Four days ago the Royals made their first starting pitching splash by claiming lefty Aaron Laffey off of waivers from the New York Yankees. Not exactly an earth shattering move and Laffey definitely isn't the front end guy that we are looking for, but look at his career era and era+ compared to the other starters that are expected to compete for rotation spots next season.
Everett Teaford: 3.27, 126
Aaron Laffey: 4.34, 97
Bruce Chen: 4.52, 97
Vin Mazzaro: 5.13, 83
Felipe Paulino: 5.28, 78
Luke Hochevar: 5.29, 81
Danny Duffy: 5.64, 73
Sean O'Sullivan: 6.13, 69
Luis Mendoza: 7.36, 61
Think about that a waiver claim in mid October has the best career numbers of any of our candidates outside of Everett Teaford, who by the way just has 44 innings to his credit.
I don't expect Laffey to solidify the rotation or anything like that, but if he is the emergency guy in AAA I can definitely live with that. He has consistently outperformed his FIP and xFIP. But even his career numbers in that regard are better than most of the Royals' current staff options.
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