Not Enough Is Being Made of Royals' Taylor Clarke Loss

Although it's just temporary, KC will be missing a very solid bullpen piece in Clarke.

Prior to Tuesday's doubleheader split against the Chicago White Sox, the Kansas City Royals placed RHP Taylor Clarke on the 15-day injured list with a left oblique strain. The move was retroactive to the day prior so that buys the club 24 hours of time in long-term theory, but the point remains that a couple of Clarke-less weeks will be in Kansas City's future. 

For a bullpen that ranks 28th in Major League Baseball with a 4.56 ERA, that's a serious blow. 

A quick look at Clarke's profile doesn't do justice to how well he's been pitching for the Royals as of late. After all, he boasts a 4.02 ERA in 47 innings of work this season, falls in the 29th percentile in average exit velocity and grades out in the middle of the pack in regards to strikeout percentage. Judging by those optics, Clarke is just a serviceable arm. A deeper dive, however, indicates something more.

Among all qualified pitchers, Clarke ranks in the 77th percentile in chase rate. He's in the 70th percentile in barrel percentage, as well as the 97th percentile in walk rate. The 29-year-old veteran has taken a statistical step up from what he was able to accomplish last year with the Arizona Diamondbacks, when he posted a 4.98 ERA and 4.50 xFIP with slightly fewer strikeouts per nine but nearly double the amount of walks per nine. From a season-wide lens, Clarke has been almost exactly what Kansas City brought him in to be.

That's been even more so the case this summer. In his first 21 appearances of the year, in 21 innings of work, Clarke twirled a 6.00 ERA while allowing a HR/9 of 1.71 with a 6.86 K/9. Since then, an exact two-month sample size as of the publishing of this article, he's been much better. His ERA (2.42) and FIP (2.88) are below 3.00, his average exit velocity is down more than 2 mph, his strikeouts are up (9.69 K/9) and his home runs allowed are way down (0.69 HR/9). Clarke has sacrificed walks in the process (2.42 BB/9) but nonetheless, he's been a genuinely great piece for the Royals from June 10 until the time of his injury. 

Unfortunately for Clarke, his most recent outing leaves a sour taste in the mouths of many. In two-thirds of an inning against the Boston Red Sox, the righty surrendered a pair of hits and a pair of runs while also allowing the long ball to creep up for the first time since June 25. That shouldn't take away from what he's been doing, though.

While Clarke will turn 30 early next season, he's got all three years of arbitration left before hitting the free agent market in 2026. If the Royals truly do value him as a piece of their future, it makes sense to keep him around. He's been far from great in 2022 and his split-season sample doesn't speak to the entire year, but he's progressed in a new environment. That counts for something, especially on a team that has experienced some downright terrible bullpen performances throughout the season.

Clarke will likely be back sooner rather than later, although oblique strains can prove to be tricky injuries to recover from. A projected couple of weeks won't doom an already wrecked Royals season, but it will pose as yet another challenge in a campaign already filled with them. There wasn't much made of Clarke being placed on the IL when it happened, but make no mistake: this is an underrated loss for the Royals' bullpen.