{"id":657956,"date":"2026-04-02T02:44:54","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T02:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/657956\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T02:44:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T02:44:54","slug":"royals-reacts-survey-surveys-are-for-closers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/657956\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals Reacts Survey &#8211; Surveys are for closers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Royals fans and fans across the country. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smartsurvey.co.uk\/s\/0DWS6R\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up here<\/a> to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Carlos Est\u00e9vez led all of MLB in saves in 2025. He also had a very bad, no-good, borderline horrific day when he first attempted a save for the Royals in 2026. All signs point to him relinquishing the closer\u2019s role, at least temporarily. Matt Quatraro <a href=\"https:\/\/www.royalsreview.com\/kansas-city-royals-injuries\/95796\/quatraro-carlos-estevez-may-pitch-in-lower-leverage-situations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">indicated<\/a> he\u2019d pitch in low leverage for a while, but he\u2019s also been considered day-to-day with a foot contusion after taking a comebacker to the ankle during Saturday\u2019s meltdown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">In the interim, the Royals will need someone else to become the closer. We\u2019ve seen Lucas Erceg close Sunday\u2019s contest, and John Schreiber picked up a save in Monday\u2019s game. Those aren\u2019t even remotely the only options in KC\u2019s bullpen, though.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Erceg obviously has experience as a closer for the Royals, picking up 11 saves down the stretch in 2024, plus two more last year. Schreiber has never been a primary closer, but Monday\u2019s effort means he\u2019s now earned at least one save for five straight years. Similarly, Matt Strahm has never been a primary closer, but he has saves in each of the past four years as well. Nick Mears earned a single save last year, his first. Alex Lange was the primary closer for the Tigers in 2023, but has barely pitched at the big league level since then.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Then, of course, the Royals have Luinder Avila in the minor leagues with perhaps the best strikeout stuff out of all of them, but should the Royals have him attempting to close games now when they still think he could become a frontline starter in the future? Especially when you consider what the pressure might do to an inexperienced reliever such as he. The Royals could also go with a closer by committee, but has that ever truly been a strong solution?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">I can\u2019t decide! What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,936,2123,55,77247,2596,2595,4,252,72937],"class_list":{"0":"post-657956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-royals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-kansas","10":"tag-kansas-city","11":"tag-kansas-city-royals","12":"tag-kansas-city-royals-discussion","13":"tag-kansascity","14":"tag-kansascityroyals","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-royals","17":"tag-royals-review-question-of-the-day"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116332820723102470","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}