The Royals plan to promote right-hander Alec Marsh to start tomorrow’s series opener against the Dodgers, tweets Anne Rogers of MLB.com. He draws in for Jordan Lyles, who is under the weather.
It’s the first MLB call for Marsh. Kansas City selected the 6’2″ hurler 70th overall in the 2019 draft out of Arizona State. Marsh has ranked around the middle tier of a generally thin K.C. farm system. Baseball America recently slotted him 11th among organizational prospects, while Keith Law of the Athletic placed him 20th coming into the year.
Marsh was coming off a brutal 2022 showing in Double-A, when huge home run issues led to a 7.32 ERA over 25 starts. Prospect evaluators still credited him with swing-and-miss potential on a low-mid 90s fastball and an above-average to plus slider. The Royals added him to the 40-man roster last offseason to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft despite the poor numbers.
The 25-year-old has found a little better results this time around. Over 11 starts with Double-A Northwest Arkansas, he posted a 5.32 ERA. Marsh got the homers in check and struck out a solid 26.4% of opponents but walked more than 11% of batters faced. He has similar strikeout and walk marks in three starts since being bumped up to Triple-A Omaha, where he’s allowed just four runs in 15 innings.
It’s possible this is just a spot start necessitated by Lyles’ illness. Kansas City hasn’t gotten much production out of its rotation overall, though, so there should be other opportunities for Marsh to work his way back in the relatively near future if he shows well in Omaha.
1-11, 6.68 ERA is some nasty weather
Why even mention 1-11?
Because he’s lost 11 games? Oh, I get it. You’re one of these Gen-Z sabermetric hounds who go by WAR and spin rate. Excuse me while I laugh.
He was credited with the loss. He didn’t necessarily lose the game. It’s a terrible statistic. There’s far too many other variables in play that affect it. Jacob DeGrom won a Cy Young with a 10-9 record.
Because you play to win the game.
Lyles is the ringer you sign when you want to win draft position. Consistent garbage
Lyles was fine in Baltimore last year. Ate a bunch of innings and was extremely average.
I’ve said before he has the best attribute of any player, availability. But, he’s rarely contributing to winning baseball when he is out there.
He’s rotation opening filler for teams that don’t care about winning.
Surprised no one has asked how you can “recall” a guy who hasn’t made his MLB debut yet.
I came here to post this. I’ve actually seen the word recall on this site before in relation to someone getting initially called up. Recall implies someone was up before
I was just thinking the same thing. Rotoworld uses the same terminology as well. Don’t understand if it’s a debut how can he be recalled.
He was up before. During spring training. All 40-man roster players are invited to major league spring training by default. The ones that don’t make the big club out of spring training are then “optioned” to the minors. Alec Marsh appears to have been Rule 5 eligible last season and the Royals opted to put him on the 40 rather than risking losing him.
They called him. He didn’t pick up. So they re-called him.
The best season Lyles had was 11 years ago when he was an A potential starter on MLB The Show.
Are they recalling him, or calling him
up?
Based on how well the coaches have done with all the other young Royals pitchers, I expected him to get bombed.
Like Mr. Ringworm explained above: “If a player is already on the 40-man roster and playing for a minor league team, he would be ‘recalled’ to the MLB parent club because he is already a member of the 40-man. However, if a player from the minor leagues is called up to the MLB parent club and is not on the 40-man, the MLB club must ‘purchase his contract’ and place him on the 40-man roster.” milb.com/altoona/team/transaction-speak