Royals Option Kyle Wright

The Royals announced today that right-hander Kyle Wright has been reinstated from the 15-day injured list and optioned to Triple-A Omaha. He had been pitching on a rehab assignment but the club has decided to have him stick in the minors a while longer, as opposed to adding him to the big league roster.

As of a few years ago, the idea of optioning Wright to the minors would have been a huge surprise. In 2022, he made 30 starts for Atlanta, going 21-5 and logging 180 1/3 innings. He had a 3.19 earned run average, 23.6% strikeout rate, 7.2% walk rate and 55.6% ground ball rate. He then tossed six shutout innings in his lone playoff start of that year. He finished 10th in National League Cy Young voting.

It’s been rougher sledding since then. He only tossed 31 innings in the 2023 season due to shoulder issues which eventually required surgery. The Royals acquired him ahead of the 2024 season, even though they knew he was likely to miss all of that campaign. He eventually did miss that entire season while the Royals paid him $1.8MM. They agreed to pay him that same salary figure this year.

The hope was that Wright could potentially help them in 2025 and 2026 after recovering from his shoulder surgery, which hasn’t come to pass yet. His shoulder was still enough of an issue for him to start this year on the 15-day IL. He started a rehab assignment in early May but was pulled off that due to shoulder fatigue after just two starts. He restarted that rehab assignment on May 25th and has since made six starts, two at Double-A and four at Triple-A.

Rehab assignments for pitchers can last as long as 30 days, so Wright was coming to the end of his window, but his results in those rehab outings weren’t especially impressive. His four Triple-A outings resulted in a 6.23 ERA. He did strike out 23% of batters faced but also gave out walks at a 14.8% clip. Perhaps there’s still some rust to shake off or he’s still building strength. He averaged over 95 miles per hour on his fastball in 2022 but has only been at 92 mph at Triple-A so far this year.

The club’s current rotation likely played a role in the decision as well. Even with Cole Ragans on the IL, Kansas City’s starting group is quite strong. It’s anchored by a solid trio of Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha and Kris Bubic. They have Michael Lorenzen as a solid back-end guy. Rookie Noah Cameron has a 2.08 ERA through his first eight big league starts.

The combination of the strength of that group and Wright appearing as though he still needs some fine tuning has seemingly blocked his path back to the majors for now. It makes for an interesting situation for the Royals with the deadline now just over a month away. Ragans may be close to a return by the end of July. If the rest of the group stays healthy, they may have a relative surplus of starting pitching. Trading away from that surplus would be dangerous, especially with the rate of pitching injuries in the modern game, but it could be a way for the club to add some more offense.

Wright came into this year with four years and 62 days of major league service time, 110 shy of the five-year mark. By my count he has added 88 days so far here in 2025, though the clock now stops ticking with this option. He is making a relative modest salary, as mentioned. If he doesn’t have a spot in the Royals’ rotation now and Ragans is coming back, perhaps they could consider making him available. Lorenzen is also one a one-year deal and likely wouldn’t be part of the club’s planned playoff rotation, so perhaps he could end up on the block as well.

This optional assignment could also impact Wright personally. As mentioned, he is still shy of five years of service. If he stays in the minors the rest of the year, it would delay his path to free agency, though he may end up a non-tender candidate in that scenario. He has just one option remaining and will be out of options next year if this assignment last 20 days or longer.

Photo courtesy of Jayne Kamin-Oncea, Imagn Images