Headlines

  • Nationals Fire PBO Mike Rizzo, Manager Dave Martinez
  • Brewers Activate Brandon Woodruff
  • Clarke Schmidt Expected To Undergo Tommy John Surgery
  • Bobby Jenks Passes Away
  • Braves Release Alex Verdugo
  • Top 40 Trade Candidates For The 2025 Deadline
  • Previous
  • Next
Register
Login
  • Hoops Rumors
  • Pro Football Rumors
  • Pro Hockey Rumors

MLB Trade Rumors

Remove Ads
  • Home
  • Teams
    • AL East
      • Baltimore Orioles
      • Boston Red Sox
      • New York Yankees
      • Tampa Bay Rays
      • Toronto Blue Jays
    • AL Central
      • Chicago White Sox
      • Cleveland Guardians
      • Detroit Tigers
      • Kansas City Royals
      • Minnesota Twins
    • AL West
      • Houston Astros
      • Los Angeles Angels
      • Oakland Athletics
      • Seattle Mariners
      • Texas Rangers
    • NL East
      • Atlanta Braves
      • Miami Marlins
      • New York Mets
      • Philadelphia Phillies
      • Washington Nationals
    • NL Central
      • Chicago Cubs
      • Cincinnati Reds
      • Milwaukee Brewers
      • Pittsburgh Pirates
      • St. Louis Cardinals
    • NL West
      • Arizona Diamondbacks
      • Colorado Rockies
      • Los Angeles Dodgers
      • San Diego Padres
      • San Francisco Giants
  • About
    • MLB Trade Rumors
    • Tim Dierkes
    • Writing team
    • Advertise
    • Archives
  • Contact
  • Tools
    • 2025 Trade Deadline Outlook Series
    • 2025-26 MLB Free Agent List
    • Contract Tracker
    • Transaction Tracker
    • Agency Database
  • NBA/NFL/NHL
    • Hoops Rumors
    • Pro Football Rumors
    • Pro Hockey Rumors
  • App
  • Chats
Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Royals’ James McArthur Placed On Injured List

By Steve Adams | September 17, 2024 at 2:45pm CDT

2:45pm: The Royals have placed McArthur on the 15-day IL with a right elbow sprain, recalling right-hander Steven Cruz in a corresponding move.

11:43am: Royals reliever James McArthur exited last night’s game due to elbow tightness, the team announced. He’s undergoing testing today to determine the source of the discomfort and the severity of any potential injury, per Anne Rogers of MLB.com.

McArthur initially looked to have suffered a hand injury when covering first base on an infield single off the bat of Zach McKinstry, but manager Matt Quatraro tells Rogers that wasn’t the issue. McArthur stayed in to face the next batter after McKinstry reached but shook his arm after missing badly off the plate on a fastball to Jake Rogers (video link). He began to set for his next pitch, but catcher Salvador Perez called for the training staff after seeing his right-hander shake that arm. Per Quatraro, McArthur acknowledged that “something felt off” in his arm, and he quickly departed with trainer Chris DeLucia.

The 27-year-old McArthur opened the 2024 season as the Royals’ closer and still leads the club with 18 saves, though he’s since ceded ninth-inning duties to deadline acquisition Lucas Erceg. That switch was borne both out of both Erceg’s excellence and a midseason rough patch for the hard-throwing McArthur. After a couple of rocky appearances to begin the season, McArthur found his groove and rattled off 36 2/3 innings of 3.22 ERA ball from April 5 through July 23. Those are arbitrary endpoints, of course, but it’s roughly half a season’s worth of quality bullpen work from a pitcher who’d been trusted with the highest-leverage role in Quatraro’s bullpen.

McArthur, however, was shelled for eight runs over his next two appearances on July 24 and 28. The Royals acquired Erceg from the Athletics two days later. McArthur has pitched primarily in a middle relief role since and has a 3.77 ERA in 14 1/3 innings in that span, with the bulk of the damage against him coming in one brutal day at Yankee Stadium. Overall, McArthur has a 4.92 ERA on the season, although that number is skewed heavily by his past six weeks or so of tumultuous performance.

There hasn’t been a pronounced drop in McArthur’s velocity, although his sinker is down a bit in recent outings. He averaged 95.1 mph on the pitch through the sixth of September but has seen the pitch clock in at an average of 94.3 mph across his past three appearances. McArthur has had similar dips in velocity throughout the year, so it’s not necessarily alarming in isolation, but any change in stuff/velocity when coupled with arm discomfort is a red flag.

The Royals are already without deadline pickup Hunter Harvey (back strain) and veteran free-agent signees Will Smith (back spasms) and Chris Stratton (flexor strain). Erceg, John Schreiber and former starters Kric Bubic and Daniel Lynch IV are among the top options left in an increasingly injury-marred Kansas City bullpen.

Share 0 Retweet 0 Send via email0

Kansas City Royals James McArthur Steven Cruz

MLBTR Chat Transcript
Main
Fantasy Baseball: Searching For ROS Diamonds
View Comments (8)
Post a Comment

8 Comments

  1. olmtiant

    10 months ago

    Book em Dano… hopefully nothing serious…

    2
    Reply
  2. For Love of the Game

    10 months ago

    Looking at his track record, mostly in the minors, don’t be so quick to dismiss his trouble keeping runs off the board. That looks to be par for the course for McArthur. But I hope he avoids serious elbow trouble.

    Reply
  3. Captain Dunsel

    10 months ago

    It looks like McArthur’s parked for now.

    Reply
    • Flanster

      10 months ago

      I don’t think that I can take it

      Reply
  4. BirdieMan

    10 months ago

    He’ll be about the 400th pitcher this year to need TJ surgery

    Reply
  5. Trolling stops when Internet Anonymity stops.

    10 months ago

    The worst commenters on MLBTR are: Inutero, BirdieMan, njbirdsfan, JoeBrady, Blue Baron, Johnny Utah, Fever Pitch Guy, Rocker49, FletcherFan69, DarrenDreifort’sContract, 27champyankees (AKA TonyGwynnSD19 and 27ringsbtch… you always find him in SF Giants articles), Halos11, Dogbone, waldfree, DarkSide830, Rsox, NYCRiddler, Samuel, whyhayzee, Steinbrenner2728, Mickey Solis, tangerinepony, Dumpster Divin’ Theo, coupofthecentury, Rocker49, Rocker49, and Rocker49.

    Reply
    • HatlessPete

      10 months ago

      Lol…wtf. This is a pretty weird thing to be spending your time on my dude.

      4
      Reply
  6. Edp007

    10 months ago

    McArthur went to the park…can’t have your cake… left it out in the rain..

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Please login to leave a reply.

Log in Register

    Top Stories

    Nationals Fire PBO Mike Rizzo, Manager Dave Martinez

    Brewers Activate Brandon Woodruff

    Clarke Schmidt Expected To Undergo Tommy John Surgery

    Bobby Jenks Passes Away

    Braves Release Alex Verdugo

    Top 40 Trade Candidates For The 2025 Deadline

    Rays Reinstate Ha-Seong Kim

    Yankees Have Shown Interest In Ryan McMahon

    Royals Interested In Bryan Reynolds

    Rangers Option Josh Jung

    Kevin Pillar Announces Retirement

    Braves Place Spencer Schwellenbach On IL With Elbow Fracture

    Giants Exercise 2026 Option On Manager Bob Melvin

    Yordan Alvarez Shut Down Due To Setback With Hand Injury

    Astros Place Jeremy Peña On Injured List With Fractured Rib

    Tucker Barnhart To Retire

    Tyler Mahle To Be Sidelined Beyond Trade Deadline

    Reds Release Jeimer Candelario

    Dave Parker Passes Away

    Griffin Canning Diagnosed With Ruptured Achilles

    Recent

    Nationals Fire PBO Mike Rizzo, Manager Dave Martinez

    Rays Sign Peter Strzelecki To Minor League Contract

    MLB Announces 2025 All-Star Rosters

    Rhys Hoskins Suffers Grade 2 Thumb Sprain, Headed To IL

    Pirates Re-Sign Yohan Ramírez, Release Peter Strzelecki

    Diamondbacks Place Pavin Smith On IL, Select Tristin English

    Details On Bryan Reynolds’ Limited No-Trade Protection

    Tigers Select PJ Poulin

    Blue Jays Place Andres Gimenez On 10-Day Injured List

    Yankees Sign Geoff Hartlieb To Major League Deal

    MLBTR Newsletter - Hot stove highlights in your inbox, five days a week

    Latest Rumors & News

    Latest Rumors & News

    • Sandy Alcantara Rumors
    • Luis Robert Rumors
    • Alex Bregman Rumors

     

    Trade Rumors App for iOS and Android App Store Google Play

    MLBTR Features

    MLBTR Features

    • Remove Ads, Support Our Writers
    • Front Office Originals
    • Front Office Fantasy Baseball
    • MLBTR Podcast
    • Trade Deadline Outlook Series
    • 2025-26 MLB Free Agent List
    • Contract Tracker
    • Transaction Tracker
    • Extension Tracker
    • Agency Database
    • MLBTR On Twitter
    • MLBTR On Facebook
    • Team Facebook Pages
    • How To Set Up Notifications For Breaking News
    • Hoops Rumors
    • Pro Football Rumors
    • Pro Hockey Rumors

    Rumors By Team

    • Angels Rumors
    • Astros Rumors
    • Athletics Rumors
    • Blue Jays Rumors
    • Braves Rumors
    • Brewers Rumors
    • Cardinals Rumors
    • Cubs Rumors
    • Diamondbacks Rumors
    • Dodgers Rumors
    • Giants Rumors
    • Guardians Rumors
    • Mariners Rumors
    • Marlins Rumors
    • Mets Rumors
    • Nationals Rumors
    • Orioles Rumors
    • Padres Rumors
    • Phillies Rumors
    • Pirates Rumors
    • Rangers Rumors
    • Rays Rumors
    • Red Sox Rumors
    • Reds Rumors
    • Rockies Rumors
    • Royals Rumors
    • Tigers Rumors
    • Twins Rumors
    • White Sox Rumors
    • Yankees Rumors

    Navigation

    • Sitemap
    • Archives
    • RSS/Twitter Feeds By Team

    MLBTR INFO

    • Advertise
    • About
    • Commenting Policy
    • Privacy Policy

    Connect

    • Contact Us
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • RSS Feed

    MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

    Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

    hide arrows scroll to top

    Register

    Desktop Version | Switch To Mobile Version