The Royals are going to be reinstating Michael Lorenzen from the 15-day injured list on Saturday, which will bump left-hander Bailey Falter to the bullpen. Manager Matt Quatraro relayed the news to Anne Rogers of MLB.com.
It’s an unfortunate development for Falter, who has been having a good season overall. He logged 113 1/3 innings over 22 starts with the Pirates, allowing 3.73 earned runs per nine. He was traded to the Royals ahead of the deadline but his first two starts with Kansas City did not go well. At Boston on August 4th, he allowed seven earned runs in four innings. His second start, hosting the Nationals on Monday, was a bit better. He only allowed two earned runs but only lasted four innings again.
In the weeks leading up to the deadline, the Royals lost Cole Ragans, Kris Bubic and Lorenzen to the IL. There was some speculation that the club would look to sell at the deadline, perhaps trading Seth Lugo, but they went in the other direction. They extended Lugo, then added Falter, Ryan Bergert, Stephen Kolek and others at the deadline.
In the past few weeks, they have had a rotation of Lugo, Michael Wacha, Noah Cameron, Bergert and Falter. While Falter’s two starts since the deadline have been subpar, Bergert’s have been quite strong. In each, he allowed two earned runs over 5 2/3 innings.
The decision to move Falter to the ’pen surely goes beyond the two most recent starts for each guy. Even when things were going good for Falter with the Bucs earlier in the year, he was probably a bit lucky. He struck out just 15.3% of batters faced with the Pirates before the trade. His .236 batting average on balls in play and 73.7% strand rate were both to the fortunate side. His 4.88 FIP and 5.13 SIERA were both more than a run higher than his ERA.
Bergert, on the other hand, has some more encouraging metrics. Between the Padres and Royals this year, he has a 2.87 ERA. There’s also some luck in there and his 11% walk rate is too high but he is punching out 23% of batters faced. Bergert has options and could have been sent down to Triple-A but it seems the Royals want to keep him in the majors as they try to push for a playoff spot.
Falter is out of options, so he can’t be easily sent to the minors. He’ll get kicked to the bullpen for now, likely in a long relief role. He can be retained for next year via arbitration, so the Royals likely want to keep him around for next year’s rotation depth.
Even next year, Falter won’t have a clear path to a rotation job. Lorenzen is an impending free agent but the Royals can pencil in Lugo, Wacha, Ragans and Bubic into four spots, with Cameron, Bergert and Kolek possibilities for the fifth slot. However, pitching injuries are fairly inevitable and the Royals might welcome the possibility of having another arm around. Falter is making $2.222MM this year, his first of four arb seasons as a Super Two player, and can be retained through 2028.
Photo courtesy of Denny Medley, Imagn Images
I guess he Faltered 🙁
I guess Homer Bailey & Scott Blewitt were busy.
Sounds like the worst law firm name ever: Falter & Blewitt
Lol I still see Pirates fans on different sites complaining about trading Falter. Even with no return for Pit they still fleeced KCR.
Absolutely he was terrible the last 2 months and it was an easy non tender decision. He is a soft tossing left who plays well in pnc park but not outside of that
Tbh he’s lucky to have gotten as good of results as he did even in PNC. Clear regression. Around these parts it’s complaints of not trading Heaney, which I do agree with, but it’s not like Falter was at all a building block. No contending team should employ him lol.
Like look at theman below us he’s the typical pittsburgh idiot who has NO clue what’s going on.
The Pirates fan in me wanted to be upset with the trade, because I like Falter and not getting back a top 30 prospect was a bit upsetting. But the baseball mind in me knew that Falter was a huge regression candidate and what we ended up getting has been pretty decent. We’ll see how it pans out over the next year or so, but if the Royals are willing to move Falter to the bullpen, who is controlled through 2028 who doesn’t have very much experience as a reliever, and has solid surface-facing numbers, vs Lorenzen, who is a rental and has 275 bullpen appearances, who has struggled for most of this year, that speaks volumes to how they view Falter to me.
100%. Chances are Falter is non tendered come the off-season and signs at most a 5M 1 year deal. Might even be back in PGH. Royals were making moves just to say they did something lol.
The Bucs should have traded Heaney instead
Falter isn’t missing many bats. Though he has struck out 7 hitters in 8 innings he also surrendered 11 hits and 9 runs, all earned. With those numbers aside from mop-up duty i don’t know how you use him in the pen