The Royals announced today that right-hander Carlos Hernández has been reinstated from the injured list. To open a spot for him on the roster, right-hander Tyler Duffey has been designated for assignment. Daniel Álvarez-Montes of El Extrabase reported on X prior to the official announcement that Hernández was coming off the IL.
Duffey, 33, signed a minor league deal with the Royals in the winter. He revealed in March that he underwent surgery to remove a cancerous mole from his left shoulder. He noted at that time that post-surgery checks came back negative but that he would continue to get check-ups during the coming months.
The Royals added him to their big league roster just over a month ago. He has since made nine appearances, throwing nine innings, with five earned runs allowed. His 23.8% strikeout rate in that time is around league average but his 19% walk rate is very high and he also hit one batter. Though his 5.00 ERA isn’t disastrous, it’s possible that it’s been kept low by the fact that he hasn’t yet allowed a home run this year. Given the free passes he’s been giving out, it’s possible the Royals didn’t want to wait around and see his luck run out.
They will now have a week to trade Duffey or pass him through waivers. He had a solid run for the Twins a few years back but has struggled more recently. From 2019 to 2021, he threw 144 innings for Minnesota with a 2.69 ERA, 29.8% strikeout rate, 8.2% walk rate and 44.4% ground ball rate. But his ERA jumped to 4.91 in 2022 and he spent most of last year in Triple-A for the Cubs. He struck out 29.1% of batters faced for Iowa but also gave out walks 12.6% of the time.
If he were to pass through waivers unclaimed, he would be able to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency while retaining what remains of his salary, as a player with more than five years of major league service time.