Even after sleeping on it, Kansas City Royals fans are surely waking up remembering last night’s nightmare all too well, a nightmare in which they lost 22-1 to the Chicago White Sox. While he may not have been the sole culprit for the loss, the lion share of it surely fell on Mitch Spence, who after coming on as the bulk inning reliever after the opener Steven Cruz, he surrendered 10 earned runs off eight hits in 1.1 innings of work.
It was a terrible outing to say the least, a potentially historically bad one at that. The Royals will have decisions to make on how they handle Spence after an outing like this, whether it’s just a simple option down to Triple-A due to their very thin pitching depth or whether they accept defeat to a degree and give him the same DFA treatment as they did Bailey Falter around a month ago.
Regardless though, accepting defeat may already be in play for the Royals, as this wasn’t Spence’s first bad outing with them, it was his third out of just three. With a 21.21 ERA in just 9.1 innings of work, it’s hard to see more MLB opportunities on the horizon for him in Kansas City. This means their already skeptical trade for him this offseason, where they sent promising relief prospect A.J. Causey to the Athletics in return, looks even worse.
The Royals prioritized pitching depth this winter and while they’ve been proven right in doing so with so many injuries plaguing them this season, Spence has never found a way to be the answer for them beyond Triple-A. He’s demonstrating no control this season with an astronomically high 3.00 WHIP thanks to a 16.1% walk rate, and he’s shown little ability to overpower hitters with just a 10.7% K-rate.
It may not be a fleece yet, but Royals would likely prefer A.J Causey to Mitch Spence
Now, to say the Royals got fleeced by the Athletics may be slight stretch despite Spence’s brutal numbers right now. After all, Causey hasn’t exactly dazzled in the A’s Double-A ranks this season with a 6.12 ERA, 1.36 WHIP and 11.2% walk rate.
That being said a 23.4% K-rate is nothing to be ashamed of and only mildly lower than the 24%-28% range he displayed in the Royals’ ranks in both High-A and Double-A in 2025. And there’s argument to be made that he’s been a product of bad luck this season with a significantly higher 3.95 FIP compared to his over-6.00 ERA.
And there was plenty of reason to believe that the Royals pitching development team was working wonders with the 2024 fifth-rounder. In both Quad Cities and Northwest Arkansas, Causey posted sub-2.00 ERAs, sub-1.00 WHIPs and sub-.200 BAA. With save opportunities mixed in at both stops, it wasn’t a stretch for Royals fans to think that perhaps there was a potential backend and even closer in their ranks in Causey.
There’s no denying that the Royals could use some answers for both now and the near-future in terms of relief pitching depth and Causey could’ve potentially been just that with the trajectory he was showing last season, reaching the upper minors in his first professional season.
However, now they have Spence, a name that may be destined for a career in Triple-A, while Causey’s talent is being utilized in another farm system. If trade mulligans were a thing in baseball, perhaps the Royals would want to use one right about now.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source kingsofkauffman.com ’
