Kevin McCarthy

McCarthy started the season toiling for Triple-A Omaha before being called up in mid-April and remaining with the Royals for the duration of the campaign. Despite a lack of dominance, McCarthy was used in late-inning scenarios, posting 17 holds. His calling card is a 92-mph sinking fastball which induced a career-high 64% groundball rate, generating 10 double plays. McCarthy registered a 15% swinging-strike rate which usually portends to a K-rate near 20%, but he checked in lower, at 16.7%. While there's a possibility for more punchouts, that's not McCarthy's game, so don't plan on a big boost. Kansas City is still rebuilding but isn't likely to use McCarthy in anything more than a setup role.

The Royals split McCarthy's season between Kansas City and Omaha. He had similar results at both stops, with ERAs near 3.00 despite very low strikeout rates. With a 9.0 percent swinging-strike rate, there's reason to believe that McCarthy's strikeout rate can improve slightly from his 5.4 K/9 last season, but it's hard to imagine that he'll improve enough to become more than a cheaper version of Peter Moylan. McCarthy used a three-pitch mix, working with a low-90s fastball, high-80s slider, and changeup, and he uses the secondary offerings nearly equally while throwing the fastball just over 60 percent of the time. Throughout his time in the Royals' system, McCarthy has been getting a steady number of grounders, which could make him a useful situational contributor for manager Ned Yost. Beyond that, he'll be on the list to help with mop-up duty when a starter gets chased for an early exit.

With the jump from Double-A to Triple-A in 2016, McCarthy’s walk rate more than doubled from 2.11 BB/9 to 4.35 BB/9, while his home run rate increased from 0.78 K/9 to 1.08 K/9. Regardless, the 6-3 right-hander earned a September call up to the Royals’ bullpen, where he walked five batters in eight and a third innings. Despite walk and home-run rate increases, McCarthy’s ERA dropped to from 3.12 in Double-A to 2.97 with Triple-A Omaha, which is a strong ERA considering it was his first shot at Triple-A. He did record 16 total saves in 2016 as well, with five of them recorded with Omaha. The former 16th round pick will be gunning for a spot in the Royals’ 2017 bullpen, though he’ll need to cut down on the walks if he wants to carve out a role with the team.