The Royals announced Wednesday that they’ve signed left-hander Dallas Keuchel to a minor league contract. ESPN’s Jeff Passan notes that Keuchel held a workout for clubs last week, which the Royals attended. He’ll earn a prorated $2MM salary for any time spent on the major league roster.
Keuchel, 37, has pitched in parts of 13 big league seasons and was one of the top lefties in the sport at his peak. The 2015 American League Cy Young Award winner with the Astros, Keuchel starred for Houston from 2014-18 when he pitched a combined 950 1/3 innings with a 3.28 ERA, a 20.2% strikeout rate, a 6.5% walk rate and a mammoth 60% ground-ball rate. He had a solid partial season with Atlanta in 2019 and signed a three-year pact with the ChiSox spanning the 2020-22 seasons. The first year of that contract played out wonderfully, but Keuchel was ineffective in 2021 and pitched poorly enough in 2022 to be released before the contract had concluded.
Since his career began trending downward with the South Siders, Keuchel has slipped into journeyman status. He’s pitched for the White Sox, Rangers, D-backs, Twins and Brewers in the past three years and also had a stint with the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. Keuchel started four games for the 2024 Brewers and yielded a 5.40 ERA with 11 strikeouts against eight walks in 16 2/3 innings pitched. He also made 13 solid starts for the Mariners’ Triple-A affiliate in Tacoma last year.
Kansas City entered the 2025 season with a strong quintet in the rotation. Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo, Kris Bubic, Michael Wacha and Michael Lorenzen is a deeper one through five than most clubs can boast, and there were quality depth options like righty Alec Marsh and prospect Noah Cameron. Ragans is now sidelined with a strained rotator cuff that’ll keep him out until at least Aug. 7. Marsh has been on the IL all season due to a shoulder impingement that is taking longer than anticipated to mend.
That’s left the Royals with scant depth beyond the currently healthy group of Lugo, Bubic, Cameron, Wacha and Lorenzen. Cameron has been a godsend on the whole but has looked far more mortal in his past six starts (4.26 ERA in 31 2/3 innings) than he did in his historic first five starts (0.85 ERA in that same sample size of 31 2/3 innings). His performance has been direly needed, especially with several of the organization’s other top young arms either struggling (e.g. Luinder Avila, Ben Kudrna, Steven Zobac) or falling to injury (e.g. Tyson Guerrero).
Keuchel is the second veteran lefty whom the Royals have signed to a minor league pact to serve as depth. He’ll join Rich Hill on an Omaha pitching staff that also includes several journeymen with big league experience: Thomas Hatch, Justin Dunn and John Gant among them.
Why do teams keep doing that?
A left-handed pitcher will always get a look
Keuchel is HORRIBLE.
step 1: throw left handed
step 2: become washed
step3: ???
step 4: profit
The Royals must be desperate for pitching to sign Keuchel. Similar to the Sox signing Thor. I can see the Sox signing a washed up P, but for the Royals, it’s sad.
There is a big difference between the two. The Royals need help this season and are playoff hopefuls.
The White Sox have just started a total rebuild and are looking to find potential value to flip.
AAA storm chasers have eight pitchers on the injury list
@frankf
If your a lefty with a pulse you’ll always have a job in the mlb lol
what surprises me more is that Cashman wasn’t digging around in that dumpster…
Proof positive that soft-tossing lefties are eternal. He’s got another 10 years of minor league deals and cups of coffee left in him I bet.
They’ll need some depth for innings if they trade Lugo I suppose
Having a young arm in the system gain experience for replacing Lugo makes more sense than cutting a check to washed up guy. Let someone else with a chance achieve the dream.
This is more like a Red Sox kinda deal……..
I wonder if this is the beginning of the end for Seth Lugo in KC?
Where did they dig dallas up from? he’s been hiding under some rock.
I think it’s pitching depth for AAA Omaha. Eight pitchers on the injury list.
I can’t remember another Cy Young winner that ended his career as a journeyman minor league contract guy. At least not to this extent. Steve Carlton and Tom Seaver and Greg Maddux hung around way too long, but they were in their mid 40s. Keuchel has been doing the minor league thing since around age 34.
Tim Lincecum and Bartolo Colon both did the minor league deal circuit for awhile, but yeah, it’s pretty rare to see.
But hey, as long as Keuchel’s comfortable with it — he clearly is — and has the desire to keep pitching, good for him.
No judgment here on his choice. If I had the opportunity to be a big league ball player, they would have had to drag me off the field kicking and screaming to get me to retire. Even being a minor leaguer is 1000x better than being a car salesman or something.
Maddux was 42 when he retired. Not quite “mid 40s.”
Maddux also fired off nearly 200 innings of 4.22 ERA ball in his last season.
Not terrible at all
I was going to say Frank Viola, but not to the extent Keuchel has. Arrieta?
It’s about love of the game for many. Getting even a modest paycheck to play a game? Sign me up! Most have already made their coin, now it’s just fun.
To be fair Cameron has two bad starts against the two of the best offenses in the league.
Also call Trevor Bauer
Marco: Don’t forget Julio Urias.
Maybe teams could wheel either Bauer or Urias out of the bullpen on a hand-truck wearing a goalie mask?
False equivalence. One of these guys has been found guilty. The other was kind of a jerk that smooth brains were happy to call guilty without due process.
Smooth brains and guilt without due process, and don’t forget clever.
@Phy
Since when do we care about due process? Karoline Leavitt says that the Commissioner can do whatever he wants. Oh wait, that’s the other guy.
Well he was guilty and Bauer wasn’t so that’s not the same. You’ll be fine if we sign him and make the playoffs, everyone will
I’m really not going that deep on the subject. I’m just going for the Hannibal Lecter hand-truck and goalie mask visual.
Have you seen his wife? That’s maybe why teams welcome him
Grow up.
Wait! Keuchel did not retire?!
he has not been good since 2021 – he is a pitcher that relies on fielders making plays.
He is 37 now it would be pretty special for him to turn around his progress since then.
I guess his AAA stats and maybe the venture in JPPL gives teams hope that they maybe could pull a rabbit from the hat.
What? He is washed up.
I think every pitcher relies on players making plays behind him.
when a pitcher does not K very much that means they rely on fielders getting them the out more than pitchers with medium to high K rates.
Teams are desperate. Keuchel barely has pitched in years and is way past his prime.
Patrick Corbin lol
He doesn’t throw hard enough anymore to get anyone out
Keuchel could have a shot as a reliever, I dont think he will make it back as a starter.
I recall him getting shelled start after start with the White Sox in ’22, bombed too not just shelled, he had a real bad run at the end.
youtu.be/2um05MkrfPM
Actual footage of Keuchel getting the call from KC
Oh, dear Lord, why?
I don’t know which has been worse of late??? The Cowboys or Keuchel…
The Rockies.
Are you serious? Are you SERIOUS?
I have a left arm. Call me up.
Friends don’t let friends sign Dallas Keuchel.
It’s OK. The Royals are not my friends.
I love this kind of stuff. You never know, but you uuuusually know but hey why not?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Wow, Dallas Kuechel, that name will tell you how desperate teams are for pitching. Where is Rich Hill ? Kind of shocking no team has given Trevor Bauer a shot.
@cdchi: Hill signed a minor league deal w/KC a month ago. Pitching at AAA Omaha. Guess the Royals are trying to corner the market on well past their prime lefties.
Bauer has a 4.13 ERA in a league where the average is 2.73. Such MLB legends as Anthony Kay and Andre Jackson both have sub-2.00 ERAs on the same team he’s pitching on. He might be as washed as Keuchel at this point.
Rich Hill and Dallas Keuchel? Royals partying like it’s 2017…
Need the depth because they might have to bite the bullet on Lugo if they decide a deal is better than a QO to him.
for those wondering why….and I’ve already mentioned this in a couple comments – the AAA Omaha Storm Chasers (the Royals AAA affiliate) has eight pitchers on the injury list so this is probably depth for them
MARINERS LEGEND DALLAS KEUCHEL