After dropping 106 video games in 2023, the Royals responded to the embarrassing outcome by happening a relative spending spree final winter. Bobby Witt Jr.’s 11-year, $288.78MM extension naturally drew many of the consideration, however Kansas Metropolis spent $110.5MM on free agent contracts, most notably bringing Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha to bolster the pitching employees. The technique paid off handsomely, because the Royals rebounded for his or her first successful document and playoff berth since 2015.
Not content material to only make the postseason, Okay.C. defeated the Orioles within the Wild Card Sequence earlier than falling to the Yankees in 4 video games within the ALDS. This playoff run supplied a little bit of a nationwide showcase for Cole Ragans, who had a sterling 0.90 ERA in 10 innings and two postseason begins.
Witt’s MVP-level efficiency, Salvador Perez’s sturdy bounce-back yr, and the rapid affect of Lugo and Wacha rightly drew lots of credit score for the Royals’ success, but in addition they considerably overshadowed Ragans’ continued excellence since coming to the Royals in June 2023. Persevering with the “below the radar” theme, Ragans’ season could be drawing lots of Cy Younger Award buzz if Tarik Skubal wasn’t such a heavy favourite for the trophy. In actual fact, Skubal is the one AL pitcher who had a better fWAR than Ragans, and solely Chris Sale and Zack Wheeler topped Ragans among the many Nationwide League’s arms.
Ragans posted a 3.14 ERA over 186 1/3 innings, and his 29.3% strikeout price and 31.8% whiff price each ranked in a minimum of the 88th percentile of all pitchers. Ragans did a very good job of limiting onerous contact and avoiding dwelling runs, which couldn’t be solely attributed to pitching at Kauffman Stadium — the left-hander’s street ERA (2.87) was truly higher than his dwelling ERA (3.40). A below-average 8.8% stroll price was the one actual flaw in Ragans’ arsenal, although he a minimum of improved on his 10.5% stroll price from the 2023 season.
The changeup has been Ragans’ most persistently strong pitch over his three MLB seasons, and batters solely hit .183 in opposition to the offspeed providing in 2024. The large distinction in arsenal this season, nevertheless, was that Ragans began to extra totally capitalize on his 95.4mph fastball’s elite spin price. Ragans’ fastball was ranked by Statcast as a below-average pitch in 2022 and 2023, however including about 1.2 inches of vertical break on the pitch from 2023 to 2024 appeared to unlock one thing particular, as his four-seamer was out of the blue among the many more practical pitches in all of baseball.
This huge yr solely continued the sudden success Ragans loved after he was traded to the Royals (together with outfield prospect Roni Cabrera) from the Rangers for Aroldis Chapman in June 2023. Chosen thirtieth general within the 2016 draft, Ragans’ profession was placed on maintain for everything of the 2018-20 seasons as a result of two Tommy John surgical procedures after which the canceled 2020 minor league season. He pitched nicely sufficient after his return to motion to finally earn his first MLB call-up in 2022, and Ragans had a 4.95 ERA over 9 begins and 40 innings for Texas in his rookie season.
Figuring out of the bullpen in 2023, Ragans had struggled to a 5.92 ERA in 24 1/3 reduction innings on the time of the commerce, however the Royals instantly gave him one other look within the rotation. As if a swap was flipped, Ragans posted a 2.64 ERA in 12 begins and 71 2/3 innings over the rest of the 2023 marketing campaign, and the Royals out of the blue had a rotation constructing block as a silver lining inside their dismal season.
After now a full season of success for Ragans, that Royals/Rangers commerce is trying like one of many extra impactful win-win deadline offers in latest reminiscence. Calling it a “deadline deal” is maybe a misnomer because it got here a month earlier than the commerce deadline, because the Royals had been already in promote mode and the Rangers had been determined to shore up their badly struggling reduction corps. Groups are inclined to have greater asking costs in commerce talks additional upfront of the deadline, but transferring Ragans was a value the Rangers had been keen to pay as a way to obtain bullpen assist as shortly as doable.
Whereas Chapman wasn’t precisely hermetic throughout his time in Arlington, he pitched nicely sufficient down the stretch and within the playoffs to assist Texas safe its first World Sequence championship. The “flags fly endlessly” mantra is a fairly good salve for any regrets the Rangers or their followers might need about letting Ragans go for a rental reliever, whereas the Okay.C. group is undoubtedly thrilled with every thing they’ve seen from their new ace.
Ragans turns 27 in December, and nonetheless has one other full season remaining earlier than reaching wage arbitration. Locking up Ragans to a contract extension would assist the Royals get some price certainty over a pitcher whose ceiling solely appears to be rising, plus the rotation might use some solidification since Wacha will certainly train his opt-out clause and take a look at free company once more. On the flip aspect, since Ragans is below workforce management via his age-30 season and already has two Tommy John surgical procedures on his resume, the Royals may nicely maintain off on any critical extension talks and simply go year-by-year with Ragans for now.
Deciding easy methods to finest cope with the sudden windfall of a frontline pitcher is a pleasant downside for the Royals to have, and in hindsight the Ragans commerce was the primary signal that Okay.C. was going to capable of rebound from its 106-loss catastrophe. An incapacity to develop homegrown pitching prospects stalled the Royals’ rebuild for years, so there may be some irony in the truth that the workforce’s emergence has now been led partially by one other workforce’s seemingly stalled prospect.