Desperate Royals pitching strategy was necessary, but doomed from the start

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and that’s just what happened to the Kansas City Royals this season. Slammed by a bizarre series of injuries to key pitchers, and driven by a persistent search for mound depth, circumstances forced the club to sign a group of unemployed big league veterans from which it hoped help might somehow come.

But given the subjects of the exercise — a collection of experienced ex-big leaguers fighting against the odds to make it back to the majors — chances for success were never good. And predictably, nothing much came from the project, which, together with the playoff drive the Royals wanted it to bolster, died in September.

Here’s what happened.

A Royals roster crunch gobbled up Trevor Richards

Starter-turned-reliever Richards, a well-traveled veteran of six big league clubs before KC signed him in May, was back in the majors in early June after posting a 1.69 ERA and saving two games in 10 post-signing relief appearances for Triple-A Omaha. But his KC stay was short-lived.

After giving up four runs and uncorking three wild pitches in just three innings, the club DFA’d him June 11 to help clear roster space for Lucas Erceg’s return from the Injured List and Jonathan Bowlan’s recall from Omaha. Richards refused an outright assignment to the minors and signed with Arizona, for whom he pitched only 2.2 innings before the season ended.

Whether without the roster squeeze Richards would have ultimately pitched as well for the Royals as he did for Omaha will never be known.

Rich Hill tried, but didn’t get it done for the Royals

Credit Hill, whose short stint in Kansas City stretched his storied major league career into a 21st season, with a nice effort to help the Royals. Signed in mid-May, he worked first in the Arizona Complex League before going 4-4 with a 5.63 ERA in nine starts at Omaha; that high ERA notwithstanding, the big club summoned him to KC after a concerning injury to Michael Lorenzen.

And in an historic start against the Cubs — he tied a major league record by pitching for his 14th team and became, at 45, the oldest Royal to play in a game — Hill surrendered only one earned run (but two unearned) in five innings.

Less than a week later, though, the Braves tagged Hill for four runs as he walked six and gave up two homers in just four frames. DFA’d the next day, Hill became a free agent and didn’t pitch again. Thus ended the gamble on a 45-year-old hurler.

Another big league veteran never reached Kansas City

Unlike Hill, who briefly gave the Royals a glimmer of hope, former Cy Young award winner Dallas Keuchel didn’t make it to the Royals after signing his minor league deal in mid-July. The five-time Gold Glover and two-time American League All-Star headed to Omaha, where in seven starts he went 2-1 with a 3.53 ERA.

But the veteran of 13 big league seasons never wore a Royals uniform. The club cut him loose in late August, a predictable fate considering he’d averaged only 9.3 appearances per season and had a 7.59 ERA after starting 32 games for the White Sox in 2021.

The shot the Royals gave him was simply too long.

A former Rookie of the Year fell short with the Royals

Kansas City took a flier on Michael Fulmer, whose once-promising career as a starter — he won the 2016 AL Rookie of the Year award with Detroit — fizzled after he underwent Tommy John Surgery three seasons later. Fulmer had mixed post-surgery results as a reliever, missed another season in 2024, and had pitched once for Boston and twice for the Cubs in 2025 before the Cubs let him go in late June.

The Royals signed him just days later and sent him to Omaha, where he made 15 relief appearances before the organization severed ties with him and his 5.89 ERA. He ended the season in the Mariners’ organization without making it to Seattle.

The Royals didn’t find what they were looking for with John Gant

Kansas City’s yearning for additional pitching depth reached independent ball and the Long Island Ducks, from whom the club plucked former major leaguer Gant in late May. Acquiring Gant was risky but made some sense — although he hadn’t worked in a major league game since 2021, he’d gone 11-1 with a 3.66 ERA for St. Louis in 2019 and was cruising with a 1.71 ERA for Long Island when the Royals came calling.

Gant started 19 games for Omaha and went 5-5 with a troubling 6.00 ERA; opponents also batted .286 against him and he issued 45 walks in 81 innings for a worrisome 5.0 BB/9. The Royals never called him up.

Signing Thomas Hatch didn’t pan out for the Royals

That Hatch worked only one inning for the Royals after they signed him in July isn’t shocking. That one frame — a two-run, two-hit, one-home run effort against Toronto on Aug. 1 — followed the 5-6, 4.22 record he put up in 18 starts for Omaha, and the career 4.96 ERA he brought to Kansas City didn’t commend him to a long stay in Kansas City.

And a trade KC completed the day after Hatch’s lone appearance didn’t help his cause. The club acquired pitchers Ryan Bergert and Stephen Kolek in the Freddy Fermin deal with San Diego; to clear roster space for them, the Royals DFA’d Hatch. Minnesota claimed him off waivers.

So ended another in the line of unsuccessful, but under the circumstances necessary, Royal attempts to bolster the team’s 2025 pitching.