Royals GM JJ Picollo emphasized the importance of improving the starting pitching this offseason. His first move was acquiring free agent Seth Lugo, who previously pitched for the San Diego Padres and New York Mets.
The Royals inked Lugo to a three-year deal worth $45 million, with the first two years guaranteed and the final year a player option.
Even though it was a step in the right direction for a starting pitching group that ranked in the bottom of most categories a season ago, there was still some skepticism about how much of an impact Lugo would have in 2024 and throughout his contract with the Royals.
After all, Lugo is 34 years old, and last season in San Diego was his first as a regular starting pitcher since 2017. He did post a 3.57 ERA and generated a 2.8 fWAR in 26 starts and 146.1 IP with the Padres last season with his inning total and fWAR career-highs.
However, his xERA of 4.42 and 3.83 FIP were a little less impressive. There was also some concern about his durability as a starting pitcher, especially for a pitcher who’s never touched the 150+ inning mark in a season at the Major League level.
Despite the initial skepticism, Lugo has flourished so far in Kansas City, as evidenced by his line in his first four starts with the Royals in 2024.
His overall numbers highlight how dominating Lugo has been so far this year. In addition, his most recent start on Monday against the White Sox in the Royals’ 2-0 victory may have been his finest of the year.
Royals fans hoped that Lugo would boost Kansas City’s 2024 rotation when Picollo inked him to a three-year deal in December. However, it’s safe to say that they didn’t expect him to be not just one of the best starters on the team but arguably one of the hottest pitchers in the league in April.
Now, the Royals are only 19 games into the 2024 season. Thus, that begs Royals fans to ask the question:
Is this a hot streak for Lugo or a sign of things coming in 2024 and beyond?
Let’s examine the data and see if what we’re seeing from Lugo can be (somewhat) sustained over the year.
Lugo’s Seeing a Bounce Back in CSW in Latest Outing
For the season, Lugo has sported a six-pitch mix that has given opposing hitters fits, even though it’s not producing a lot of strikeouts.
In four starts and 25.2 IP, Lugo has only produced a 12.5% K rate and 6.9% K-BB%, significantly down from a season ago. Lugo wasn’t a high-strikeout pitcher last year in San Diego, but he still produced a 23.2% K rate and 17.2% K-BB%.
In his K% zone charts from 2023 and 2024, Royals fans can see that Lugo isn’t getting the strikeouts on the edges like he did last year in San Diego.
Even though the strikeouts and whiffs (18.6%) are both down, I do not think Royals fans should be panicking yet.
First, according to Pitcher List game logs, Lugo showed significant progress in CSW ability from his first start against the White Sox on April 4th to yesterday’s outing.
Here’s a glance at his first start against the White Sox this year on April 4th at Kauffman Stadium.
It wasn’t a bad start, and the results were still overall positive (6.2 IP; 8 H; 1 ER; 2 BB; 3K).
On the flip side, it wasn’t a dominant outing, and the lower overall CSW% (24.4%) and HC% (33.3%) seemed to illustrate that. Furthermore, it came against a White Sox offense that has been pretty lackluster in 2024, even at full strength.
Let’s look at that same data set from Monday’s start.
Royals fans can argue that yesterday wasn’t a dominating outing, either. However, it was a step in the right direction, especially with the CSW% up to 29.3%, the HC% down to 20%, and the Zone% and Str% close to what we saw in his previous start against the White Sox.
It was also encouraging to see his four-seamer (37.8% CSW) and curveball (35.3% CSW) produce strong results on a strike-generating end, especially since they didn’t do that in his previous outing against the White Sox (22.6% CSW on four-seamer; 22.2% CSW on curveball).
Below is a glance at his nasty curveball from last night, which contributed to his high CSW on the pitch and a strikeout of Gavin Sheets, the White Sox’s hottest hitter so far this year.
In fact, Lugo’s CSW% was his highest percentage in a start since his first outing of the year against the Twins, when he posted a 33.7% CSW in 6.0 IP and 86 pitches. Seeing that kind of rebound in his fourth outing of the year shows that Lugo is grasping his stuff and figuring out how to mix his pitches to success.
Regarding his overall CSW numbers on his pitches, it seems like Lugo has been leaning on his four-seamer, curve, and slider to find strike-generating success on the mound. According to Pitcher List, all three pitches currently have CSW over 30%.
It seems like his four-seamer, curveball, and sinker have proved to be strong pitches on a CS% end (all over 20%), while his slider has been his go-to pitch when it comes to getting swings and misses (19.6% SwStr%). The changeup has struggled to be effective in either category, and its 19% CSW demonstrates that.
Will Lugo condense the pitch mix to boost his CSW with some of his other pitches as the season progresses?
That will be a development worth watching, though Lugo’s six-pitch mix makes him a problematic pitcher to scout and prepare for.
Lugo Limiting Hard and Productive Contact So Far
Even though Lugo has not generated many strikeouts so far in 2024, he’s doing an excellent job of keeping batters from hitting the ball hard, which has helped him limit the runs.
According to Baseball Savant, Lugo is giving up a 4.9% barrel rate and 33.3% hard-hit rate, which ranks him in the 69th and 68th percentiles, respectively. Furthermore, according to Pitcher List, he’s allowing an ICR% (Ideal Contact Rate) of 32.1%. That not only ranks in the 79th percentile, but it is also 9.3% lower than his ICR a season ago.
Look below at Lugo’s hard-hit zone chart from the past two seasons. It appears that Lugo is doing a better job of minimizing the hard contact on pitches in the corners of the strike zone.
So, what is contributing to his encouraging overall batted ball metrics? The contact metrics on all six of his pitches this year via Pitcher List can provide much insight.
He makes up for pitches on which he’s not generating great CSW rates by inducing a lot of poor contact (PC%).
For example, his sinker and changeup have CSW rates of 22.7% and 19%, respectively, which isn’t great. On the flip side, though, his sinker generates a PC% of 68.2%, and his changeup produces a PC% of 75%. That’s a recipe for success, especially with pitches that may not generate much swing and miss.
He also does an excellent job of inducing groundballs with the sinker and changeup at a high rate, as they sport GB rates of 54.5% and 50%, respectively.
Here’s an example of Lugo inducing an easy groundout with the sinker on a pulled batted ball by Jake Meyers of the Astros (which ends the inning).
Furthermore, let’s look at Lugo’s changeup, which caused Andrew Benintendi to pull the ball on the ground to first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino, leading to an easy unassisted ground out on April 4th at Kauffman Stadium.
His curveball also generates a high GB%, currently at 68.4% after his latest start, the best of any of his six pitches. The only difference with the curve is that it is also one of his best pitches on a CSW%. Thus, the curve is his strongest overall pitch, and the “stuff” metrics seem to back that assertion up based on the Pitcher List data.
The curveball possesses the second-best PLV (5.27) and the highest spin rate (3,195) of his six pitches this year. Therefore, it makes sense that the curve is a complete pitch that can get hitters to swing and miss and make weak contact, which is a nice combo.
Conversely, his sinker and changeup, unlike his curveball, won’t get on Pitching Ninja’s Twitter or generate much fanfare among pitching enthusiasts. Lugo is cut from a different mold from Ragans, who is known for producing eye-popping stuff and sensational strikeouts.
That said, although Lugo differs in style and stuff from Ragans, it doesn’t mean he’s been any less effective on the mound.
This is exactly what the Royals need to continue competing for the AL Central division title.
Should Royals Fans Have Any Concerns?
According to Pitcher List, Lugo’s .259 BABIP after his latest start ranks in the 69th percentile and is 39 points lower than his BABIP last year in San Diego. His xERA and xFIP are also high, with 4.06 and 4.63 marks, respectively.
Without elite strikeout (9th percentile) or whiff ability (12th percentile), it may only be a matter of time before the hits and runs catch up with Lugo this year.
He has been getting pretty lucky with his slider and changeup so far, as those pitches only have batting averages of .133 and .250, respectively. Conversely, his xBA metrics hint that some regression may be coming on those pitches.
The .143 BABIP and .250 BABIP on that slider and changeup also don’t bode well for Lugo’s outlook on those offerings. Furthermore, he’s been experiencing considerable batted ball luck on his four-seamer, which has a 56-point difference between his xBA and actual batting average.
All those factors seem to hint at regression sometime soon.
How much regression, though, is still hard to determine.
ZiPS projections on Fangraphs think Lugo will finish the year with a 4.28 ERA and 4.30 FIP in 111 innings of work. ZiPS projects that the BABIP will rise considerably (to .305), and the LOB% will also fall considerably (from 89.3% now to 71.5%, which is pretty average). However, ZiPS believes that Lugo will get better at striking out batters as the season progresses, as his ROS (rest of season) projections predict that he will have an 18.4% K% this year, up 5.5% from his current K%.
Lugo did see a bump in K% in his most recent 20-25 plate appearances, so it certainly is a possibility, as evidenced by his rolling K% breakdown chart via Savant.
Will Lugo continue to be a pitcher with a 1.05 ERA for the remainder of 2024?
Absolutely not. What Lugo is doing metrically in the surface-level metrics is unsustainable; even Lugo and manager Matt Quatraro would admit that.
However, Lugo is proving to be an effective pitcher who can get batters out in many ways and eat a lot of innings in the process.
That makes him an effective pitcher worth optimism from Royals fans, even if his ERA may rise to between 3.50 and 4.00 by the end of the 2024 campaign.
For a No. 2 starter on a team coming off a 106-loss season, that kind of performance is a step in the right direction, especially in the long term. Lugo can be an arm the Royals can depend on.
Photo Credit: Patrick Gorski-USA TODAY Sports
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