SURPRISE, Ariz. — As he’s done virtually every year since being drafted by the Royals in 2007, Danny Duffy last month checked into the very spring training complex from which he’s launched nearly every season for half his life now.
As usual over the last decade, he’s been accompanied by his Alaskan Malamute, Sadie. He still takes those marathon therapeutic walks each day — even if he laughingly considers himself “too long in the tooth” to go much past a seven-or eight-miler now.
And he’s once more here at the behest of Dayton Moore, who 16 years ago made him the third-round pick of the first draft he oversaw as general manager of the Royals — the team for which Duffy became a vibrant part of back-to-back World Series appearances and the quintessential teammate and fan icon with his “bury me a Royal” mindset.
If this all sounds like some strange brew of deja vu, it’s actually more the stuff of the Bizarro world of opposites and reversals.
Because after two years of wretched arm issues that kept him from ever throwing a pitch for the Dodgers after the Royals traded him to Los Angeles in 2021, the 34-year-old Duffy is seeking a comeback not with the Royals but with … the Texas Rangers, who reside across the parking lot from the Royals’ facilities at the Surprise Stadium complex the clubs share for spring training.
If it’s not exactly full circle to enter the campus and go to the building opposite the one that was so familiar, well …
“It was a trip,” he said in the Rangers’ clubhouse on Saturday. “I’d never been on this side before.”
Unless you count one game in rookie ball, he remembered.
Just the same, he felt at home as soon as he walked in. And not just because he could look around and see people he’s known for years.
People such as former Royals teammate Chris Young, the Rangers’ head of baseball operations, and Moore, who became a senior advisor to Young weeks after the Royals fired him last fall.
People like bullpen coach Brett Hayes, a former Royal, and Triple-A development coach Josh Johnson (who crossed paths with Duffy in the Royals’ minor league system). And like former Kansas City farm system and Royals teammates Jake Odorizzi and Will Smith — whose locker is immediately next to Duffy’s.
Comforting as all that and other connections might be for Duffy, though, his mission here isn’t about nostalgia.
It’s about learning from those around him, including manager Bruce Bochy (“a legend,” Duffy calls him) and pitching coach Mike Maddux — who already strikes Duffy as “incredible” at his job.
And it’s about trying to get his groove back, starting with his health, to resume a career highlighted by a six-year run in which he averaged nine wins and 150 innings pitched for the Royals.
During that span, from 2014-2019, Duffy was 11th in the American League in total starts (150), 14th in ERA (3.84) and 15th in innings pitched (8,972). He was the opening day starter for the Royals in 2017, 2018 and 2020.
