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Royals Designate Joey Wiemer For Assignment

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The Royals designated outfielder Joey Wiemer earlier today, and shifted left-hander Kris Bubic from the 15-day injured list to the 60-day IL.  The moves cleared some 40-man roster space after a busy day of transactions for Kansas City, as Mike Yastrzemski, Bailey Falter, Stephen Kolek, and Ryan Bergert were all brought into the organization.

Wiemer came to K.C. in another prominent trade last November, when Wiemer and Jonathan India came to the Royals from the Reds in exchange for Brady Singer.  Wiemer hasn’t received any big league playing time since the deal, and he has hit just .182/.291/.312 over 296 plate appearances at Triple-A Omaha.  This is Wiemer’s fourth straight season with at least a bit of action at the Triple-A level, and after some big numbers with the Brewers’ top affiliate in 2022, his production has steadily declined.

Almost all of Wiemer’s big league experience came in his 2023 rookie season, when he hit .204/.283/.362 over 410 plate appearances with Milwaukee.  He stole 11 bases in 15 attempts and displayed very good glovework at all three outfield spots, and those same skills combined with his hitting prowess early in his minor league career helped Wiemer get some top-100 prospect attention.  However, he made just 28 trips to the plate over 21 games with the Brewers and Reds in 2024, and the Royals are now the third team to seemingly lose faith in Wiemer’s ability to turn it around at the plate.  Some teams could take a flier on Wiemer as a late bloomer.

Even just as a glove-only bench piece, Wiemer has some value to other teams on the waiver wire, especially now that the deadline has passed and depth options are harder to acquire.  If Wiemer clears waivers, he can’t reject an outright assignment off the Royals’ 40-man roster, since he has neither a past outright on his resume or enough service time to be eligible for free agency.

Bubic will miss the rest of the season due to a rotator cuff strain, so it was just a matter of time before the Royals made it official by placing the southpaw on the 60-day IL.

Royals Acquire Mike Yastrzemski

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The Royals have acquired outfielder Mike Yastrzemski from the Giants in a last-minute deadline swap. In exchange, the Giants will receive right-handed pitching prospect Yunior Marte. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com was the first to report that Yastrzemski was headed to Kansas City.  The deal is now official.

Yastrzemski, 34, has slipped to a 97 wRC+ in 372 plate appearances for the Giants this year in his seventh season with the club.  From 2023-24, he’d managed a 109 mark.  A left-handed hitter, Yaz has always excelled against right-handed pitching, including a 118 wRC+ this year.

Yastrzemski, who has primarily played right field in the Majors, joins a 54-55 Royals team that nonetheless sits three games back in the Wild Card race.  He’s a perfect pairing with the newly-acquired Randal Grichuk, a right-handed hitter.  Rookie Jac Caglianone, who had spent time in right field, is on the IL with a hamstring strain.  Yastrzemski, famously the grandson of Hall of Famer Carl, will be eligible for free agency after the season.

As Justice delos Santos of the San Jose Mercury News notes, “With Yastrzemski gone, the door is open for Luis Matos to step into a starting role [for the Giants]. It’s very possible Grant McCray and Marco Luciano see some time in right field as well.”

In parting with their longtime right fielder for the next few months, the Giants add Marte.  The 21-year-old has spent the season in A ball, posting a 2.74 ERA and 18.4 K-BB% in 19 starts.  Baseball America assigned him a 50 high risk grade, noting that he “features two above-average pitches in his arsenal.”

Royals Acquire Bailey Falter

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The Royals have acquired left-handed starter Bailey Falter from the Pirates, with lefty Evan Sisk and minor league first baseman Callan Moss headed back to Pittsburgh in return. Both teams have announced the trade.

Falter, 28, settled in as a capable back-end starter for the Pirates over the past two seasons. From 2024-25, he has made 50 starts, averaging just over five innings per game. He has a 4.12 ERA and a 4.99 SIERA in that time. Neither a strikeout pitcher nor a groundball pitcher, none of Falter’s pitches stand out as especially dangerous, but he survives thanks to average control and elite extension. He will offer the Royals some much-needed rotation depth, with Kris Bubic out for the season and Cole Ragans, Michael Lorenzen, and Alex Marsh also on the IL. Falter might not be the kind of pitcher the Royals want starting in a postseason series, but he can help them in the uphill climb they’re facing to get to the playoffs. He is making $2.22MM this year and will be under team control through arbitration for another three seasons.

Sisk, now 28, was drafted by the Cardinals in 2018 and traded to the Twins in 2021 as part of a package for J.A. Happ. A year and a half later, the Twins flipped him to the Royals as part of the deal that brought Michael A. Taylor to Minnesota. Almost seven years after he was drafted, Sisk made his MLB debut for KC earlier this year. He threw a total of 5 1/3 innings in two separate stints with the big league club, giving up just one earned run and striking out 11. He also pitched to a 3.77 ERA and 3.83 FIP in 28.2 innings with the Triple-A Omaha Storm Chasers. Sisk has never been a top prospect, in no small part due to questions about his ability to retire right-handed hitters at the highest level. That helps explain why he has pitched at Triple-A with two different organizations in parts of four separate seasons, and he’s only managed to earn five big league appearances.

Moss, now 21, signed with the Royals as an undrafted free agent last summer. While he is not a highly-regarded prospect, the righty batter crushed the baseball last year at Single-A (177 wRC+ in 22 games) and has continued to hit well this year at High-A (123 wRC+ in 92 games). He’s also added a total of 17 stolen bases in 24 attempts.

Jon Heyman of The New York Post was the first to report that Falter was heading to Pittsburgh, while Alex Stumpf of MLB.com was first on the return of Sisk and Moss.

Royals Trade Freddy Fermin To Padres For Ryan Bergert, Stephen Kolek

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The Padres are acquiring catcher Freddy Fermin from the Royals, according to a report from ESPN’s Jeff Passan. Right-handers Ryan Bergert and Stephen Kolek are headed to Kansas City in exchange for Fermin. The clubs have since announced the deal.

Fermin, 30, heads to San Diego after parts of four seasons with the Royals. After a three-game cup of coffee in 2022, Fermin debuted in a more substantial way the following year when he appeared in 70 games as a complement to Salvador Perez behind the plate. Fermin did quite well for himself in that rookie campaign, as he slashed .281/.321/.461 with a 108 wRC+ with strong grades for his defense behind the plate. It was enough to earn him a larger role with the club, and he began to take more starts behind the dish while Perez increasingly spent his time at DH or first base.

Fermin went on to appear in 111 games last year and put together a solid enough season. While his offense took a step back amid increased playing time, he still managed a wRC+ of 92 and earned strong marks for his blocking and throwing arm behind the plate. Things have taken a turn for the worse this year, however. Fermin has been lackluster at the dish with a .255/.309/.339 (78 wRC+) slash line, and his defensive metrics have taken a step back as well. He’s been worth just 0.4 fWAR in 67 games, but even that somewhat meager performance outpaces the Padres’ current catching tandem. Elias Diaz (67 wRC+) and Martin Maldonado (62 wRC+) have both been even less impressive than Fermin behind the plate this year, and Maldonado in particular has paired that weak offense with some of the worst catcher defense in the entire sport despite his reputation as an elite game caller.

Getting an upgrade on both at and behind the plate who comes with four years of team control was evidently worth paying a significant price for the Padres. In exchange for surrendering Fermin, the Royals have brought in two young starters who have already broken into the big leagues in Bergert and Kolek. Bergert is the prize of the duo, still in his rookie season with a 2.78 ERA in 35 2/3 innings of work spread between seven starts and four relief outings. His peripherals are a bit less encouraging, as his 22.8% strikeout rate is somewhat outweighed by an elevated 12.1% walk rate, but he remains a controllable arm capable of pitching both out of the rotation or in relief as needed.

As for Kolek, the right-hander made his big league debut with the Padres as a reliever last year. He struggled to a 5.21 ERA in 46 2/3 innings of work but posted strong underlying metrics with a 55.9% ground ball rate, a 3.57 FIP, and a 3.41 SIERA. That was enough to convince the Padres to move him into a rotation role for this year, and so far he’s made 14 starts for San Diego with roughly league average results. In 79 2/3 innings of work, Kolek has pitched to a 4.18 ERA with a 4.23 FIP. While he’s struck out just 16.7% of his opponents against a 7.7% walk rate, his 50.6% ground ball rate is still impressive and has allowed him to miss barrels throughout his time in the majors.

With both Bergert and Kolek under team control for the next half-decade, that should give the Royals plenty of flexibility at the back of their rotation both for the short-term (with Kris Bubic, Cole Ragans, and Michael Lorenzen all on the injured list) as well as the long-term, as players like Bubic and Lorenzen reach free agency while Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha get older. While losing Fermin from the club’s catching situation will hurt in the short term, a combination of Perez and Luke Maile is still on the roster while top catching prospects Carter Jensen, Blake Mitchell, and Ramon Ramirez all remain in the minor leagues to help shore up the club’s catching situation in the coming seasons.

Rangers Interested In Hunter Harvey, Phil Maton

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The Rangers are looking for bullpen help and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that Phil Maton of the Cardinals and Hunter Harvey of the Royals are two of their targets. Rosenthal also mentions Jake Bird of the Rockies and David Bednar of the Pirates but notes that the Rangers expect the asking price on Bednar to be too steep. The Rangers’ interest in Bednar and Bird has been previously reported. Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that Texas would like to clear some payroll space today in order to accommodate bullpen upgrades.

Financial constraints have been an ongoing theme for the Rangers this year, as they clearly want to avoid the competitive balance tax. Owner Ray Davis admitted as much back in January. To stay under that line, their bullpen signings were modest. They inked Chris Martin, Hoby Milner, Luke Jackson, Jacob Webb and Shawn Armstrong to one-year deals, none of them worth more than $5.5MM.

The returns on those deals have been mixed. Jackson was recently released and is now with the Tigers. Armstrong and Milner have been good. Martin has also been good but is currently on the injured list. Webb is on the IL as well.

Texas relievers have a collective 3.37 earned run average, fourth-best in baseball. However, that might belie the true talent of the group. Their .277 batting average on balls in play, 72.6% strand rate and 8.4% homer to fly ball rate are all a bit to the unfortunate side. Their 13.3 K-BB% is 15th in the majors and their 3.82 SIERA 16th.

Regardless, most contending clubs look for bullpen upgrades ahead of the deadline. The Rangers are currently tied with the Mariners for the last American League Wild Card spot and figure to be adding.

Maton, 32, is often underrated. Dating back to the start of 2020, he has thrown 322 1/3 innings with a 3.69 ERA. He has struck out 27.1% of opponents, given out walks at a 9.2% rate and induced grounders on 42.8% of balls in play. He also does very well in terms of limiting damage. His average exit velocity, barrel rate and hard hit rate are often near the top of the league leaderboards. He also has a 2.57 ERA in 28 playoff innings.

Despite that solid track record, his market hasn’t always been strong, perhaps because his velocity maxes out around 91 miles per hour. He first reached free agency ahead of 2024 and signed a modest one-year, $6.5MM deal with the Rays. He didn’t do especially well in Tampa, posting a 4.58 ERA. However, he righted the ship after being flipped to the Mets, posting a 2.51 ERA with that club.

He returned to free agency ahead of the current season and lingered on the open market into March. The Cardinals grabbed him with a $2MM guarantee on a one-year deal. That has worked out nicely, as Maton has a 2.35 ERA in 38 1/3 innings. He has a 30.4% strikeout rate, 9.5% walk rate and 50.6% ground ball rate. He’s also still inducing weak contact, like usual. The Cards are clearly selling, having already traded Ryan Helsley to the Mets and Steven Matz to the Red Sox. An impending free agent like Maton is sure to go. He’s also been connected the Blue Jays this week.

Harvey, 30, is a bit more of a wild card. He hasn’t pitched much in the past year due to injury. He was traded from the Nationals to the Royals at last year’s deadline. Back tightness put him on the shelf after that deal. This year, a right teres major strain put him on the shelf for a few months and he only recently returned. He has only thrown 13 1/3 big league innings for the Royals since they acquired him.

But the results have been good when healthy. Dating back to the start of 2022, he has a 3.13 ERA, 27.3% strikeout rate, 6.4% walk rate and 42.7% ground ball rate. It’s unclear if the Royals would make him available, however, as they’ve been acting as buyers. They extended Seth Lugo instead of trading him and have brought in role players like Randal Grichuk and Adam Frazier.

Neither Maton nor Harvey would deal a massive blow to the Rangers’ budget. Maton is making only $2MM this year, leaving roughly $640K to be paid out. Harvey is making $3.7MM, with about $1.2MM left.

RosterResource has the Rangers’ CBT number at $235MM, roughly $6MM away from the $241MM base threshold. Cot’s Baseball Contracts gives them a bit more wiggle room, putting them at $233MM. Those are just estimates and might be off by a few million, but it seems like there’s room for someone like Maton or Harvey to be added without pushing the Rangers too high, though the club also has a few players with notable bonuses who could complicate matters.

If the Rangers need to move some money around, it’s been speculated that they could look to make players like Adolis García, Jonah Heim or Kyle Higashioka available. Garcia is making $9.25MM this year and isn’t having a great season. Perhaps he would appeal to the Royals, who need more offense from their outfield. Heim and Higashioka are also having underwhelming seasons. Heim is making $4.575MM while Higashioka is in the first season of a two-year, $13.5MM deal.

Photo courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff, Imagn Images

MLBTR Podcast: Megapod Trade Deadline Preview

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The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams and Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss various trade deadline topics, including…

Check out our past episodes!

  • David Robertson, Trade Chips For The O’s and A’s, And What The Rangers Could Do – listen here
  • Rays’ Ownership, The Phillies Target Bullpen Help, And Bubble Teams – listen here
  • Firings in Washington, Bad Braves, And An AL East Shake-Up – listen here

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff.  Check out their Facebook page here!

Photo courtesy of Geoff Burke, Imagn Images

Royals Designate Rich Hill For Assignment

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The Royals announced that veteran southpaw Rich Hill has been designated for assignment.  The move opens up roster space for right-hander Thomas Hatch, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Omaha.

After being released by the Red Sox last September, the 45-year-old Hill didn’t sign a contract until inking a minors deal with Kansas City in May.  Hill pitched 11 outings of ramp-up work in the minor leagues before his contract was selected to the Royals’ roster a week ago today, and he’ll head into DFA limbo with a 5.00 ERA to show for his two starts in a K.C. uniform.

Hill allowed just one earned run over five innings against the Cubs but received no run support in a 6-0 loss on July 22, and the Braves touched him up for four earned runs (on six walks, three hits, and two homers allowed) in as many innings in a start yesterday.  That was apparently enough for the Royals to designate Hill, and he may now be headed for yet another chapter in a career that has now stretched across 21 Major League seasons.

If Hill clears waivers, he obviously has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment to Triple-A, so the ball is in his court as to his next step.  Hill may opt to just remain with the Royals, and while the club could release him, the Royals may want some rotation depth available in Omaha with so many other starters on the injured list.

A waiver claim isn’t out of the question, given how many teams need starting depth right now, and could still need more arms depending on how the trade deadline shakes out.  Pitching-needy clubs could wait until after the 5pm CT deadline on Thursday to put in a claim on Hill, should they have a sudden hole to fill in a rotation following a trade or two.

Should Hill head to free agency once more, it remains to be seen if he’ll be able to find another minor league contract elsewhere, given how long it took him to land with the Royals.  Yet another reunion with the Red Sox can’t be ruled out, or Hill could try to find a brand-new organization in an attempt to secure a unique place in the record books.  Hill and Edwin Jackson share the record for most career teams (14), so suiting up with a 15th different club at the big league level would make Hill the most well-traveled player in MLB history.  Retirement is naturally another option, if Hill decides to finally hang up his cleats after 24 total years in pro ball.

To put it in perspective, Hatch was only seven years old when Hill was drafted by the Cubs in 2002.  Hatch signed a minor league deal with K.C. during the offseason and has yet to see any big league action — his contract was previously selected on June 5 but just for the first game of a doubleheader, and Hatch was DFA’ed before the nightcap.

Assuming that this stint with the Royals leads to an in-game appearance, it will mark Hatch’s first time on a Major League mound since the 2023 season.  The 30-year-old Hatch posted a 4.96 ERA over 69 MLB innings with the Blue Jays and Pirates from 2020-23 before he spent the 2024 campaign in Japan with the Hiroshima Carp.  Hatch has a 4.22 ERA, 20.1% strikeout rate, and 7.2% walk rate across 91 2/3 innings and 18 Triple-A starts this year, and he’ll be the next pitcher to try and fill a hole in Kansas City’s injury-riddled rotation.

Minor MLB Transactions: 7/29/25

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Here’s the latest on some players who were recently designated for assignment and cleared waivers, with all info coming from each respective player’s MLB.com profile page…

  • Reliever Chris Devenski elected free agency rather than accept an outright assignment to the Mets’ Triple-A team.  New York designated Devenski for assignment last week, and since he has been outrighted in the past, he had the right to reject the Triple-A assignment and return to the open market.  The right-hander signed a minor league deal with the Mets last winter and delivered a 2.38 ERA over 11 1/3 MLB innings, with a solid 6.7% walk rate.  Devenski’s .226 BABIP and 20% strikeout rate weren’t as impressive, which could explain why the Mets took the DFA route instead of optioning Devenski to Triple-A, as they did on three previous occasions this season.  Devenski has enough big league service time that he had to agree to being optioned to the minors, so it could be that he rejected another trip to Syracuse.
  • The Phillies outrighted right-hander Ryan Cusick to Triple-A Lehigh Valley.  Cusick was DFA’ed three days ago, making the fourth time the righty has been designated this season, though this is the first time he cleared waivers without being claimed away by another team.  The flurry of roster moves has seen the A’s, Tigers, White Sox, and Phillies all have Cusick in their organizations within the last two months, though it appears as he’ll be sticking in Philadelphia for a little while longer.  Cusick has a 7.99 ERA over 23 2/3 combined Triple-A innings this season, and the former first-round pick (selected 24th overall by the Braves in the 2021 draft) is still waiting for his Major League debut.
  • The Royals outrighted outfielder Tyler Gentry to Triple-A Omaha.  Gentry was designated for assignment a week ago as part of the corresponding roster moves to officially add Rich Hill to the K.C. roster.  A third-round pick for the Royals in the 2020 draft, Gentry made his MLB debut in the form of three games and five plate appearances during the 2024 season, but hasn’t since returned to the Show.  Gentry has hit only .205/.277/.365 over 249 plate appearances with Omaha this year.

Kris Bubic To Miss Remainder Of 2025 Season With Rotator Cuff Strain

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Royals left-hander Kris Bubic will be out for the remainder of the 2025 season after suffering a rotator cuff strain in his most recent outing, reports Anne Rogers of MLB.com. The 27-year-old exited his start on Saturday in the third inning, later telling Rogers that “something’s not right.” He noted that he had been pitching through a stiff shoulder for “a good portion of the season,” but what he felt on Saturday was worse than stiffness. The team placed him on the 15-day IL on Sunday, and further testing evidently found the injury to be quite serious. Thankfully for the young hurler, he is not expected to need surgery (per Sam McDowell of The Kansas City Star) and hopes to have a normal offseason. The Royals have not yet transferred Bubic to the 60-day IL, but they will presumably do so as soon as they need to open up a spot on their 40-man roster.

Most evaluators saw Bubic as a back-end starter in his prospect days, and that’s pretty much who he was over his first three seasons, pitching to a 4.89 ERA in 67 games (57 starts) from 2020-22. He then missed most of 2023 and a good part of ’24 after undergoing Tommy John surgery. When he returned in the latter half of 2024, he looked like a brand-new pitcher. Working out of the bullpen, he produced a 2.67 ERA in 27 games, striking out 32.2% of the batters he faced while walking only 4.1%. His four-seam fastball and changeup, always the bread and butter of his arsenal, looked better than ever, while he turned his slider into a sweeper and enjoyed tremendous success with the new breaking pitch.

The Royals moved Bubic back into the rotation in 2025, and he didn’t miss a beat. While he wasn’t as overpowering as he had been out of the bullpen, he was every bit as successful. Through 20 starts, Bubic pitched to a 2.55 ERA in 116 1/3 innings of work. He was named to the AL All-Star team earlier this summer. While his underlying metrics (3.06 xERA, 3.74 SIERA) suggested he wasn’t likely to maintain a sub-3.00 ERA all season, there was no denying that Bubic was a breakout star. With Bubic, Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha, and Noah Cameron atop their rotation, the Royals looked like dark horse postseason contenders, even with Cole Ragans on the IL and arguably the least productive offense in the American League.

By trading for Adam Frazier and Randal Grichuk earlier this month, and by extending a potential trade chip in Lugo, the Royals signalled that they would be buying rather than selling ahead of this Thursday’s trade deadline. However, their chances of leapfrogging the four teams ahead of them for a Wild Card berth are significantly lower without Bubic. Kansas City is down to four healthy starting pitchers now, and one of them is 45-year-old Rich Hill. In addition to Ragans and Bubic, Michael Lorenzen and Alec Marsh are also on the IL. The Royals have averaged fewer runs per game than any other team in the AL, and it’s starting to look like they just won’t have enough healthy pitching to compensate for their pitiful offense.

Royals Sign Seth Lugo To Extension

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2:50pm: MLB.com’s Anne Rogers reports that the 2028 option will automatically vest at $20MM if Lugo pitches a combined 335 innings in 2026-27 or totals 190 innings in 2027.  If he falls shy of those totals, the Royals can still pick up a $17MM club option (or a $3MM buyout).  All told, the deal can max out at $63MM from 2026-28.

12:05pm: Seth Lugo has gone from a potential trade candidate to rotation cornerstone, as the Royals announced Monday that he’s signed a two-year extension covering the 2026-27 seasons with a club/vesting option for the 2028 campaign.  The new deal reportedly guarantees him a total of $46MM from 2026-27.  The money breaks down as a $3MM signing bonus for Lugo, $20MM salaries in both 2026 and 2027, and then a $17MM club option for 2028 with a $3MM buyout.  Should Lugo hit the vesting thresholds, that 2028 option will lock in another $20MM salary.  Lugo is represented by the Ballengee Group.

Lugo had the ability to opt out of the final season of his previous three-year, $45MM contract, but instead of facing an opt-out decision this winter, the right-hander will be staying put in Kansas City.  There wasn’t much doubt that Lugo (who turns 36 in November) was going to decline his player option and leave his final $15MM on the table in search of a larger and lengthier guarantee in free agency.

With the Royals also struggling to stay in the playoff race, there was some speculation that K.C. could look to move the veteran prior to Thursday’s deadline.  However, the most recent reporting suggested that not only did the Royals want to keep Lugo beyond July 31, but the club wanted to work out a new contract to convince Lugo to forego his opt-out clause.

Assuming the extension talks indeed cross the finish line, Lugo will join Cole Ragans and Michael Wacha as Royals starters under contract through at least the 2027 season, depending on the specifics of Lugo’s new deal.  Wacha’s three-year, $51MM deal signed last November also came under the specter of a player option, as Wacha had the ability to opt out of his $16MM salary for the 2025 season and test the market.  Ragans inked a three-year, $13.25MM extension last February that was more about cost certainty than team control, as the deal only covers the southpaw through his second arbitration-eligible year — Kansas City still has arb control on Ragan through the 2028 campaign.

Between this trio, breakout rookie Noah Cameron, and the Royals’ remaining year of arbitration control on Kris Bubic, Kansas City’s 2026 rotation may already be set.  This doesn’t include such injured pitchers as Kyle Wright and Alec Marsh, so K.C. has a good deal of pitching depth in place as the club tries to figure out the greater issue of its lack of offense.

Lugo’s career-opening seven-year stint with the Mets saw the righty begin as a starter, before moving into more of a part-time starter/swingman role and then finally as a full-time reliever in 2021-22.  Heading into free agency following the 2022 campaign, Lugo was looking to make a return to the rotation, and landed a two-year, $15MM free agent deal with the Padres that included a player option on the 2024 season.  After a solid year in San Diego, Lugo declined that option and returned to free agency to find his three-year commitment with Kansas City.

Over two-plus seasons since his return to starting pitching, Lugo’s ERA has dropped from 3.57 in 2023 to 3.00 in 2024 and to 2.95 this year.  His SIERAs have remained almost identical in that span, averaging out to a 3.98 number that is probably a fairer reflection of his production than his 3.17 ERA over 466 innings since Opening Day 2023.  Despite allowing a lot of hard contact and posting subpar strikeout rates, Lugo has consistently outperformed his peripherals by limiting walks (6.2BB% in the last three seasons) and an elite curveball spin rate, not to mention a fastball that also has plenty of spin despite its modest 91.6mph velocity.

Lugo has gotten a fair amount of batted-ball luck to support his numbers, yet as he is now in his third productive year as a starter, the veteran is clearly doing more than just relying on good fortune to retire batters.  He has also answered all questions about whether he was durable enough to hold up in a rotation by pitching 206 2/3 innings in 2024, which was a key reason why Lugo finished second in AL Cy Young Award voting.

It was enough for the Royals to commit an additional $31MM to Lugo on top of the $15MM they had already agreed to pay him through 2026.  It’s a significant chunk of change for pitcher’s age 36-37 seasons, yet obviously the Royals have loved what they’ve gotten from Lugo to date and believe he can keep it up deeper into his 30’s.  The $23MM in average annual value is a little eye-opening, though as MLBTR’s Contract Tracker tells us, 11 pitchers of age 30 or higher have topped that AAV in free agency over the last three offseasons.

It is also noteworthy than the idea of Kansas City signing a player to such a contract is no longer as surprising as it would’ve been even a few years ago.  Now that the Royals have moved out of a rebuild period, owner John Sherman has greenlit higher spending, most notably Bobby Witt Jr.’s long-term mega-contract.  The Royals’ playoff appearance in 2024 was evidence that the team’s roster-building is paying dividends, and while their 2025 record has disappointed, there is enough of a pitching core in place to suggest that even league-average hitting could get K.C. back to the postseason.  The club’s recent additions of Adam Frazier and Randal Grichuk suggest that the Royals haven’t given up on making a late run this year, even if bigger lineup upgrades will probably be saved for the winter.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan was the first to report that the two sides were closing in on an extension.  MLB.com’s Anne Rogers (multiple links) had the details about the two-year length of the deal and the financial breakdown, while the New York Post’s Jon Heyman was the first to report that Lugo would be receiving a guarantee in the ballpark of $46MM.

Photo courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff, Imagn Images

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