Royals Rumors

Royals Notes: Lineup Needs, Outfield, Wacha, Frazier

By Mark Polishuk | October 14, 2024 at 11:48pm CDT

Royals brass held their end-of-season press conference today, with general manager J.J. Picollo and manager Matt Quatraro fielding questions from MLB.com’s Anne Rogers (two links) and other reporters about the club’s successful 2024 campaign and some of their plans for the coming offseason.

While Picollo described the Royals’ offense as “acceptable” overall, the team is looking for bookends around the powerful 2-3-4 lineup combination of Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino, and Salvador Perez. The Royals relied heavily on that trio for most of their offense, and thus finding a more consistent leadoff hitter and no. 5 hitter are the first steps in increasing production.

Picollo noted that impending free agent Tommy Pham did a good job in stabilizing the leadoff spot after Pham was claimed off waivers from the Cardinals at the end of August. In general, however, “that leadoff spot, we were circulating guys all year long, trying to find the right person….Every lineup, and the better lineups that we faced, they’re deep,” Picollo said. “The more you can push guys down, the better our lineup will be. You start with a leadoff man, and then you try to find somebody in the middle of the lineup, as well. The deeper you get, the more explosive you can be as an offense.”

Kansas City batters had a collective .306 on-base percentage this season, ranking 19th of 30 teams. Witt’s .389 OBP did a lot of the heavy lifting on that cumulative total, as Yuli Gurriel (in only 65 plate appearances) ranked second on the team with a .338 OBP, followed by Perez at .330. Maikel Garcia had the majority of at-bats out of the leadoff spot and his strong third base defense kept him in the lineup, but he hit only .231/.281/.332 over 626 PA. Garcia’s 69 wRC+ was the lowest of any qualified hitter in baseball this season.

Despite Garcia’s lack of production, Picollo said Garcia and left fielder MJ Melendez (who also struggled) will be counted to improve at the plate as they head into their fourth Major League campaigns. However, Picollo singled out the outfield as a natural area where the Royals could add some power and more offense in general, as only the Pirates and White Sox got less production from their outfielders in 2024 than the 79 wRC+ posted by Kansas City’s outfield mix.

“Generally speaking, when you’re looking at left field, right field, that’s where you’re thinking about power guys,” Picollo said. “And we know this ballpark doesn’t lend itself to homers, but it does lend itself to slug. So we’ve got to be more productive there. And that’s where being optimistic about some of the guys that we have and looking at the experience they had, I think that’s fine.”

Right field is the most logical target area if Hunter Renfroe declines his $7.5MM player option for 2025, though Picollo said he hadn’t yet spoken to Renfroe about his upcoming decision. Renfroe can take a $1MM buyout and return to free agency, but it probably seems likelier than Renfroe will take the larger $7.5MM payday after a sub-replacement season. Renfroe had a -0.1 fWAR over 120 games with Kansas City, hitting .229/.297/.392 with 15 home runs, and he sandwiched a red-hot stretch in June and July between ice-cold performances in the first two and final two months of the regular season.

Kyle Isbel was also a below-average hitter but at least played some solid defense in center field, so he might have the most job security of all Royals outfielders heading into 2025. If K.C. did indeed pick up a new corner outfielder or two, Renfroe, Melendez, Dairon Blanco, and Nelson Velazquez could all be vying for part-time or bench duty, or the Royals could look to move any to create roster space.

On the pitching end, Michael Wacha will have to decide on either exercising or declining his $16MM player option for the 2025 season. Wacha’s excellent changeup powered his 3.35 ERA over 166 2/3 innings in his first season with the Royals, and induced a ton of soft contact while posting an above-average 6.6% walk rate. Though his lack of strikeouts and velocity will always limit his market to some extent, Wacha has now posted very solid results in each of the last three seasons, and should certainly find a multi-year pact again on the open market this year.

Even if the likelihood is that Wacha does pass on his option, Picollo said “there’s no question we’d like to have him back. How we go about that, I’m not sure just yet….He’s going to have opportunities with other clubs. So we’ll work on that.”

The Royals aim to add more pitching with or without Wacha still in the rotation, though obviously it will be a more glaring need if Wacha does head elsewhere. Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo, and Brady Singer still combine for a nice top three and Alec Marsh earned himself a rotation job, so on paper Kansas City would have plenty of internal candidates to compete for just one open starting job. But as Picollo noted, “we were remarkably healthy this year,” so the club expects to need more pitching in the likely even that the Royals aren’t as lucky in avoiding the injury bug.

As to how much the Royals will have to spend for any upgrade, Picollo was naturally unspecific on the topic, but he felt owner John Sherman would have as much “flexibility” with the payroll as last winter. “I would suspect it would be very similar,” the GM said. “Not necessarily in, ’We’re going to spend $100 million,’ but more so his flexibility, him being open-minded to what our team’s needs are.”

RosterResource estimates that the Royals finished the year with a payroll of slightly more than $113.5MM, which represents the franchise’s biggest spend since its $122.2MM payroll on Opening Day 2018. An increase in attendance and two playoff games should boost revenue, but the Royals are also one of the teams whose broadcast deals with Diamond Sports Group will be severed as part of DSG’s ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.

It remains to be seen if the Royals could work out a new deal with DSG/Bally Sports for the 2025 season or if the team might seek out another broadcast partner, or pursue an agreement with Major League Baseball itself to broadcast games (as six other clubs have done). While obviously a lot of uncertainty exists here, it should be noted that the Royals’ previous deal with Bally was already up after the 2025 season, and the team still went ahead and had a relatively big spending splurge last winter even with the looming questions about its broadcast future.

In some injury updates, Hunter Harvey, James McArthur, and Chris Stratton should all be ready for the start of Spring Training after finishing the season on the injured list. Some health uncertainty awaits Adam Frazier, who will be undergoing some type of procedure on his right thumb this week.

Frazier had a minimal 10-day IL stint in late June/early July due to a sprain in that same thumb, and an injury could explain his rough hitting numbers, as the veteran batted only .202/.282/.294 in 294 PA. Kansas City is sure to decline its end of an $8.5MM mutual option on Frazier for 2025, and he’ll be bought out for $2.5MM. Between his down year and perhaps this surgery impacting his readiness, Frazier may have to settle for a minor league pact in free agency.

How Cole Ragans Built On His Breakout Season

By Mark Polishuk | October 14, 2024 at 9:38pm CDT

After losing 106 games in 2023, the Royals responded to the embarrassing result by going on a relative spending spree last winter. Bobby Witt Jr.’s 11-year, $288.78MM extension naturally drew most of the attention, but Kansas City spent $110.5MM on free agent contracts, most notably bringing Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha to bolster the pitching staff. The strategy paid off handsomely, as the Royals rebounded for their first winning record and playoff berth since 2015.

Not content to just make the postseason, K.C. defeated the Orioles in the Wild Card Series before falling to the Yankees in four games in the ALDS. This playoff run provided a bit of a national showcase for Cole Ragans, who had a sterling 0.90 ERA in 10 innings and two postseason starts.

Witt’s MVP-level performance, Salvador Perez’s strong bounce-back year, and the immediate impact of Lugo and Wacha rightly drew a lot of credit for the Royals’ success, yet they also somewhat overshadowed Ragans’ continued excellence since coming to the Royals in June 2023. Continuing the “under the radar” theme, Ragans’ season would be drawing a lot of Cy Young Award buzz if Tarik Skubal wasn’t such a heavy favorite for the trophy. In fact, Skubal is the only AL pitcher who had a higher fWAR than Ragans, and only Chris Sale and Zack Wheeler topped Ragans among the National League’s arms.

Ragans posted a 3.14 ERA over 186 1/3 innings, and his 29.3% strikeout rate and 31.8% whiff rate both ranked in at least the 88th percentile of all pitchers. Ragans did a good job of limiting hard contact and avoiding home runs, which couldn’t be entirely attributed to pitching at Kauffman Stadium — the left-hander’s road ERA (2.87) was actually better than his home ERA (3.40). A below-average 8.8% walk rate was the only real flaw in Ragans’ arsenal, though he at least improved on his 10.5% walk rate from the 2023 season.

The changeup has been Ragans’ most consistently solid pitch over his three MLB seasons, and batters only hit .183 against the offspeed offering in 2024. The big difference in arsenal this season, however, was that Ragans started to more fully capitalize on his 95.4mph fastball’s elite spin rate. Ragans’ fastball was ranked by Statcast as a below-average pitch in 2022 and 2023, but adding about 1.2 inches of vertical break on the pitch from 2023 to 2024 seemed to unlock something special, as his four-seamer was suddenly among the more effective pitches in all of baseball.

This big year only continued the sudden success Ragans enjoyed after he was traded to the Royals (along with outfield prospect Roni Cabrera) from the Rangers for Aroldis Chapman in June 2023. Selected 30th overall in the 2016 draft, Ragans’ career was put on hold for the entirety of the 2018-20 seasons due to two Tommy John surgeries and then the canceled 2020 minor league season. He pitched well enough after his return to action to eventually earn his first MLB call-up in 2022, and Ragans had a 4.95 ERA over nine starts and 40 innings for Texas in his rookie season.

Working out of the bullpen in 2023, Ragans had struggled to a 5.92 ERA in 24 1/3 relief innings at the time of the trade, but the Royals immediately gave him another look in the rotation. As if a switch was flipped, Ragans posted a 2.64 ERA in 12 starts and 71 2/3 innings over the remainder of the 2023 campaign, and the Royals suddenly had a rotation building block as a silver lining within their dismal season.

After now a full season of success for Ragans, that Royals/Rangers trade is looking like one of the more impactful win-win deadline deals in recent memory. Calling it a “deadline deal” is perhaps a misnomer since it came a month before the trade deadline, as the Royals were already in sell mode and the Rangers were desperate to shore up their badly struggling relief corps. Teams tend to have higher asking prices in trade talks further in advance of the deadline, yet moving Ragans was a price the Rangers were willing to pay in order to achieve bullpen help as quickly as possible.

While Chapman wasn’t exactly airtight during his time in Arlington, he pitched well enough down the stretch and in the playoffs to help Texas secure its first World Series championship. The “flags fly forever” mantra is a pretty good salve for any regrets the Rangers or their fans might have about letting Ragans go for a rental reliever, while the K.C. organization is undoubtedly thrilled with everything they’ve seen from their new ace.

Ragans turns 27 in December, and still has another full season remaining before reaching salary arbitration. Locking up Ragans to a contract extension would help the Royals get some cost certainty over a pitcher whose ceiling only seems to be rising, plus the rotation could use some solidification since Wacha will surely exercise his opt-out clause and test free agency again. On the flip side, since Ragans is under team control through his age-30 season and already has two Tommy John surgeries on his resume, the Royals might well hold off on any serious extension talks and just go year-by-year with Ragans for now.

Deciding how to best deal with the unexpected windfall of a frontline pitcher is a nice problem for the Royals to have, and in hindsight the Ragans trade was the first sign that K.C. was going to able to rebound from its 106-loss disaster. An inability to develop homegrown pitching prospects stalled the Royals’ rebuild for years, so there is some irony in the fact that the team’s emergence has now been led in part by another team’s seemingly stalled prospect.

Poll: Who Will Win The AL Division Series?

By Anthony Franco | October 8, 2024 at 11:02pm CDT

Last night, MLBTR readers weighed in on the National League Division Series. With both series knotted up 1-1 at the time, readers heavily favored the Padres to upset the Dodgers while giving a slight edge to the Phillies to take down the Mets. The lower seeds each prevailed at home tonight to put the NL’s top two teams on the brink of elimination.

Tuesday was a travel day in the American League. Those series are also squared at a game apiece, providing an opportunity to check in on those sets. The Guardians destroyed the Tigers in Game 1, but Kerry Carpenter hit a game-winning homer in the ninth off Emmanuel Clase to give the Tigers a 3-0 win in the second game. The Royals rebounded after dropping a back-and-forth contest against the Yankees in Game 1. Kansas City rode a four-run fourth inning to a relatively easy 4-2 victory in Game 2.

Cleveland and Detroit will kick off play on Wednesday afternoon. The Guardians are turning to Alex Cobb in what will be just his fourth appearance in a Cleveland uniform. Cleveland landed Cobb from the Giants at the deadline to address a rotation that was the team’s biggest weakness. Cobb had spent the first few months of the season on the IL rehabbing last fall’s hip surgery. Blisters and a cracked fingernail on his throwing hand limited him to a trio of regular season appearances. Cobb pitched well in that brief action, allowing five earned runs with 10 strikeouts and three walks over 16 1/3 innings. This will be his first game in almost six weeks.

The Tigers haven’t announced a starter to oppose Cobb. Detroit has mostly ridden bullpen games behind ace Tarik Skubal and second starter Reese Olson. They’ll probably have Olson lined up for Game 4 with Skubal on tap if the series gets a decider. Tomorrow is likely to be an all hands on deck affair. Cleveland could go back to respective Games 1 and 2 starters Tanner Bibee and Matthew Boyd after tomorrow.

There’s a more conventional pitching matchup in Kansas City. The hosts will turn to Seth Lugo, who turned in an even 3.00 earned run average across 206 2/3 innings during his first season with the Royals. The potential Cy Young finalist tossed 4 1/3 innings of one-run ball with six strikeouts against Baltimore in the clincher of last week’s Wild Card series — the first postseason start of Lugo’s career. New York counters with Clarke Schmidt, who’ll be starting a playoff game for the first time himself. The former first-round pick had a 2.85 ERA over 16 starts in the regular season. He lost three months midseason to a lat strain but was excellent when healthy.

New York and Kansas City already list Gerrit Cole and Michael Wacha as the respective probable starters for Game 4. Neither team has announced its pitcher for a potential Game 5. That’d likely be a rematch of Monday’s pitching matchup between K.C. ace Cole Ragans and Yankees southpaw Carlos Rodón with both pitchers on regular rest by Saturday.

Which teams will vie for the ALCS next week?

11 Players Elect Free Agency

By Darragh McDonald | October 3, 2024 at 4:17pm CDT

As the offseason nears, a number of players elect minor league free agency each week. These players are separate from six-year MLB free agents, who’ll reach the open market five days after the conclusion of the World Series. Eligible minor leaguers can begin electing free agency as soon as the regular season wraps up. These players were all outrighted off a team’s 40-man roster during the year and have the requisite service time and/or multiple career outrights necessary to reach free agency since they weren’t added back to teams’ rosters.

Electing free agency is the anticipated outcome for these players. There’ll surely be more to test the market in the coming weeks. We’ll offer periodic updates at MLBTR. These transactions are all reflected on the MiLB.com log.

Catchers

Seby Zavala (Mariners)

Infielders

Keston Hiura (Angels)

Outfielders

Edward Olivares (Pirates)

Pitchers

Dan Altavilla (Royals)
Matt Andriese (Marlins)
Aaron Brooks (Athletics)
Justin Bruihl (Pirates)
Paolo Espino (Blue Jays)
Anthony Gose (Guardians)
Geoff Hartlieb (Rockies)
Jake Woodford (Pirates)

Diamond Sports Group Planning To Cut Ties With 11 MLB Clubs

By Darragh McDonald | October 2, 2024 at 1:55pm CDT

Diamond Sports Group said in court today that it plans to broadcast just one MLB club next year, the Braves, per reporting from Evan Drellich of The Athletic. The company, which owns the Bally Sports Networks, also had deals with the Reds, Tigers, Royals, Angels, Marlins, Cardinals, Rays but plans on walking away from those. As Drellich notes, as part of the company’s ongoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy process, they can accept and reject contracts though the measures have to be approved by the court. The Brewers, Guardians, Twins and Rangers had one-year deals with Diamond for 2024. Those 11 clubs will now have to renegotiate new deals with Diamond or find other broadcasting arrangements.

Drellich provides some more specifics on X, noting that it’s more complicated than Diamond simply abandoning these 11 clubs, but that seems to be the company’s goal regardless. Alden González of ESPN adds some more details, noting that a confirmation hearing has been set for November 14 and 15 in Houston. The Marlins and Diamond have mutual interest in working out a new deal, per a report from Barry Jackson and Craig Mish of the Miami Herald. The Angels are working on a new deal with Diamond, per Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register.

Per Drellich, league representatives said they were “sandbagged” by the news. “We have no information about what is being done,” said Jim Bromley, lawyer for MLB. “We’ve had no opportunity to review and now we’re in front of the court and being asked to make our comments.”

The ongoing financial situation of Diamond Sports Group has been a significant part of baseball’s economic landscape for a long time and this could prove to be a major development as part of that narrative. Largely due to cord cutting, the regional sports network model has been gradually collapsing in recent history. In the 2022-23 offseason, reports emerged that Diamond was in rough shape financially and the company filed for bankruptcy before the 2023 MLB season began.

They dropped their contracts with the Padres and Diamondbacks during that 2023 campaign. It threatened to do the same with the Guardians, Twins and Rangers for 2024 but ultimately renegotiated lower fees with those clubs and continued those broadcasts through this year. Now it seems like the company is continuing down this path but with an even more aggressive severing of their existing ties to Major League Baseball.

This is bound to have short-term effects on clubs and players. These contracts have been sources of significant revenue for clubs, as MLBTR covered earlier this year. The 11 teams that Diamond plans to cut ties with were previously receiving between $33MM (Brewers) and $125MM (Angels) on an annual basis. Per reporting in April, the Padres were set to receive about $60MM in 2023 before their deal with Diamond collapsed. The league reportedly covered about 80% of those fees last year but didn’t plan to do so in 2024 and beyond.

Uncertainty around broadcast revenue seemingly played a major role in the 2023-24 offseason, which was disappointing for players. Teams like the Padres, Rangers, Twins and others were either cutting payroll or not increasing it as much as had previously been expected, with the TV situation often being used as justification. This appeared to play a role in various free agents not finding markets as strong as they had anticipated and many of them lingered unsigned into the early months of 2024 and/or signed for deals well below projections. It seems fair to expect that similar narratives could emerge in the coming winter.

Per González, a company source says that Diamond is still hoping to sign new deals with the 11 clubs being cut out today. However, that would presumably involve reduce fee payments, such as those received by the Guardians, Twins and Rangers this year. As mentioned up top, the Marlins and Angels seem to expect to continue their relationship with Diamond/Bally in 2025, though negotiating new deals may take some time.

In the long-term picture, MLB might be happy to be further cutting ties with Diamond. They have continually expressed skepticism about the company’s plans to stay afloat. Diamond has tried various methods of refinancing, including signing a streaming deal with Amazon, but the league hasn’t seemed convinced that any of the company’s plans would lead to long-term stability.

As mentioned, the league has already started selling some games to fans in direct-to-customer fashion. Commissioner Rob Manfred has aspirations of marketing a digital streaming package consisting of several MLB teams, which fans could watch without blackout restrictions. MLB.TV already exists and allows fans to watch most games, but the RSN deals lead to certain teams being blacked out in the areas covered by those deals.

Having less commitment with Diamond going forward will increase the viability of that streaming plan over the years to come. However, as mentioned, less TV revenue figures to have a sizeable impact on the short-term economics of the game. This will lead to ripple effects throughout the upcoming offseason and will likely be worrisome for certain players hitting the open market in the coming weeks. New deals could be negotiated between now and the 2025 season, which could put some money back on the table, though likely less than in previous years.

There is also the matter of the fan experience, as there were times in 2024 where the Braves were not available on TV to some customers during a dispute between Bally’s and Comcast. For fans of these 11 clubs today, they will have to keep an eye on the proceedings to determine if their favorite club will still be accessed in the ways they are accustomed to or if they will have to switch to some new broadcast model.

Royals Activate Vinnie Pasquantino For Wild Card Series

By Steve Adams | October 1, 2024 at 9:14am CDT

The Royals announced their Wild Card Series roster this morning, revealing within that first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino is being reinstated from the injured list. He’ll be back in the middle of the Kansas City lineup taking on Orioles ace Corbin Burnes in today’s Game 1 matchup.

It’s a rapid return for Pasquantino, who suffered a broken thumb back on Aug. 29 and was originally projected for a recovery period of six to eight weeks. He’ll instead return to the lineup in about five weeks’ time and jump right back into the fray without the benefit of a rehab assignment.

There’s some obvious risk for rust or lingering effects of that fractured digit, but the Royals are surely thrilled to have one of their best hitters cleared to take the field. The 26-year-old Pasquantino hit .262/.315/.446 (108 wRC+) this season and ranked third on the team with 19 homers and 97 runs plated. He’s the toughest strikeout among Royals regulars, too, fanning in a tiny 12.8% of his trips to the plate this season.

Pasquantino’s ahead-of-schedule return will effectively squeeze Robbie Grossman off the team’s postseason roster, at least for this round. Kansas City is going with 11 pitchers and 15 position players. Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha are lined up to start the three games, with a contingent of Kris Bubic, Lucas Erceg, Sam Long, Michael Lorenzen, Daniel Lynch IV, John Schreiber, Brady Singer and Angel Zerpa available in relief. They’ll carry eight infielders (Pasquantino, Paul DeJong, Adam Frazier, Maikel Garcia, Yuli Gurriel, Garrett Hampson, Michael Massey and Bobby Witt Jr.) in addition to five outfielders (Dairon Blanco, Kyle Isbel, MJ Melendez, Tommy Pham, Hunter Renfroe) and their two catchers (Freddy Fermin, Salvador Perez).

Vinnie Pasquantino Ahead Of Schedule, Could Return For Wild Card Series

By Nick Deeds | September 29, 2024 at 1:03pm CDT

Royals first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino saw his regular season come to an end a month ago when he suffered a broken right thumb. It was a devastating blow to Kansas City’s offense, and the initial timeline provided at the time left him set to miss the next six-to-eight weeks, not only ending his regular season but likely keeping him out for most if not all of the postseason. Flash forward to today, however, and things are looking far more optimistic. As noted by Jaylon Thompson of the Kansas City Star, Pasquantino is under consideration to be activated from the injured list to join the club’s roster for the AL Wild Card series, which begins on Tuesday.

The move would be something of a shock just four weeks after his injury, but Thompson notes that the 26-year-old has resumed taking batting practice and even faced live pitching yesterday. In an interview during the team’s broadcast of last night’s game, GM J.J. Picollo noted that Pasquantino “felt good” after the session but that the club will need to evaluate him today before deciding whether to activate him or have him continue rehabbing in hopes of impacting the club deeper into the playoffs, should they make it that far. Per MLB.com’s Anne Rogers, the club plans for Pasquantino to face live pitching again tomorrow before they make a decision on whether or not to activate him for Tuesday’s Wild Card Series.

If Pasquantino is truly healthy enough to return early, it would be a major boost to Kansas City’s offense. In 131 games with the Royals this year, the 26 year old has hit a respectable .262/.315/.446 with 19 homers in 554 trips to the plate and a 108 wRC+. That makes him just one of four Royals hitters with a better than league average wRC+ alongside second baseman Michael Massey, veteran backstop Salvador Perez, and MVP candidate Bobby Witt Jr. For a Royals club that has primarily made it to the postseason off the back of an excellent starting rotation (as well as the offensive heroics of Witt), adding another reliable bat to the lineup could be a game changer for the Royals as they head into their first postseason series since winning the 2015 World Series nearly a decade ago.

While the first baseman could return to action for the series, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be playing first base. Thompson notes that the club activated Massey back in June before he was ready to return defensively, instead using him exclusively as a DH and pinch hitter for two weeks before eventually being eased back into defensive duties at the keystone. Should the Royals follow a similar path with Pasquantino, it’s possible he wouldn’t retake his role at first base until late in the playoffs, if at all.

That would leave Yuli Gurriel, who has slashed .260/.361/.320 (96 wRC+) across 17 games with the Royals this year, in place as the club’s first baseman, while Pasquantino is installed as the club’s everyday DH during the postseason. In recent weeks, the Royals haven’t had a set DH and have instead used that spot in the lineup to rest players but Pasquantino’s return would seem likely to cost Freddy Fermin playing time by causing the club to start Perez behind the plate more frequently. That said, it’s also possible that Perez could be used as the club’s regular first baseman, leaving Fermin behind the plate and pushing Gurriel to the bench.

Royals Notes: Lorenzen, Marsh, Harvey, McArthur

By Anthony Franco | September 24, 2024 at 10:08pm CDT

Michael Lorenzen will return from the 15-day injured list tomorrow. The Royals list him as the probable starter for the second game of their series in Washington. Kansas City will need to make a corresponding active roster move.

It’s a crucial start as K.C. fights for a playoff spot. The Royals squeaked out a 1-0 win in extra innings over the Nationals tonight. That kept them in front of the Tigers for the AL’s second Wild Card spot via the tiebreaker. They’re two games up on the Twins and 2.5 clear of the Mariners in the race.

Lorenzen has been down for more than a month because of a left hamstring strain. Acquired from the Rangers at the deadline, the righty had a sparkling 1.85 earned run average in 24 1/3 innings over his first five starts. That excellent run prevention was in spite of mediocre strikeout (17%) and walk (10%) rates. Lorenzen’s results have generally outpaced his peripherals for consecutive seasons. He carries a 3.43 ERA over 126 frames between Texas and K.C. this year.

Alec Marsh stepped back into the rotation while Lorenzen was on the shelf. He pitched fairly well, turning in a 4.50 ERA while striking out more than 32% of opponents over four starts. Marsh is moving into the bullpen to open a rotation spot, tweets Jaylon Thompson of the K.C. Star. The 26-year-old righty has turned in a 4.65 ERA with a solid 23% strikeout rate over 25 appearances (24 starts) on the year. He had an excellent start to the season before a terrible July led the Royals to option him to Triple-A for the three weeks preceding Lorenzen’s injury.

While Lorenzen’s return is a boost to the pitching staff, skipper Matt Quatraro provided disheartening updates on a pair of relievers this afternoon. The Royals have officially ruled out Hunter Harvey and James McArthur for the season, Quatraro said (X link via Anne Rogers of MLB.com). Harvey has been out since the middle of August with a back injury, while the Royals lost McArthur to an elbow sprain last week.

Quatraro said the Royals were sending Harvey for a second opinion, which at least raises the question of whether he’ll need surgery. Injuries have been a recurring problem for the 29-year-old righty. Harvey underwent Tommy John surgery as a prospect and has had extended absences during his MLB career for forearm, lat and elbow injuries.

Harvey can be a high-leverage reliever at his best, as he showed with the Nationals between 2023-24. He fired 60 2/3 innings of 2.82 ERA ball last season. This season’s 4.20 mark across 45 frames wasn’t as impressive, but Harvey punched out more than 26% of opponents behind a 13.4% swinging strike rate. The Royals viewed him as a late-game weapon and sent third base prospect Cayden Wallace plus the 39th pick in this summer’s draft to acquire him. They’ve gotten essentially nothing out of that deal, as Harvey allowed four runs over 5 2/3 innings before going on the shelf.

Kansas City controls Harvey for one more year via arbitration. The Royals would tender him a contract if they expect him to be back early in 2025, but a long-term injury could obviously change the calculus. He’d be due a small raise on this year’s $2.325MM sum.

McArthur operated as Kansas City’s closer for a time. He picked up 18 saves but also blew seven leads. McArthur’s heavy reliance on ground-balls without many whiffs plays better in the middle innings than it does in the ninth. His year concludes with a 4.92 ERA through 56 2/3 frames. The Royals are using deadline acquisition Lucas Erceg as their closer while turning high-leverage innings to converted starter Kris Bubic and left-hander Sam Long.

Royals’ James McArthur Placed On Injured List

By Steve Adams | September 17, 2024 at 2:45pm CDT

2:45pm: The Royals have placed McArthur on the 15-day IL with a right elbow sprain, recalling right-hander Steven Cruz in a corresponding move.

11:43am: Royals reliever James McArthur exited last night’s game due to elbow tightness, the team announced. He’s undergoing testing today to determine the source of the discomfort and the severity of any potential injury, per Anne Rogers of MLB.com.

McArthur initially looked to have suffered a hand injury when covering first base on an infield single off the bat of Zach McKinstry, but manager Matt Quatraro tells Rogers that wasn’t the issue. McArthur stayed in to face the next batter after McKinstry reached but shook his arm after missing badly off the plate on a fastball to Jake Rogers (video link). He began to set for his next pitch, but catcher Salvador Perez called for the training staff after seeing his right-hander shake that arm. Per Quatraro, McArthur acknowledged that “something felt off” in his arm, and he quickly departed with trainer Chris DeLucia.

The 27-year-old McArthur opened the 2024 season as the Royals’ closer and still leads the club with 18 saves, though he’s since ceded ninth-inning duties to deadline acquisition Lucas Erceg. That switch was borne both out of both Erceg’s excellence and a midseason rough patch for the hard-throwing McArthur. After a couple of rocky appearances to begin the season, McArthur found his groove and rattled off 36 2/3 innings of 3.22 ERA ball from April 5 through July 23. Those are arbitrary endpoints, of course, but it’s roughly half a season’s worth of quality bullpen work from a pitcher who’d been trusted with the highest-leverage role in Quatraro’s bullpen.

McArthur, however, was shelled for eight runs over his next two appearances on July 24 and 28. The Royals acquired Erceg from the Athletics two days later. McArthur has pitched primarily in a middle relief role since and has a 3.77 ERA in 14 1/3 innings in that span, with the bulk of the damage against him coming in one brutal day at Yankee Stadium. Overall, McArthur has a 4.92 ERA on the season, although that number is skewed heavily by his past six weeks or so of tumultuous performance.

There hasn’t been a pronounced drop in McArthur’s velocity, although his sinker is down a bit in recent outings. He averaged 95.1 mph on the pitch through the sixth of September but has seen the pitch clock in at an average of 94.3 mph across his past three appearances. McArthur has had similar dips in velocity throughout the year, so it’s not necessarily alarming in isolation, but any change in stuff/velocity when coupled with arm discomfort is a red flag.

The Royals are already without deadline pickup Hunter Harvey (back strain) and veteran free-agent signees Will Smith (back spasms) and Chris Stratton (flexor strain). Erceg, John Schreiber and former starters Kric Bubic and Daniel Lynch IV are among the top options left in an increasingly injury-marred Kansas City bullpen.

AL Central Notes: Moncada, Lorenzen, Larnach

By Leo Morgenstern | September 15, 2024 at 5:58pm CDT

The White Sox told reporters (including James Fegan of Sox Machine) that third baseman Yoán Moncada will be activated for tomorrow’s game against the Angels. Moncada has been out with a left adductor strain since April 9. Prior to his injury, he was off to a relatively strong start in 2024, going 11-for-39 (.282) with a 122 wRC+ in 11 games.

Moncada has dealt with injuries in almost every season of his career, and outside of a phenomenal performance in 2019, he has struggled to live up to his top prospect billing. However, if he can be just a league-average hitter and a capable defender at third base, the 29-year-old will represent a huge upgrade for the White Sox lineup over the final two weeks of the season. Miguel Vargas, who has been starting for the club at third base since the trade deadline, is batting .112 with a .395 OPS so far in his brief tenure on the South Side. He has made four errors in just 27 games at third base, accruing -2 OAA and -2 DRS. The White Sox aren’t going to give up Vargas (himself a former top prospect) just yet, but there is no denying that Moncada should make for a significant improvement.

Chicago doesn’t have much to play for this year, but the club is still hoping to avoid setting a new modern-day record for most losses in a season. Meanwhile, Moncada is looking to make a strong impression before most likely entering free agency in the offseason; the White Sox are all but certain to turn down his $25MM club option for 2025 in favor of a $5MM buyout.

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