Kansas City Royals player breakdown: pitchers (part VI)

The Kansas City Royals start Spring Training next week and have their roster pretty well set. The non-roster invitees have been announced and there seems little chance of another free agent signing. This makes it a good time to look at the players who will be preparing for the season and where each of them will probably be on 1 April.

The obvious place to start is with the pitchers an the Royals do have a lot of them in camp this year. There are 25 on the 40-man roster (including two who are still recovering from injury) and another nine non-roster invitees. The analysis for them has thus been broken up into several parts, of which this is the sixth. I look at how the player has done, their role in the club and in some cases what they have to do in Spring Training before predicting where they will be on Opening Day

Donnie Joseph is a left-handed reliever who has bounced around the minor leagues for a few years and generally had decent success. He now finds himself on the Royals 40-man roster and can compete for a spot on the Opening Day roster.

Prediction: Little chance of being on the Opening Day Roster with the Royals’ already stacked bullpen and given his history may be off to another club before long.

John Lamb was one of the Royals’ top left-handed prospects before undergoing Tommy John surgery a year ago. He started his comeback near the end of last season and now has a chance to continue his work in Spring Training.

Prediction: As he is still recovering from surgery there is little chance that the Royals would risk him at the big league level. He will stay on the 40-man roster and hope for a double-A assignment.