SURPRISE, Ariz. -- If you're a middle-innings reliever, nobody pays much attention to you. It's an occupation of anonymity. The starters get the headlines. The closers get the highlight clips. Even the setup guys get notice. The middle men get ignored.

That's Doug Waechter's fate with the Royals.

That can be a good thing. He can sneak up on people and just chop 'em down with a cut fastball. Catch 'em off-guard.

Maybe that's why they call Waechter "The Silent Assassin."

At least that's what Royals first baseman Mike Jacobs calls him. They were teammates last year on the Florida Marlins and Jacobs admired the quiet Waechter's work.

"Good sinker, good breaking ball, goes right after people," Jacobs declared as Waechter was being interviewed.

"No breaking ball," Waechter said.

"Well, you got a cutter," Jacobs said.

"That's about right," Waechter said.

"If you want somebody to go after people, he's going to go after 'em," Jacobs said.

Well, OK, that's why you have an assassin, silent or not, in the bullpen. Waechter even arrived with the Royals in rather silent fashion. On the same day at the Winter Meetings that the Royals snagged setup man Kyle Farnsworth with a flourish, they also quietly announced the addition of Waechter.

That sort of suited his style.

"I'm not necessarily looking for people to pay attention to me," Waechter said. "If you're a reliever, you just want to go in there and do your job, get the ball into the hands of your closer and help the team win.

"I'm not looking for people to put my name up in lights or anything like that."

Last year was Waechter's first year in the bullpen. For the Marlins, he was in 48 games with a 3.69 ERA and a 4-2 record. Among other things, he notched 4 2/3 scoreless innings against the Royals in two Interleague games.

"I love being out there a lot," Waechter said. "I can start if they need me to, but I really like the fact that you can possibly throw every day. You don't have to wait around for five days to throw."

Waechter, 28, had always been a starter with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Over four years, 2003-06, he made 54 starts in his 60 games and had a 14-25 record with a 5.62 ERA.

With the Rays, he was a local kid from St. Petersburg's Northeast High School, where he was a defensive back and quarterback as well as a baseball player. He took a football scholarship to the University of South Florida, but after the Rays made him a third-round pick in the 1999 First-Year Player Draft, he opted for baseball.

There was a plus because Waechter could stay at home in St. Petersburg during Spring Training and the instructional league. And it was real handy when he reached the Majors. Of course, there was the added consideration of living up to the local-boy-makes-good expectations.

"I think I put a little added pressure on myself wanting to do well, knowing that everybody I've ever known is watching me and rooting for me," he said. "But I knew they weren't there to criticize me or boo me or anything like that. They were in my corner."

Shoulder surgery and the subsequent rehabilitation kept him out of the Majors in 2007, and afterward Waechter declined the Rays' offer to return last year.

"I thought I had a better shot at starting new with the Marlins," he said. "It would've nice to go back, but in the same breath, it worked out for me, too."

Waechter's stay with the Royals will brighten on Wednesday when his wife Kristin and their 19-month-old son Kaden arrive from Florida.

"He's starting to get around everything," Waechter said. "Everything that's knee-high, you have to take off the shelves or he'd take 'em for you. It's a lot of fun."

His mom, Nancy, helps them chase after Kaden and does some grandmotherly spoiling.

Waechter's dad, Richard, works with a Christian ministry team that does interesting work in the Tampa area.

"They go into prisons and they share the gospel with these guys who have been through a lot of hard times," Waechter said. "That there is hope for them and they can change their lives, it's never too late. And he's seen some changes in some hard people."

An older brother, Peter, played football at The Citadel and now is in medical equipment sales. Sister Carissa is a rising pastry chef in New York.

And, of course, Doug has found work as "The Silent Assassin."

He's good at it. Just ask his biggest fan.

"When he came in, it was lights-out," Mike Jacobs said. "It was unbelievable."