Amir Garrett Has Quietly Been Solid for the Royals

Garrett was acquired as a bounce-back candidate, and he's been a respectable investment for KC.

In the offseason, the Kansas City Royals made a trade that saw Mike Minor go to Cincinnati in exchange for Amir Garrett. On paper, this appeared to be simply dumping a bad contract for a high-risk player who was coming off a terrible season and wasn't viewed as a good reliever anymore. Garrett was solid to start the season, but he then struggled for two months after that and now has been a very sneaky solid reliever.

Let's get into month-by-month splits first. In March/April, Garrett was a shutdown reliever in 5.1 innings, recording six strikeouts while giving up no hits in those innings. Then May happened. Garrett struggled immensely with control, as he walked nine of the 36 batters he faced. This is where the weirdness begins for Garrett's bad months, as he didn't give up hits; he only gave up four of them in May but had an ERA of 7.56.

June was also not favorable for Garrett. Instead of having control issues, he was getting hit around more often (.292 opposing AVG) and gave up three extra-base hits that month. After June, though, Garrett rebounded and was pretty average in terms of ERA (3.86), but he then started to walk more batters again. He issues seven free passes in seven innings. 

While Garrett rebounded in July, he returned to his shutdown form in August. Heading into play on Tuesday, Garrett hasn't allowed an earned run this month while only giving up one hit in 31 batters faced (.074 AVG against). There's a trend that is pretty obvious with Garrett within these splits, so let's get into his season stats as a whole.

On the year, Garrett is sporting a 4.08 ERA, 9.17 K/9 and 6.62 BB/9. Most of that isn't bad, but that BB/9 has been what's killed him this season for the most part. Before we get into that, one of the biggest reasons Garrett has rebounded is that he hasn't given up a home run this whole season. This is astonishing because he has a career HR/9 of 1.58 and that's one of the main reasons why he struggled so much in Cincinnati last year.

Getting into the depths of Garrett's stats also shows improvement. Looking at WHIP, FIP, and FIP- (1.19, 3.45, and 88 respectively), he has shown significant improvement this season. Throw in that opposing batters are only hitting .137 and have a BABIP of .198 as well, and Garrett looks like one of the better relievers in the league on paper.

Garrett's run values also show some improvement. He generally only throws two pitches, which are his slider and four-seam fastball. The slider has been really good this year, boasting a -7 run value with a .136 opponent AVG and .182 SLG. Even the expected stats look great on it. His fastball isn't slouching either, but its run value is at zero. As stated in my Jose Cuas breakdown, run value has its issues with outcomes. Looking at what batters are doing to Garrett's fastball, though, it's obvious that opponents are also not hitting it well (.160 AVG and .200 SLG). 

How did Garrett manage to struggle so much at times this season while his peripheral stats look great? In the Cuas article, I pointed out that he struggled with no runners on base. To an extent, Garrett also struggles in that situation as well. An opposing slash line of .179/.353/.239 with an OPS of .592 isn't bad by any means, but there is an obvious culprit: walks. In low-leverage situations, Garrett has a K:BB of 10:9 (20 Ks to 18 BBs) and with the rare hits he gives up, it happens to lead to runs scoring off those walks. 

Garrett has put up peripheral numbers that make him look like a stud reliever but on the surface, he has some glaring holes in his game. With that said, he has been a sneaky good reliever for the Royals and if he cut down his walk rate, he would be back to being a stud. Right now, he is solid to slightly above average. For a rebound candidate, that's not anything to scoff at if you're Kansas City.