The Royals’ wide-ranging search for rotation help has led to discussions with free agents Michael Wacha and Jack Flaherty, tweets Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. Kansas City has also been linked to free agents Marcus Stroman, Lucas Giolito and Seth Lugo within the past week.
Royals general manager J.J. Picollo has said on multiple occasions this winter that he’s hoping to bolster his starting rotation, and he recently acknowledged that his club has at least $30MM to spend this offseason. The Royals aren’t likely to be serious players for top-of-the-market arms like Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Blake Snell, but the list of names to which they’ve already been tied suggests they’re quite active in the second and third tiers of the market for starting pitching help.
Both Wacha and Flaherty figure to be in the Royals’ price range, landing annual values that fall well shy of that rough $30MM annual rate. Wacha’s two-year, $32MM club option was bought out by the Padres at season’s end, but after posting consecutive seasons with 125-plus innings and ERAs of 3.32 and 3.22, he has a case for a three-year pact — albeit perhaps at a lesser rate than the $16MM which San Diego declined to pay (or pick up and attempt to trade him at).
Over the past two seasons, between the Red Sox and Padres, Wacha has posted a combined 3.27 ERA with a 21.3% strikeout rate, 6.9% walk rate and 37.7% ground-ball rate. Despite being more of a fly-ball pitcher, he’s allowed a manageable 1.14 homers per nine frames. His 88.1 mph average exit velocity and 35.4% hard-hit rate are both a bit lower than this past season’s leaguewide averages (89 mph, 39.2%), which helps to mitigate the impact of a below-average strikeout rate. Wacha has dramatically reduced his reliance on a four-seam fastball over the past two seasons. He’s steadily increased his usage of a sinker and changeup in that time, posting new career-high usage rates for each pitch in both 2022 and 2023.
The broader question with Wacha is one of durability. He’s been placed on the injured list nine times in his MLB career — five of them due to right shoulder issues. Wacha landed on the IL with a stress reaction in his shoulder back in 2014, and he’s since had shoulder-related IL trips in 2016, 2020, 2022 and 2023. He’s also missed time with one-off oblique, hamstring, knee and intercostal injuries. Most recently, he missed six weeks of the 2023 summer with shoulder inflammation. However, he also posted a 3.88 ERA in 48 2/3 innings after returning and closed out the year with consecutive seven-inning gems (two total runs allowed on nine hits and two walks with 13 strikeouts).
Turning to Wacha’s former Cardinals teammate, Flaherty isn’t that far removed from looking the part of a blossoming ace. A first-round pick and top prospect before his big league debut, the right-hander logged a 3.34 ERA through 151 innings during his first full MLB campaign back in 2018. He was even better in 2019, tossing a career-best 196 1/3 innings with a brilliant 2.75 earned run average, excellent 29.9% strikeout rate and lower-than-average 7.1% walk rate. Unfortunately, he battled shoulder troubles of his own while pitching just 154 1/3 innings combined from 2020-2022.
This past season, Flaherty split the year between the Cardinals and Orioles, enjoying his healthiest year since 2019 but also displaying rather pedestrian results. Flaherty’s 4.99 ERA stands as an obvious eyesore, and his 22.8% strikeout rate was more or less in line with the league average. His 10.6% walk rate was a good bit worse than average. His fastball, which averaged 94.5 mph in that brilliant 2019 season, sat at 93.2 mph in 2023.
It obviously wasn’t Flaherty’s best work, but even with the downturn in results and durability concerns, there’s reason to believe he could yet command a multi-year deal. Flaherty only turned 28 in October, and a team might view him as a prime-aged rebound candidate who could pitch near the top of a rotation in a best-case scenario. He’d be an upside play based more on his prior heights than his 2023 output, but even if things don’t pan out, a two- or three-year deal likely wouldn’t break the bank.
Recent three-year deals for pitchers in this tier have generally landed around $12-13MM per season (e.g. Anthony DeSclafani, Yusei Kikuchi, Zach Eflin). It’s similarly feasible that Flaherty might just prefer a one-year deal that’d allow him to return to market next winter — although he could also get there via an opt-out. There are various contractual forms he can and likely is considering, but he’s unlikely to be prohibitively expensive in any of those scenarios, given Picollo’s prior comments regarding the team’s payroll flexibility.
Kansas City’s rotation currently projects to include Cole Ragans, Brady Singer and veteran innings eater Jordan Lyles. Candidates for the final two spots include Daniel Lynch, Jonathan Heasley, Angel Zerpa, Alec Marsh and Max Castillo, among others, but the Royals are hoping to add at least one, if not two veteran arms to supplement the bunch.
Whither Zack Greinke?
If KC doesn’t have a good DH, Greinke should hit when he pitches. I was at a game a few years ago and he launched two bombs to dead center at Petco. They were not cheap shots.
Greinke also is the rare pitcher who seems to have had some idea how to hit situationally when called to… hit behind runners, bunt them over. Not saying he’s a great hitter, but a good athlete and smart baseball player.
Greinke probably could’ve went the Rick Ankiel route in his prime if he forgot how to pitch. He was a great fielding pitcher too. Probably could’ve been a major leaguer if the pitching didn’t work out.
Too bad the Cards already brought Lynn back, or else he could join Flaherty and Wacha in KC.
I wish the Orioles would sign Flaherty to a one year deal
PS If he doesn’t sign with the O’s, I will be curious as to how he performs
I’d rather send the Royals a blocked prospect for Brady Singer and let them deal w/ Flaherty. Personal preference.
I don’t think Flaherty ever goes back to what he used to be.
Rarely get a chance to watch Brady Singer… why the big drop off in effectiveness?
Just looked at his statcast page—looks like he lost 1.7MPH off his heater.
I wonder if that was injury related? I like him as a bounce back candidate assuming that there’s no injury concerns there.
Waka waka!
“Hey guys do you want to come to KC?”
“Nope”
Conversations had
Yeah like I said in the other article, The way the author is making it sound that the Royals think 30 million bucks is going to fill all their needs. If Piccolo thinks that, He’s going to be really disappointed. 3o million in Free Agency is like going into Tiffany’s with 50 bucks and saying hey show me some diamond rings. When they get done laughing they probably ask you to leave.
I think at this rate, the Royals are going to end up having a better team in 2024 than the White Sox. No disrespect to Royals fans, just observing the free fall the White Sox are in right now…
So what you’re saying is that we won’t have 101 losses or 106 losses?
No you guys won’t touch 100 losses, that’s for the White Sox to lose next year.
The royals are the small market SF Giants. The last team a FA is linked too in public before signing so he can leverage them to get more money from the team they want to sign with lol
Hey, throw enough lines in the water…..
I thought Ohtani signing was supposed to mean the hot stove would finally get hot.
Gotta wait for Yamamoto.
And then Snell
zzzzz
Well the way I figure it if teams were in neutral on other matters while ohtani picked his deal it seems like some time for other fa negotiations to unfold was to be expected.
Wacha should get a good 2-3 year deal. He pitched well last season. I think the only apprehension will be that he missed some time last year due to injury. When healthy he pitched well and if KC wants to put up the cash in this crazy pitching market, it could work well for him.
I’d be surprised if he got more than 2. You’d have to go all the way back to 2017 to find a year where pitched 150 innings.
Easy fix on a potential Wacha deal. Offer him a ‘low’ annual salary of $8M – $10M and add escalators for the number of innings pitched. Offer him and additional $1M for reaching 100 IP, another $1M for 110 IP, etc..until the value of the contract reaches a maximum of $15M per year. This way, a team might be comfortable signing him to a 3 year/ $24M – $30M contract that could go as high as 3/$45M if he’s able to stay healthy.
Donations, Donations…I thought it was the trash.
Did they talk about bbq?
Looks like the Pirates will resort to their usual tactic of signing dumpster diving throw aways for their other two spots in the rotation
A Wacha signing would be fine
Other two spots?
You make it sound like the rotation is almost complete!
I’m still clinging on to the hope that BC will shock us all and trade for a Cease type or sign a marquee overseas guy.
BC said he was looking for 2 pitchers for the starting rotation
That’s where I got it from, Ben Cherington himself
Haha, yeah I know why you said that.
The shock/horror on my part was because we both know how fragile a rotation is having Keller as an ace with Marco Gonzales and the winner of Priester/Ortiz/Falter as the 5th starter.
BC also said that payroll would increase next year.
Right now it’s at $54 million and that includes potential for arbitration. That leaves maybe $30 million at most to cover a first baseman, re-signing Cutch and 2 starters
No way does Nutting allow a $100 million dollar payroll for next year
Well BC did sign 28 year old Ryder Ryan, a right handed pitcher who played for the Mariners last year to a minor league contract today
Maybe he’ll be one of the starters next year
Orioles should sign Wacha and let him and Tyler Wells just pitch when they feel like it.
Both Giolito and Flaherty make sense for the Royals and vice versa. I’d expect both pitchers to find a one year deal to rebuild value for a long term contract after 2024 to be attractive. In addition, the Royals are long shots to be competitive so both pitchers would expect to be traded to a legitimate contender if the Royals don’t take a stunning leap forward in the standings.
The AL Central is currently in disarray and it’s tough to say how competitive teams will be.
Twins are aimless so far this offseason, they have little in the rotation and weren’t dominant last year.
Tigers probably have a passable rotation, but they need a lot of players to take steps forward to be a legitimate threat.
Guardians seem to be are on the way down into a rebuild.
White Sox are a catastrophe with nothing to rely upon in any facet of the game, and they look likely to part ways with their only good starter. Culture, defense, hitting, starting, and bullpen are a mess.
It might not be that far of a stretch for the Royals to compete in the AL Central if they’re able to sign 2 rebound candidates and a decent bat. Still, the Royals are not a prime destination for anybody by any stretch. $40MM AAV could get it done.
That speaks to how bad the division truly is but Minn still looks quite a bit stronger.
I don’t think the Royals can sign enough pitching to be in better shape than the Guards current 5. (even if you remove Bieber) offensively they’ll be pretty close (and bad)
Long shot but might be worth a shot. The Royals farm is so bad that they don’t have much coming to help either. The prospects coming back could if/when it collapses are a welcome help.
I’d honestly try to buy prospects w/ bad contracts if I were them. They need a lot and 2024 doesn’t look like a breakthrough.
Something like Taillon & Smyly + spects to the Royals.
Gives the Royals 2 starters and a prospect attached. Cubs free up more payroll to acquire more impactful pieces. Royals might be able to double dip on prospect capital if they fix those 2.
It’s always tough to gauge how good a division will be before the start of the season, but the AL Central certainly looks like a non-competitive group of teams again for 2024 at the moment.
Royals call hey free agent how much do you want…. Okay, have a great year.
Calls the next one.
Free agency this year is insane. When Lynn, Gibson and Martinez are getting paid 12-13m there is a problem.
Wacha was prob like I had 2ish era how about 25×4. Lugo was like I had 3ish era how 19×3
Think Yamamoto will get his 30m per for at least 10 years. Then I think everyone starts to wait for the prices to fall.
Can’t even make trades because those guys are a little cheaper so the prospect cost is insane.
MLB losing tv rev left and right yet somehow the spending is going way up. Money is going to start drying up sooner or later.
What makes you think MLB is losing TV revenue? TV contracts have exploded in the past 10 years to the point some stupid broadcasting companies got over-aggressive and it bit them. TV revenues won’t roll back too far.
In regard to overall revenue, MLB is way up. Revenues increased about 6% cumulatively back to 2010, though it was crippled a bit by COVID lockdowns.
Why is that when Michael Wacha strikes out the side, the announcers don’t shout ” WAKA WAKA WAKA!”
KC thinks their young position players are poised to take a step forward. Maybe. In that winnable division, maybe.