Royals Roster Projection 1: The Pitching Staff

Spring training has officially begun with pitchers and catchers reporting yesterday, so let's look at the Royals roster as it stands today.

We have made it! The Kansas City Royals last played baseball on October 1 and they won the game. It was their 56th win of the season, which allowed them to only tie their worst record in franchise history rather than set a new record for futility. What came next was an offseason with as many or more changes than I can ever remember. They went out and signed seven big league contracts to bring in free agents and traded for another big leaguer. To add eight players to a 26-man roster is kind of crazy, but let’s be honest, it had to happen.

So here we sit with pitchers and catchers having reported yesterday and the team has a familiar enough feel to it, but is very different than the one that beat the Yankees 5-2 on that final day of 2023. Normally I start my roster projections with the position players, but since they haven’t officially reported yet, I’m going to start this season with the pitching staff and then I’ll get to the position players tomorrow. In this version, I’m going to use last season’s stats, and in future editions, I’ll dig in with some projections to change things up.

Starters

Cole Ragans - 29 G, 12 GS, 96.0 IP, 70 H, 28.8% K, 10.5% BB, 3.47 ERA, 3.28 xERA

Michael Wacha - 24 GS, 134.1 IP, 113 H, 22.4% K, 7.8% BB, 3.22 ERA, 4.30 xERA

Seth Lugo - 26 GS, 146.1 IP, 140 H, 23.2% K, 6.0% BB, 3.57 ERA, 4.48 xERA

Brady Singer - 29 GS, 159.2 IP, 182 H, 18.9% K, 7.0% BB, 5.52 ERA, 4.93 xERA

Jordan Lyles - 31 GS, 177.2 IP, 176 H, 16.0% K, 6.0% BB, 6.28 ERA, 5.03 xERA

This group is pretty well set in my mind, as of right now. The Royals went out and got Wacha and Lugo to stabilize a bad group from last season. In an era when starters are pitching less and less, the Royals still only had more innings from their starters than five teams. Some of that was the utilization of an opener, but most of it was ineffectiveness. It wasn’t until Ragans was acquired that they had a pitcher consistently giving six effective innings. Only three starting staffs struck out fewer batters by percentage, but they did have the 11th-best walk rate in baseball, so at least there’s that.

Now they’ve added Wacha and Lugo. Neither is an ace and neither is a 100 percent sure thing, but Wacha is coming off two straight good years and Lugo was good last year in converting back to a starter after relieving for years. Ideally, they’ll end up the third and fourth starters with Ragans and Singer stepping up as the two best, but they give the Royals a much higher floor than they once had. Those additions allowing Lyles to be the fifth starter makes the rotation better.

The rotation being so much better in front of him allows the Royals to look at Lyles in a couple of ways. He can either get pulled earlier because they don’t need innings out of him since others are providing them or they can handle a rougher start every fifth day in the interest of getting more innings because they are winning more games on other days. Either way, Lyles is more palatable than he was in 2023 with this setup. No that doesn’t mean anyone is excited about him pitching every fifth day, but it’s a little bit better.

I haven’t even gotten to Ragans, who was just outstanding after the Royals acquired him for Aroldis Chapman. What’s crazy about his 2.64 ERA in 71.2 innings is that there isn’t anything inherently terribly fluky about it. His FIP was actually lower than that number. He got a bunch of whiffs, didn’t give up hard contact and gave the Royals some innings. I’m not sure if we can fully expect more of the same over 30 starters in 2024, but I’m also not sure that we shouldn’t expect it. I certainly won’t be surprised if we look up in mid-August and Ragans is sitting with an ERA in the low-3s with more than a strikeout per inning.

Then there’s Singer, who looked like he broke out in 2022 only to have a terrible 2023. Many wanted to blame the World Baseball Classic, and they might have been right, but it’s hard to know for sure and because of that, it sort of just feels like an excuse. His velocity was down and then continued to fall before he finally went on the IL with a back issue. That almost made me feel better about him because when a pitcher tanks and his velocity tanks with him, you wonder where in the hell that came from. Well, at least there’s a reason. Even if he’s not 2022 Singer, but he can be 2020 Singer, the Royals will be better for it.

As I’ve written quite a bit, the depth is just significantly stronger and has a chance to continue to be even stronger as the season progresses. Kris Bubic is working his way back from Tommy John, so he’ll become an option somewhere around midseason. Prospects like Mason Barnett, Chandler Champlain and David Sandlin could emerge as options down the stretch. What’s nice is it feels like none of those four are needed. In the past, we’d be twiddling our thumbs waiting for Bubic to get healthy or any of these prospects to rise. But now, there are five starters who you feel varying levels of confidence in and then a handful of others.

I touched on this last week, but Daniel Lynch IV, Angel Zerpa and Alec Marsh being the depth starters is considerably better than counting on them to be part of the starting five. I don’t know that I’d be surprised from anything from any of these three, good or bad. But it’s nice that they aren’t going to be relied on. I think Anthony Veneziano and Jonathan Bowlan also are part of the depth, though I’m not sure how likely it is that they’re really given a great chance to start in 2024.

What Could Change?

There isn’t a lot that I think will change between now and March 28 other than the obvious answer of an injury. That said, I have heard they are continuing to talk to teams and maybe that includes seeing if they can get a team to take on Lyles. I do think that in that scenario, they’d probably look to bring back Zack Greinke in that situation. I wonder a little if there’s anything other than injury or trade that could let someone else into this rotation and I sort of think there isn’t.

Relievers

Will Smith - 60 G, 57.1 IP, 44 H, 24.3% K, 7.5% BB, 4.40 ERA, 3.28 xERA

James McArthur - 18 G, 2 GS, 23.1 IP, 20 H, 25.6% K, 2.2% BB, 4.63 ERA, 2.95 xERA

Chris Stratton - 64 G, 82.2 IP, 69 H, 24.0% K, 7.4% BB, 3.92 ERA, 3.66 xERA

Nick Anderson - 35 G, 35.1 IP, 30 H, 25.5% K, 6.4% BB, 3.06 ERA, 3.66 xERA

John McMillon - 4 G, 4.0 IP, 1 H, 61.5% K, 0.0% BB, 2.25 ERA, 1.69 xERA

Carlos Hernandez - 67 G, 4 GS, 70.0 IP, 62 H, 25.7% K, 10.3% BB, 5.27 ERA, 4.67 xERA

Angel Zerpa - 15 G, 3 GS, 42.2 IP, 46 H, 19.8% K, 4.4% BB, 4.85 ERA, 4.27 xERA

Matt Sauer (AA) - 14 G, 13 GS, 68.1 IP, 49 H, 29.5% K, 10.3% BB, 3.42 ERA

I feel very confident in the first four names here, assuming health. Obviously Smith, Stratton and Anderson were brought in to be a part of the big league bullpen. None are making big money, of course, but all are relievers with big league success. And McArthur was so good in the final month of the season that he absolutely earned his spot to start the season, basically no matter what he does in spring training. That part is super easy to figure out. It’s the rest that could go in about a million different directions.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. McMillon is going to make this club if he’s healthy and everyone says he is. I’ll just need to see it to believe it, I think, so the next iteration of this roster projection could have him as one of five locks. He was so good throughout the minors last year and then looked great in about the smallest of samples before he got hurt. If you asked me to pick the guy who is the best of the bunch at the end of the year, I’d pick McMillon.

But the rest are a crapshoot. Hernandez was excellent for a good stretch of time in 2023 before he completely imploded. I actually don’t mind that volatility as the sixth-best reliever in a bullpen. It’s when that reliever is relied on as one of the shutdown relievers that it’s a problem. If he can be the guy he was before the trade deadline and he is the sixth reliever, this is going to be an excellent bullpen. If he’s relied upon too much, there’s a really good chance the Royals are in a world of danger.

I’ll get to Zerpa in a second, but Sauer is the Rule 5 pick who I think the Royals like enough that he’s worth keeping on the roster. He has the ability to actually factor into the rotation conversation, but probably not this season. I think unless they put him on the IL with some sort of injury that they will head into the spring with the plan that he’s a big leaguer for all of 2024, and I think that’s a smart move unless he proves otherwise during the regular season. So he might actually be with McMillon on the locks list in a later version of this.

And the last spot I have for Zerpa is one that I have absolutely zero confidence in. I think he fits as a guy who can give multiple innings and is a lefty, which they could use since Smith is the only lefty currently in the bullpen. I like Zerpa out of the bullpen more than as a starter, but I do think he’ll factor in as depth in the rotation as I said above. He gives a different look, though, and does throw strikes. That said, Jake Brentz has been kept around and has a big league contract, so he’s the guy I’d put in here if not Zerpa.

What Could Change?

Oh I don’t know, everything. Health is the obvious answer, but the Royals are going to have a lot of options here. Marsh and Lynch, along with Zerpa, are sitting as rotation depth, but any or all could be in this bullpen for any number of reasons. Veneziano and Bowlan got looks at the end of the season and they could be in there too.

Austin Cox is a name I didn’t expect would be available, but he got a non-roster invite to camp, so maybe he’s healthy. If he is, I actually think he’s the guy over Zerpa and Brentz given that he was generally pretty solid out of the bullpen, but I need to see him actually on a mound before I even think about him there. And then there’s Josh Taylor who has had more big league success than any of them, though he hasn’t been good in awhile.

They also have Steven Cruz, who got a fair amount of big league time last year, Will Klein, Christian Chamberlain, Beck Way and then a bunch of guys on minor league deals. That includes Dan Altavilla, Luis Cessa, Tyler Duffy and Sam Long. I think if all of them made the big league club, that would be a pretty big disaster, but any of them could work their way in. I think it’d be naive to think that there won’t be any injuries in spring training, so even the locks aren’t true locks, but there is some very real flexibility and depth to this group to start the spring.

So that’s the pitching staff I see right now, on day two. This will change, and maybe significantly. Tune back in tomorrow for the position players.