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Royals Re-Sign Austin Cox To Minors Contract

By Leo Morgenstern | January 2, 2025 at 4:11pm CDT

The Royals have signed Austin Cox to another minor league contract. After electing free agency in November, the left-hander will return to the only MLB organization he’s known throughout his seven-year pro career. The team announced the signing this afternoon.

Cox, who turns 28 on Opening Day, first signed with the Royals as a fifth-round draft pick in 2018. After an impressive debut in Rookie ball that year, Cox began to appear on Royals top prospect lists around the industry. His 3.78 ERA in nine starts was solid, but what really turned heads was his 35.7% strikeout rate.  In addition, he gave up just one home run in 33 1/3 innings of work.

The lefty followed up his strong first impression with an equally promising performance in 2019. Cox looked sharp at both Single-A and High-A, pitching to a 2.76 ERA and 3.48 FIP in 130 2/3 innings across both levels. His 24.2% strikeout rate wasn’t nearly as high as it was at Rookie ball, but it was still quite good, and it came over a much larger sample size against more difficult competition. On top of that, he reduced his walk rate and continued to limit home runs.  Entering the 2020 season, both FanGraphs and Baseball America included Cox among their top 10 prospects in the Royals system; Keith Law of The Athletic ranked him at no. 12.

Unfortunately, Cox was unable to pitch in 2020 due to the lost minor league season, and he struggled at Double-A and (briefly) Triple-A in 2021. His fastball velocity fell and he cut his slider from his pitch mix, giving him a less imposing and less diverse arsenal. His strikeout rate continued to drop while his walk rate rose, and he surrendered 11 home runs in just 68 frames; that’s the same number of dingers he allowed the year before when he pitched almost twice as many innings. Thus, it was hardly surprising to see Cox plummet down prospect rankings during the 2021-22 offseason. Once a promising back-end starter, he seemed destined for a role in the bullpen instead.

Cox continued to start at Triple-A in 2022 and ’23 but failed to improve his results. In May 2023, he made his MLB debut out of the Royals bullpen. Although he had limited experience as a reliever, his big league career couldn’t have gotten off to a better start. He didn’t give up a hit until the 40th batter he faced. Unfortunately, his work was less impressive after that. Cox would ultimately pitch in 24 games for Kansas City that year: 21 relief appearances and three short spot starts. His numbers were serviceable but unspectacular for a lower-leverage swingman. He pitched to a 6.10 ERA and 4.71 FIP in 10 1/3 innings as a starter and a 3.91 ERA and 3.33 FIP in 25 1/3 innings out of the bullpen. A knee injury ended his season early, and the Royals designated him for assignment at the beginning of the offseason. He subsequently elected free agency.

Cox rejoined the Royals on a minor league contract shortly thereafter and spent the entire 2024 campaign with the Triple-A Omaha Storm Chasers. He exercised an opt-out clause in his contract in July but signed another minor league pact with the organization later that month. Thus, his new deal with the Royals is the third minor league contract he has signed with the team in the past 14 months. Presumably, he will continue to do exactly what he did in 2024: provide depth as a left-handed swingman at Triple-A. While his performance this past year didn’t prove good enough to earn him another chance with the big league club, there is clearly a strong relationship between pitcher and team that both sides are interested in carrying on.

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Kansas City Royals Transactions Austin Cox

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View Comments (5)
Post a Comment

5 Comments

  1. choof

    5 months ago

    Get this guy to learn the Roger Beshens football slider and I swear on my left pinky he’ll be a hall of famer

    2
    Reply
  2. Acoss1331

    5 months ago

    Roger Beshens literally touches lives and Austin Cox now can too! Praise be to Roger!

    2
    Reply
    • LaFleur

      5 months ago

      If you need your slider to be baptised and your career saved by Rodger (no not Clemens) look no further than the beshens football slider. We’ve got testimonies on how the beshens football slider brought back careers from the grave

      1
      Reply
  3. LaFleur

    5 months ago

    All this Rodger Benshens Football Slider talk (sounds like somethin youd hear in forest gump)

    2
    Reply
    • JackStrawb

      5 months ago

      @Lionoflambs Right? In any case the magic slider won’t help—Cox’s main problem is that he doesn’t do anything well.

      It’s not as if he can take a little off a running fastball, get the walks down from 5 per 9 in milb in 2023-2024, and be a competent if ordinary reliever or back end starter. He doesn’t have swing and miss stuff, so he’d just be trading walks for hits.

      It’s also not as if improved control will get him anywhere, as he’d just be throwing more strikes to hitters who haven’t had much trouble teeing off on pitches in the strike zone—1.7 HR/9 in 2023-2024.

      I get that not everyone is a #3 starter, but it’s hard to see him as higher than the #8 slot in the MLB depth chart in a swing role ___on the White Sox___.

      What’s the opposite of a AAAA pitcher? Looking back, Cox in 2023 put up impressive numbers for the Royals’ MLB squad in the context of his minor league numbers in 2022 through 2024. Who knows. Maybe he has “Luisangel Acuna’s Disease,” where the player only seems motivated while in the majors.

      1
      Reply

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