Robinson Tejeda Loses His Setup Role

Entering this season, Robinson Tejeda figured to be one of the few known quantities in a Royals bullpen that had gotten shelled in 2010. The team figured to look to some young arms to help round out it's bullpen and it was expected that Tejada would continue to provide a steady, reliable bridge to closer Joakim Soria.

It was a fair expectation. Over the past two seasons Tejeda has thrown at least 61 innings while posting identical 3.54 ERAs since Dayton Moore plucked the hard throwing righty off waivers from the Rangers. After providing 2.1 WAR in relief the past two seasons, the move stands as a highly successful waiver claim, and one of Moore's better overall acquisitions.

Royals Rookie Relievers On A Roll

How's that for a little early morning alliteration?

The Royals are off to a great 3-1 start after stringing together back-to-back-to-back walk off wins after dropping the first game of their set to the Angels. Certainly that'll be the talk of most fans, Royals or otherwise. But to me the biggest point of emphasis to take away from the first Royals series of the year were the performances of Aaron Crow and Tim Collins.

An Early Look At The Royals Bullpen

Almost every team heads into a season with one or two bullpen positions up for grabs, and in the Royals case, that number is probably closer to four. The teams used a total of 19 relievers in 2010, and racked up the worst bullpen ERA in the American League last year. In short, the unit was a disaster.

Obviously the bullpen will be anchored by Joakim Soria who is one of baseballs five best - and probably it's most unheralded - closers. Setting him up will be Robinson Tejada, a solid if unspectacular middle reliever with swing and miss stuff and control issues. Also likely to be in the bullpen is Blake Wood who had a solid showing in his rookie campaign last year and profiles as a ground ball, pitch to contact middle reliever.

Royals Extend Billy Butler

Earlier this morning the Royals announced that they had extended first baseman Billy Butler to a four year extension, buying out all of his arbitration seasons along with his first year of free agency. The fact that these next four years will comprise the best part of Butler's peak year (his age 25-28 seasons) this deal looks very good and barring injury, is a near lock to be a great value.

Royals Bullpen Getting Bombed

The Royals bullpen has been bombed so far this year as reliever after reliever struggles to record outs. Coming into tonight they had posted a 6.95 ERA in their 44 innings of work. That's including closer Joakim Soria, who has allowed just one run in his six innings of work. Remove those six very good innings of work, and the ERA balloons to 7.82. They allowed four more runs tonight that aren't figured into that equation.

Beyond Soria, who is probably the most under-rated closer in baseball and a truly special pitcher, the only other two reliable arms have been left-handed specialist John Parrish and hard throwing righting Josh Rupe who have combined to give the Royals 10.1 innings of 2 run baseball.

Parrish has made a nice career as a lefty specialist and in the long-term, that's all he should be used as. But with the Royals struggles Trey Hillman has continued to move him into higher leverage situations. I wont imagine that his success in that role will last long however. Over Parrish's 10 seasons in the Majors he's posted a 4.47 ERA and was out of the Majors altogether least season. Not the sort of career line that inspires confidence.

Rupe is spending his first year outside of the Rangers organization and has uninspiring peripherals with a strikeout rate under six and a walk rate over four. But Rupe does have a live arm and he's throwing the ball harder this year than he ever has before. The long term projections on him aren't great either, but as of right now, he might be their best option.

To try and fix this problem, the Royals are getting aggressive. Kind of. They don't appear to be playing the market for a solid option from outside of the organization, and at this point in the season, such options probably aren't available anyways. But they certainly are working flights between AAA and the bigs hard in an effort to throw everything available at the wall in the hopes that something sticks.

Earlier this season they purchased the contract of another Rangers scrap-heap reliever, Luis Mendoza, however after watching him pitch an uninspiring four innings where he allowed ten earned runs, they designated him for assignment.

Also getting the boot was Juan Cruz. Cruz was a fairly hot free agent a couple seasons ago when the Royals made an aggressive play for him. He was coming off a dominant season as a setup man for the Diamondbacks where he posted strikeout rates over 12 for two straight seasons.

Yes, he had issues with command and yes he was switching to the more difficult American League, but everyone assumed the ability to miss bats would translate. It hasn't. In his two seasons with the Royals the walks went up, the strikeouts went down, and the Royals front office watched their investment collapse.

Cruz certainly hadn't been good for the Royals so far this season, allowing 13 base runners in just 5.1 innings. But I would've assumed that the Royals would've stuck with him longer, tried to rebuild some value, and traded him for at least a middling prospect of some sort. That they released him outright suggests that they may have tried and found no market what-so-ever for him, though I find that difficult to believe.

While Cruz is certainly damaged goods, his ability to miss bats hasn't deteriorated to the point where no one would give him a chance. It'll be interesting to see which team picks him up. There are certainly enough teams that would be interested in a guy with his stuff as at least a low-leverage guy.