xBA is in the 22nd percentile.

Falter’s quality of contact may not bode well

Diving specifically into they type of contact Falter is giving up, we’ve established already that he’s not great at limiting hard-hit baseballs.

However, it’s the type of contact he’s surrendering that could be an even bigger problem.

Falter only manages to induce soft-contact just 16.0% of the time. This could play a role in the fact that he hasn’t managed to keep the ball on the ground, as 35.9% groundball rate pale in comparison to the combined 64.1% of either line-drives or flyballs he gives up. When paired with plenty of hard-contact, this could get him into danger rather frequently as a reliever.