Royals’ newest reliever could be breath of fresh air their struggling bullpen needs

The 2026 season has been a nightmare for the Kansas City Royals in so many ways, as they’ve fallen to 15 games below .500 and seem less and less like a playoff team by the day. Arguably their worst facet of the roster has been their bullpen. Their combined 4.80 ERA is the fourth worst mark in baseball while their 1.51 WHIP sits tied for 27th and their .256 BAA sits 29th.

As they’ve searched for answers all season, on Monday they turned to the recently DFA’d right-hander Connor Seabold in a small-scale trade with the Toronto Blue Jays. Now, the new Royals reliever is officially on the major league roster and able to contribute to this floundering unit.

While on the surface, his combined 4.26 ERA and most recent 8.10 ERA showing in five outings in Toronto doesn’t appear to be something to get overly excited about, but when you look beyond the surface, perhaps Seabold could be answer this Royals ‘pen needs as they desperately look for a semblance of overall consistency.

Looking at his 3.32 BB/9 clip, it isn’t anything spectacular per se, however, compared to the Royals bullpen’s fourth worst 4.73 BB/9 clip, it’s almost night and day.

Looking at Seabold’s quality of contact metrics, he’s surrendering 26.6% hard contact according to FanGraphs. The Royals relief corps on the other hand holds the fifth highest mark in baseball at 35.3%. Then, while not as dramatic as the difference in hard hit rates between the two, his 42.9% groundball rate is higher than the Royals’ collective mark while his 15.9% line drive rate and 0.95 HR/9 rate are both lower.

He doesn’t overpower opposing hitter with a blistering fastball and high strikeout rates, but it’s the little things that he’s been doing that’s created value – value that’s led him to a well above-average 3.15 xERA this season.

There’s no shortage of opportunity to be had for Connor Seabold in Royals bullpen

While names like Daniel Lynch IV and John Schreiber have looked consistently strong in recent months, and in Lynch’s case all season for the Royals, they’ve had to heavily rely on temporary hot streaks to make up for the underperformers like Lucas Erceg.

Alex Lange has cooled off in his last two outings after taking over the lion share of ninth inning responsibilities for Matt Quatraro. And Matt Strahm has looked a shell of himself of late and certainly not near back-end potential, as he’s surrendered eight earned runs and six home runs in his last nine outings.

Then, the likes of Steven Cruz and Beck Way have been as up-and-down as any reliever, but considering they’re more taxi options between here and Omaha while the likes of Carlos Estévez and Nick Mears are on the injured list, it would be unfair to place too much expectation on them.

Seabold has no remaining minor league options so there’s a degree of “making it work” that the Royals will have to assume with his arrival, especially considering he wasn’t picked up free of waivers and traded for instead. But perhaps there’s reason to believe that this could be more than just a flier, even if this is Seabold’s third team this season.