The Royals’ Rotation Looks Stronger Than Ever

The Royals had one of baseball’s best rotations in 2024. Kansas City starters posted a 3.55 earned run average that trailed only the 3.38 mark of Seattle’s star-studded staff. They logged 911 innings, again second-best in MLB behind the Mariners. Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans placed among the top four in AL Cy Young balloting. Michael Wacha and Brady Singer weren’t at that level, but they each topped 160 innings with a mid-3.00s ERA.

Kansas City’s offense wasn’t nearly as productive. Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez (to a much lesser extent) carried an otherwise well below-average position player group. The Royals tried to balance things with one of the bigger trades of last offseason — swapping Singer to Cincinnati for Jonathan India and former well-regarded outfield prospect Joey Wiemer.

There’s risk any time a team trades a productive starting pitcher. The “no such thing as too much pitching” cliche exists for a reason. Still, the Royals felt comfortable moving on from Singer in large part because of Kris Bubic. He had undergone Tommy John surgery in April 2023. He returned in a relief role for the second half of last season. They decided early in the offseason that Bubic would return to his old rotation job.

Bubic is running with the opportunity. He has worked to a 1.98 ERA over his first seven starts. The 27-year-old southpaw is working nearly six innings per start and has only once surrendered more than three runs. He has rattled off quality starts in four of those appearances, ranking second on the team behind Lugo. Bubic is one of seven pitchers who has topped 30 innings with a sub-2.00 ERA through the season’s first six weeks. He has punched out an above-average 23.7% of opponents against a solid 7.7% walk rate.

While the strikeout rate is more good than exceptional, there’s probably some untapped upside in that regard. Bubic fanned 32.2% of opposing hitters en route to a 2.67 ERA in 30 1/3 innings last year. It wouldn’t be fair to expect him to fully repeat that as a starter — it’s easier to miss bats when you only face a hitter one time and can throw harder in short stints — but his per-pitch metrics are more impressive than this year’s strikeout rate would suggest. His 13.2% swinging strike rate ranks 20th in MLB (among 124 pitchers with 30+ innings). He’s 16th in whiff rate on pitches within the strike zone. While he’s never going to rival Ragans in terms of overpowering hitters, Bubic’s stuff plays.

Scouting reports have raved about his command dating back to his college days at Stanford. He has always had a fantastic changeup that makes him particularly tough on right-handed hitters. His breaking ball works more for weak contact than whiffs, but he’s able to miss bats with his fastball despite pedestrian 92-93 MPH velocity. The pitch plays above its speed at the top of the zone, where it gets good life that makes it difficult to differentiate from the changeup.

Bubic isn’t likely to maintain a sub-2.00 ERA all season, of course. He’s gotten some fortunate results on balls in play that should even out. Even if he ends up with an ERA in the low-3.00s rather than keeping up at a Cy Young pace, he should compensate for whatever production they lost by dealing Singer. Ragans, Lugo and Wacha remain an excellent top three. Michael Lorenzen is a fine if unexciting fifth starter, while Kyle Wright provides an interesting wild card as he finally nears his return from the shoulder surgery that wiped out his ’24 season.

The Royals may find themselves with an even better rotation than the one they rolled out a year ago. They’re leading MLB with 217 1/3 innings. Only the Mets (2.71) have a superior ERA than Kansas City’s 3.02 mark. The Royals are also eighth in strikeout/walk rate differential. Every pitching staff is dependent on health, but Kansas City may end up with baseball’s best rotation if their top four arms continue taking the ball.

They’ll need continued excellence from their starters to compete in a deceptively strong AL Central. The Royals have won five straight to push their record to 22-16. It’s the fourth-best mark in the American League but has them in third place in the division behind Detroit and Cleveland. The Central surprisingly produced three playoff teams a year ago. There’s a real chance it’ll do the same in 2025.

As was the case last season, Kansas City will approach the deadline in need of an offensive boost. They enter play Thursday ranked ahead of only the White Sox, Blue Jays, Rangers, Pirates and Rockies in scoring. India hasn’t provided the jolt they were anticipating at the top of the lineup. He’s hitting .228/.331/.299 with one homer through 148 plate appearances. Perez isn’t producing the same way he did last season, and the outfield has again been terrible. Maikel Garcia is out to a strong start, but he and Witt have been the only real sources of offense.

The Royals need to win low-scoring games all year, but they’re well positioned to do so as long as their pitching staff avoids major injuries. Lucas Erceg, Carlos Estévez and Hunter Harvey provide a better bullpen nucleus than they had at this point last season (though Harvey has been sidelined for a month due to a teres major strain). They’ll again be built primarily behind their rotation, which looks as strong as ever despite the offseason trade.

Image courtesy of Gregory Fisher, Imagn Images.