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Royals Release Hunter Renfroe

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The Royals officially released Hunter Renfroe yesterday, according to the MLB.com transaction log. This was the expected outcome after Kansas City designated the veteran outfielder for assignment last week.

K.C.’s surprising two-year free agent investment in Renfroe did not work. The Royals guaranteed him $13.5MM on a deal that also included an opt-out clause after the first season. Renfroe was coming off a replacement-level .233/.297/.416 showing between the Angels and Reds in 2023. The Royals hoped for a rebound, but his production further tanked in Kansas City.

Renfroe hit .229/.297/.392 with 15 homers over 120 games last year. He made the easy decision not to opt out. The Royals gave him another shot as the Opening Day right fielder. Renfroe batted .182/.241/.242 without a single homer across 108 trips to the plate. His organizational tenure concludes with a .219/.286/.362 slash line over 532 plate appearances.

The Royals will pay Renfroe the remainder of his $7.5MM salary. There’s a decent chance he’ll need to accept a minor league deal if he wants to find another landing spot. If Renfroe logs major league action anywhere else this year, his new team will only pay the prorated portion of the $760K league minimum. That would come off the Royals’ obligations.

Kansas City has swapped out both their season-opening corner outfielders. Left fielder MJ Melendez remains on the 40-man roster but was optioned last month. He’s hitting .215 while striking out nearly 28% of the time in Triple-A. Renfroe is now out of the organization entirely. Drew Waters is starting in left field, while they brought up 27-year-old rookie John Rave to get an opportunity in right field. Top prospect Jac Caglianone looms in Triple-A and could be up within a few weeks, but the outfield figures to remain the front office’s top priority as the trade deadline approaches.

When Will The Royals Promote Jac Caglianone?

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The Royals’ offensive struggles aren’t exactly a secret. Kansas City is contending in the American League not because of its lineup but in spite of its lineup. Arguably no contender in MLB has been as anemic at the plate as the Royals, who sport a .246/.301/.361 batting line as a team. The resulting 83 wRC+ (indicating they’ve been 17% worse than average at the plate as a unit, even after weighting for their pitcher-friendly home park) is tied for the fourth-worst in baseball, leading only the Rockies, Pirates and Rangers.

The Royals have hit 33 home runs as a team. Shohei Ohtani has 20 by himself. Cal Raleigh is at 19. There are multiple contending clubs whose top two sluggers alone boast a home run total that’s comparable to the Royals’ teamwide output; Aaron Judge and Trent Grisham have combined for 32 dingers, while Arizona’s Corbin Carroll and Eugenio Suarez are at 31 round-trippers between them. Kansas City’s 33 home runs are seven fewer than the 29th-ranked Pirates’ collective 40 home runs. Every other team in MLB has at least 46 long balls. The Yankees lead MLB with 88.

All of this is taking place at a time when Kansas City is housing perhaps the top slugger in all of minor league baseball in Triple-A. Last year’s No. 6 overall pick, Jac Caglianone, has embarrassed minor league pitching in his first full, pro season. The former Florida Gator decimated Double-A opposition with a .322/.394/.553 batting line and nine homers in 38 games before being promoted to Triple-A. Since joining the Royals’ Omaha affiliate, he’s homered five times in eight games while slashing .343/.351/.800. Overall, Caglianone boasts an almost comical .326/.387/.599 line with 14 home runs, nine doubles, a 9.4% walk rate and a 20.8% strikeout rate in 212 minor league plate appearances.

There are some developmental aspects to consider. Caglianone was a first baseman (and pitcher) in college. He’s dropped the mound work and is focusing solely on the position-player side of his career. Vinnie Pasquantino has him blocked at first base in K.C., so the Royals have been having Caglianone learn the outfield on the fly on a part-time basis. He’s still relatively new to that challenge. Much has been made of Caglianone’s penchant for chasing off the plate, too. He’s made strides in that regard in 2025, but the Royals likely want to avoid a situation where he’s promoted to the majors and expected to be a savior, only to see his approach exploited by top-level pitching that results in the first real adversity of his fledgling professional career.

It’s all understandable, but the Royals’ outfield, in particular, has been the weakest in the majors. Kansas City outfielders have combined to hit just seven home runs this season while slashing an MLB-worst .235/.283/.329 (68 wRC+). They recently made some changes, moving on from Hunter Renfroe in favor of 27-year-old rookie John Rave, but the lack of outfield production only shines a brighter spotlight on what Caglianone is doing in the minors.

[Related: The Royals’ Outfield Drought]

This is playing out at a time when two of the top three arms on their vaunted pitching staff — Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo — are on the injured list. Prospect Noah Cameron has stepped up and dominated in four starts to help offset the loss of those top starters, but losses on the pitching side of the roster are only going to magnify the issues on the other side of the game.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Anne Rogers of MLB.com have both shined some light on a potential timetable for Caglianone’s MLB debut, though it seems clear the plan remains somewhat fluid. Passan reports that the Royals’ Omaha affiliate is just beginning a homestand, but Caglianone could be in line for a big league audition not long after its completion (June 8). Rogers stated in her recent video mailbag with fans that the organization is looking for “sustained success over the next few weeks” before considering a promotion. That generally aligns with Passan’s framing. Rogers adds that the Royals have been reluctant to rush Caglianone but the timeline has “shifted recently” as the major league lineup’s struggles continue.

“The hardest part about this for us is we’re trying to do what’s best for the player,” Royals general manager J.J. Picollo acknowledged to Passan before emphasizing the need to make sure Caglianone is as prepared as possible for big league pitching. “…It’s not fair to any player, whether it’s Jac Caglianone or whoever, when a team may be scuffling offensively to try to put it on him and hope he’s going to come save the day.”

Passan points out that for all Caglianone’s dominance, his two-strike approach is still sub-par. He’s chased just under half the pitches off the plate he’s seen in those settings (49.2%), which the Royals presumably fear is a trait that can be picked apart by the best pitchers in the world. Picollo spoke at length with Passan — readers will want to check out the column for full quotes and context — about wanting to see Caglianone face Triple-A pitchers not just multiple times in a game but to square off against them in multiple games. In essence, they want to see how pitchers adjust to Caglianone both within the confines of one individual game and with days or weeks between matchups. Conversely, they want to see how Caglianone reacts to such adjustments. That sort of challenge isn’t possible when he’s only eight Triple-A games under his belt. (Picollo also discussed these challenges with the Kansas City Star’s Sam McDowell earlier in the month, for readers who are intently tracking Caglianone’s development but may have missed that interview.)

It’s a delicate balance to strike, and the Royals’ recent play is forcing the issue. Kansas City won 16 of 18 games from April 20 through May 9. The near inverse has happened in 17 games since, when they’ve played at a 6-11 clip. That slide has coincided with improved play from the division-rival Twins, who’ve leapfrogged the Royals in the standings, and continued strong play from their rivals in Detroit and Cleveland. Kansas City has fallen to seven games back of the Tigers, and they’re now a game back of the Astros, Twins and Guardians, who each hold an American League Wild Card spots with identical 30-25 records.

For those wondering, there don’t seem to be any brazen service time shenanigans at play. The Royals showed as recently as 2022 that they were willing to overlook such things when they broke camp with a then-21-year-old Bobby Witt Jr. as their shortstop. Caglianone has already been down about seven weeks longer than would’ve been necessary to make sure he doesn’t accrue 172 days of MLB service time (i.e. one full year) by traditional means.

Caglianone could still get a year of service based on Rookie of the Year voting, but unless the plan is to hold him down until mid-July, that’s going to be a possibility whenever he gets the call. The top two finishers receive a full year of service, regardless of promotion date, if they were a consensus top prospect in the sport (as Caglianone is). Jacob Wilson has a big head start for the AL favorite, but the rest of the field is pretty well within reach if Caglianone debuts and performs up to his potential.

The Royals run some risk of Caglianone securing four years of arbitration eligibility as a Super Two player, but that hasn’t been a concern for them in the past. Each of Brady Singer, Kris Bubic, MJ Melendez, Daniel Lynch IV and Nicky Lopez have been Super Two players for the Royals over the past few years. Maikel Garcia is a slam-dunk Super Two this coming offseason. The timing of Cameron’s recent promotion would put him in line to add to the list, if he sticks in the majors. Super Two status simply hasn’t been a deterrent for the Royals in the past, and it’d be a surprise to see them allow their offense to languish in a win-now season to save money on Caglianone but not extend their window of control over him.

It’s a frustrating waiting game for Royals fans at a time when the team has scored 38 runs over its past 14 games (2.7 runs per game). Any waiting period seems like it’s on the cusp of completion, however, so long as Caglianone remains healthy and doesn’t fall into a strikeout-laden slump as a result of egregious chasing off the plate.

Royals Release Nelson Velazquez

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The Royals released Nelson Velázquez this afternoon. The news was announced by their Triple-A affiliate in Omaha. The club also announced that they’ve activated Cavan Biggio, suggesting the veteran infielder has agreed to accept the minor league assignment after being optioned over the weekend. Velázquez had already been outrighted off Kansas City’s 40-man roster during Spring Training, so this does not impact the MLB roster count.

Velázquez landed with Kansas City in an under-the-radar deadline trade in 2023. The Royals took a flier on the power-hitting outfielder while dealing reliever José Cuas to the Cubs in a one-for-one swap. Both players had some success early on with their new organizations, but it proved fleeting in each case.

The 26-year-old Velázquez drilled 14 home runs in his first 40 games as a Royal. He hit .233 with a .299 on-base percentage, though the power jolt was enough for him to open the ’24 season as Matt Quatraro’s primary designated hitter. Velázquez was unable to maintain anything close to the pace of his previous year. He managed eight longballs in a career-high 230 plate appearances. His already middling batting average and on-base marks each went in the wrong direction. He finished the season with a .200/.274/.366 batting line while striking out nearly 27% of the time.

Velázquez has been unable to turn things around early this year. He hit .208 in 12 Spring Training games and was batting .202/.298/.377 across 131 plate appearances in Omaha. Velázquez is averaging a robust 92.5 MPH on his batted balls in the minors, but he’s striking out in over a quarter of his trips while hitting a lot of infield pop-ups. He doesn’t have much to fall back on beyond the power, as he’s a poor defensive outfielder who has spent more time as a DH this year. He’ll presumably look for another minor league opportunity elsewhere.

Royals Select Andrew Hoffmann

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The Royals announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Andrew Hoffmann. Left-hander Evan Sisk has been optioned to Triple-A Omaha as the corresponding active roster move. The club’s 40-man roster had a couple of vacancies and moves to 39 with this move.

Hoffmann, 25, gets up to the big leagues for the first time. Drafted by Atlanta, he was flipped to the Royals almost three years ago, as part of the Drew Waters trade in July of 2022. A starter at that time, he posted some fairly uninspiring numbers for a few years but has been working exclusively in relief this year with signs of improvement.

He tossed 202 1/3 innings on the farm over the 2023 and 2024 seasons, allowing 5.74 earned runs per nine. His 22.8% strikeout rate was close to average but his 10.2% walk rate was on the high side. Here in 2025, he has thrown 25 1/3 innings over 19 Triple-A appearances with a 2.84 ERA, 33% strikeout rate, 8% walk rate and 58.7% ground ball rate.

That strong performance has vaulted him up to the majors, though the circumstances of the big league club likely played a role as well. With Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans both landing on the injured list recently, the club opted for a bullpen game yesterday, using seven pitchers to get through the contest. Sisk was one of those seven, which was his second straight appearance.

The Royals have one more game to get through before the pressure will ease off a bit. They are off on Thursday and again on Monday. It’s possible that Lugo will be back this weekend while Ragans could join the next turn through the rotation. Hoffmann will give them a fresh arm for at least today’s contest, which will be started by Noah Cameron.

Photo courtesy of Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Imagn Images

Royals Select John Rave

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The Royals announced that they have selected the contract of outfielder John Rave. Infielder Cavan Biggio has been optioned to Triple-A Omaha as the corresponding active roster move, which was reported yesterday. The Royals had three vacancies on their 40-man roster due to Luke Maile, Chris Stratton and Hunter Renfroe recently being designated for assignment. Their count goes from 37 to 38 with today’s moves.

Rave, 27, gets the call to the majors for the first time. The Royals selected him in the fifth round of the 2019 draft, signing him to a modest bonus of $297.5K. Through most of his minor league career, he has been a fringe prospect who does a lot of things well but doesn’t really excel at anything. From 2021 to 2024, he stepped to the plate 1,942 times in 454 minor league games. He hit 63 home runs and stole 63 bases. His 12.3% walk rate was strong but he also struck out at a high clip of 25.1%. It all added up to a combined .255/.349/.433 batting line and 103 wRC+.

He’s been at a higher level of production this year. Through 44 Triple-A contests, he has already hit nine long balls and swiped 17 bags. His 22.8% strikeout rate is close to average while his 10.9% walk rate is still strong. He has a .301/.382/.549 line and 141 wRC+. Some of that might be due to a .358 batting average on balls in play but that’s not drastically ahead of the .321 BABIP he had over the previous four seasons.

Rave is considered capable of playing all three outfield spots. Between the defense and his ability to steal a base, he doesn’t need to a hit a ton to be a useful part of the outfield picture in Kansas City. The club has been struggling for years to find solutions on the grass. Even though they emerged from their rebuilding period last year and made the playoffs, they got a collective .222/.281/.367 line and 79 wRC+ from their gardeners. It’s been more of the same this year, with a .239/.288/.336 line and 72 wRC+.

Renfroe was booted from the roster last week after more than a year of struggles in Kansas City. MJ Melendez was optioned to the minors last month. Drew Waters and Kyle Isbel are only marginally below league average at the plate with some solid defense. Jonathan India isn’t a natural outfielder and isn’t hitting much this year either.

In short, there’s not much blocking Rave from earning some decent playing time. He’s in right field today and batting sixth, with Isbel in center and Nick Loftin in left. If the outfield group continues to be lackluster through July, the Royals should be targeting upgrades on the trade market.

Photo courtesy of Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Imagn Images

Royals Reportedly Option Cavan Biggio

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The Royals optioned infielder Cavan Biggio to the minor leagues following the club’s game against the Twins today, according to a report from Anne Rogers of MLB.com. As a player with five years of service time, Biggio has the ability to refuse an optional assignment, and Rogers reports that he’ll be able to decide between accepting the optional assignment or electing free agency in the coming days. It’s unclear what the corresponding move for Biggio’s departure from the active roster will be.

It’s unusual to see a player consent to an optional assignment when they have the requisite service time necessary to reject one. That’s not to say it’s completely unheard of, with veteran first baseman Jose Abreu’s decision to consent to being optioned after struggling badly with the Astros early last year standing out as one of the more memorable recent examples, but it would hardly be a surprise if Biggio decided to elect free agency rather than stick with the Royals. On the other hand, Biggio may be limited to exclusively minor league deals in free agency and would therefore lose the benefits of being on the 40-man roster that he would retain should he accept an optional assignment from the Royals.

Son of Hall of Famer Craig Biggio and a veteran of seven MLB seasons in his own right, the younger Biggio got off to a hot start early in his career with a .240/.368/.430 slash line (good for a wRC+ of 118) across his first two seasons in the majors. That was enough to earn him down-ballot Rookie of the Year consideration in the AL during the 2019 season and make him the club’s on-paper everyday third baseman headed into the 2021 season. Unfortunately, things started to unravel from there. Biggio hit just .224/.322/.356 with a wRC+ of 84 that eventually got him pushed into a part-time role that year. He wouldn’t recapture his everyday job with the Blue Jays ever again, although his .220/.330/.361 (100 wRC+) performance over the next two seasons was enough to make him a viable bench player in a utility role.

While Biggio seemed to have carved out a solid part-time role for himself with Toronto, that changed during the 2024 campaign. He struggled badly across 44 games with the club, hitting just .200/.323/.291 with a wRC+ of 86, and that step backwards in conjunction with the Blue Jays’ losing record was enough to convince Toronto brass to pull the plug on a player who was once considered to be part of their core alongside Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette. Biggio spent the rest of the season bouncing between the Dodgers, Giants, and Braves organizations and finished the year with a .197/.314/.303 (84 wRC+) slash line in the big leagues across 78 games.

Biggio elected free agency back in November after being cut loose by the Braves and eventually caught on with the Royals on a minor league deal back in January. He showed out enough in Spring Training to make the club’s Opening Day roster but has performed poorly in a part-time role during the regular season with a slash line of just .176/.300/.250. His 61 wRC+ this year is the 35th-worst figure in the majors among players with at least 80 plate appearances, and for a Royals club that’s tied for third from the bottom in the majors in runs scored his bat is clearly not producing enough to justify his roster spot.

MJ Melendez, Joey Wiemer, Tyler Gentry, and Tyler Tolbert are all on the 40-man roster already as potential replacements for Biggio on the active roster. Anyone else would require selecting a contract to the roster, though it should be noted that the Royals have space on their 40-man so no corresponding move would be necessary to make that sort of addition. Rogers notes that outfielder John Rave was out of the lineup at Triple-A Omaha today, potentially suggesting he could be an option to be called up to the majors, while Nelson Velazquez, Nick Pratto, and Jordan Groshans are all non-roster players with big league experience who could theoretically be called upon.

Royals Outright Luke Maile

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May 24: The Royals announced this afternoon that Maile has cleared outright waivers and accepted an assignment to Triple-A. The 34-year-old will remain in the organization going forward to serve as non-roster catching depth behind the club’s tandem of Perez and Fermin.

May 19: The Royals announced that right-hander Taylor Clarke has been reinstated from the paternity list. Catcher Luke Maile has been designated for assignment as the corresponding move. The club’s 40-man roster count drops from 39 to 38.

Maile, 34, signed a minor league deal with the Royals in the offseason and was selected to the big league roster on May 2nd. The Royals already had two catchers on the roster in Salvador Perez and Freddy Fermin but Perez was dealing with some hip tightness at the time. Perez didn’t start on May 2nd or 3rd but was back in the starting nine by May 4th.

That didn’t leave a lot of playing time for Maile. Though he was on the roster for almost three weeks, he only got ten plate appearances over three games. He certainly made the most of those, with two walks and three hits, including a home run, creating a gargantuan .375/.500/.750 slash line.

His career offensive output is far more modest. He has a .209/.276/.322 batting line over 1,260 big league plate appearances. His 63 wRC+ indicates he’s been 37% worse than average overall. However, despite that lack of punch at the plate, he’s been in and out of the big leagues for most than a decade. That’s thanks to his solid reputation for his defense and work with a pitching staff.

He has been squeezed off the Royals’ roster and into DFA limbo. He will likely end up on waivers in the coming days. It’s possible he could attract interest from clubs looking for veteran catching depth.

Photo courtesy of Gregory Fisher, Imagn Images

Royals Acquire Diego Castillo

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The Royals have acquired infielder Diego Castillo from the Mets, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. He has been assigned to Triple-A Omaha. The log doesn’t specify what the Mets are receiving in return but it seems likely to be a cash deal.

Castillo is a 27-year-old infielder and not to be confused with the 31-year-old pitcher of the same name, who is in the Rockies’ system on a minor league deal. The infielder signed a minor league deal with the Mets in the offseason and has appeared in 13 Triple-A games so far this season. He has a rough .167/.217/.262 line, though it’s a tiny sample of 46 plate appearances and he has been held back by a .188 batting average in balls in play.

That performance probably didn’t help his standing with the Mets. Additionally, the club’s infield picture is far stronger than it was to start the year. Jeff McNeil started the season on the injured list but has been back for a few weeks now. Brett Baty has been heating up after a cold start. Luisangel Acuña is performing well enough as a bench piece. Ronny Mauricio is also back on the field and playing minor league games after missing 2024 due to a torn ACL.

For the Royals, both Michael Massey and Jonathan India are having rough years, so the second base production hasn’t been great. The Royals have received a collective .217/.251/.280 line from the keystone this year, with Massey taking most of the playing time. That results in a wRC+ of 44, which puts the Royals ahead of just the Rockies in terms of offensive production from that position. They just recalled Nick Loftin as the corresponding move for outfielder Hunter Renfroe being designated for assignment, so Castillo will perhaps take up Loftin’s spot on the Omaha roster.

Though Castillo is out to a slow start this year, his minor league track record is solid. From the start of 2021 to the present, he has stepped to the plate 1,663 times on the farm with a 13.3% walk rate, 14.9% strikeout rate, .278/.377/.418 line and 108 wRC+. Defensively, he has spent time at all four infield spots and the outfield corners. His major league batting line is only .208/.257/.383, but that’s in a fairly small sample size of 292 plate appearances, most of which came with the 2022 Pirates.

Photo courtesy of Jesse Johnson, Imagn Images

Royals Designate Hunter Renfroe For Assignment

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The Royals announced Friday that they’ve designated veteran outfielder Hunter Renfroe for assignment. Infielder Nick Loftin has been recalled from Triple-A Omaha in a corresponding move. Renfroe is being paid $7.5MM in the second season of a two-year, $13MM contract and will very likely be released in the coming days.

Kansas City gave out a pair of surprising two-year deals with player opt-outs in the 2023-24 offseason: one to Renfroe and another to veteran reliever Chris Stratton. Both struggled in year one of the contract and picked up said player option. Both players have been cut loose within days of each other, less than one-third of the way through the second season of those pacts.

The 33-year-old Renfroe had a big performance in June and July last season but struggled immensely outside those two months. From August onward, he batted only .211/.244/.333, finishing out the season with a sub-par .229/.297/.392 slash in 424 plate appearances. Renfroe understandably wasn’t keen on taking that batting line back to the open market, particularly not ahead of his age-33 campaign.

Any hopes of a rebound have faded, however, as the veteran slugger has declined even further at the plate this season. In 108 turns at the plate, Renfroe is hitting just .182/.241/.242 (32 wRC+, or 68% worse than league-average offense). He’s yet to hit a home run this season.

Given the magnitude of those struggles, there’s no way Renfroe will be claimed on waivers. Finding a trade partner should be nearly impossible as well. The overwhelming likelihood is that he, as was the case with Stratton, will be released on the heels of his DFA. At that point, the Royals would be on the hook for the remainder of his $7.5MM salary. A new team would owe Renfroe only the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the MLB roster.

Renfroe was a buy-low candidate even in the 2023-24 offseason (hence the surprise surrounding a two-year deal with a player opt-out). He’d slashed .233/.297/.416 between the Angels and Reds a year prior. He hasn’t had an above-average season at the plate since a 29-homer campaign with the 2022 Brewers, and once-strong defensive grades have declined considerably over the past few seasons. Renfroe did smack 60 homers and hit .257/.315/.496 in just under 1100 plate appearances between Boston and Milwaukee in 2021-22, so someone will probably take a flier on a minor league contract, but he’s a project at this stage of his career.

Royals Release Chris Stratton

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May 22: Stratton was released as expected, according to the MLB.com transaction log.

May 18: The Royals announced that right-hander Chris Stratton has been designated for assignment.  Fellow righty Jonathan Bowlan was called up from Triple-A in the corresponding move.

The DFA probably closes the book on what has been a disappointing season-plus for Stratton in Kansas City.  Following four solid seasons of bullpen work from 2020-23 and a World Series ring with the 2023 Rangers, Stratton signed a two-year, $8MM free agent deal with the Royals during the 2023 Winter Meetings.  The contract paid Stratton $3.5MM in 2024, and he then could choose between a $4.5MM salary for 2025 or exercising an opt-out clause to re-enter free agency.

Stratton’s decision ended up being a pretty easy one, as he chose to stick with the $4.5MM after struggling to a 5.55 ERA over 58 1/3 innings out of the K.C. bullpen last year.  He also ended the season with a flexor strain his right forearm, and while he was able to return healthy for the start of Spring Training, the righty’s poor form continued into this year, as Stratton had a 7.94 ERA over 17 innings and 12 appearances in 2025.

Considering these numbers, it seems wholly unlikely that another team would claim Stratton on DFA waivers and absorb the remainder of his salary.  The probable scenario is that Stratton will be released after clearing waivers, leaving the Royals on the hook for the approximately $3.1MM still owed to the reliever.  If Stratton signs elsewhere and joins a Major League roster, his new team will only owe him the prorated portion of a big league minimum salary, which will be subtracted from the Royals’ $3.1MM commitment.

Bowlan has pitched in four MLB games spread out over the last three seasons, and his latest cup of coffee in the Show was two innings of scoreless ball in the Royals’ 7-3 loss to the Astros back on April 27.  Bowlan has worked mostly as a starter throughout his minor league career, but a transition into full-time relief pitching seems to be working wonders, as he has a 2.08 ERA, 35.7% strikeout rate, and 7.1% walk rate in 17 1/3 bullpen innings for Triple-A Omaha this year.

The Royals could use Bowlan as a long man within their pen, or perhaps explore using him as a bulk pitcher (behind an opener) as the team figures out how to address some sudden rotation needs.  Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo were both placed on the 15-day IL yesterday, and while Noah Cameron is likely to take one of those open spots, there is no obvious answer for the other hole in the starting five.

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