Royals Roster Projection 3: Pitchers
Just nine days to go before Opening Day. How do I think the Royals are going to line up with their pitching staff when the season gets going?
Last season’s Royals had the seventh-best ERA in baseball on their pitching staff, led by their starters posting the second-best ERA in the second-most innings of any team. The bullpen lagged behind for most of the year, but they were patching it along the way and by the time they got to September, it suddenly looked like more than a patch job. They had the fourth-best bullpen ERA in baseball in the season’s final month and then posted a 2.16 ERA in the playoffs. That playoff ERA was probably a bit unsustainable as it came with a 4.45 FIP, but we choose to look at the positive in spring training as often as we can. The point being that while they were 13th in baseball in runs scored (and fifth as late as August 29), pitching was the strength of last year’s club.
This year looks like more of the same. The rotation from one through three looks the same. Is that a good thing with two veterans getting a year older? I think it is for at least 2025. The bullpen got another new piece later in the winter and gets back an injured part that was supposed to help take it to the next level. With health, I think the Royals have a chance to have a top-five rotation and a top-five bullpen in the American League, which, by ERA, was true for the Mariners and Tigers last year. The staff, if all goes well, should give them a chance almost every day and, thus, a chance all season long.
As with yesterday’s hitters, I’m using their current spring stats, which feels a little sillier with a pitcher since they have so few innings, but here we are. I can’t turn back now.
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Starting Rotation
Cole Ragans - 5 G, 14.0 IP, 21 H, 21 K, 5 BB, 5.79 ERA
Seth Lugo - 4 G, 12.2 IP, 15 H, 14 K, 4 BB, 4.97 ERA
Michael Wacha - 3 G, 8.0 IP, 13 H, 10 K, 3 BB, 12.38 ERA
Michael Lorenzen - 3 G, 10.0 IP, 8 H, 8 K, 3 BB, 3.60 ERA
Kris Bubic - 5 G, 13.0 IP, 13 H, 13 K, 3 BB, 4.15 ERA
Ready to Help: Noah Cameron, Daniel Lynch IV, Alec Marsh, Steven Zobac
The Royals announced on Sunday that Ragans would get the Opening Day nod. That’s not surprising and if you like to do rotation math like I do, you probably figured that was the case when you noticed that Lugo was set to go the day after Ragans. So he’ll get game two. And they didn’t give Wacha $51 million for no reason, so he’s the three. After that, nothing is a guarantee though Lorenzen has always been the de facto fourth starter (though I do wonder if he’ll actually slot in behind a lefty so as not to have a team face lefties on back-to-back nights. That just leaves the fifth starter battle.
I wrote last week that Lynch made it way closer than I expected him to. He’s been good enough this spring and after his work in the bullpen last year that I sort of wonder if maybe I was wrong and he should be thought of as at least a depth starter, if not someone to get 20-25 starts in a season. Barring anything bizarre, I anticipate that Bubic will continue to hold on to the spot and take it into the regular season. But, as I’ve written often before, Bubic threw roughly 70 innings last year. He threw around 16 the year before. If you’re expecting 32 starts and 180 innings from Bubic this year, I have some land acquisition opportunities to discuss with you. There will be opportunities.