Going into the 2025 season, it was initially imagined that starting pitching would be a strength of this club due to its impressive depth.
After all, the Royals returned two starting pitchers who finished second (Seth Lugo) and fourth (Cole Ragans) in the AL Cy Young race last season. They also inked a crafty and proven veteran to a multi-year extension (Michael Wacha), brought back a veteran who could move between the rotation and bullpen seamlessly (Michael Lorenzen), transitioned a solid reliever back to the rotation (Kris Bubic), were expected to welcome a former 20-game winner coming off injury (Kyle Wright), and had two promising system-developed arms who appeared to have long-term upside (Alec Marsh and Noah Cameron).
However, there’s a reason why baseball isn’t played on paper or on a spreadsheet. A good rotation in March can suddenly turn into something much different by August and September, as was the case for the Royals this season.
The Royals have lost two pitchers for extended periods of time due to shoulder injuries. One is expected to miss the remainder of the season (Bubic), and the other (Ragans) is finally working his way back with some bullpen and scheduled for rehab starts in Omaha next week.
Wright has failed to pitch a Major League inning this season, while Marsh hasn’t pitched an inning at the Major OR Minor League level. Lorenzen spent some time on the IL due to an illness that turned into an oblique strain in July. Lastly, Lugo was finally placed on the IL after reports of a back injury didn’t improve after missing a start and some simulated work in Kansas City.
After the rotation stayed remarkably healthy in 2024, it’s been a bit of the inverse in 2025. And yet, despite having to patch work the rotation with different options throughout the season, this starting pitching staff ranks fourth in ERA, 12th in WHIP, and 5th in fWAR, according to Fangraphs.
Part of that success can be credited to Matt Quatraro for managing the rotation judiciously, as well as pitching coaches Brian Sweeney and Zach Bove for helping maximize the potential of their starting pitchers through tireless game planning and individual work with their arms.
That said, I think one of the biggest keys to the success of this rotation has been Wacha. He has been an anchor of stability for the Kansas City Royals this season and is a big reason why they are 72-69 and one game back of the Mariners in the AL Wild Card race, as of Saturday afternoon.
Wacha’s Solid and Underrated 2025
Wacha is not going to receive a whole lot of votes for the AL Cy Young award, though the case should be made that he’s been Kansas City’s most valuable pitcher this season (and perhaps in seasons past, both for the Royals and other clubs).
The 34-year-old Texas native lacks the “sexy” stats that capture the attention of BBWAA writers and analysts.
In 28 starts and 159 innings of work, he has a 3.45 ERA and 1.18 WHIP. Those numbers are good, but they’re not Cy Young-worthy by any stretch of the imagination, especially with pitchers like Detroit’s Tarik Skubal, Boston’s Garrett Crochet, Houston’s Framber Valdez, and the Yankees’ Max Fried in the American League. Those four pitchers sport K/9 marks of 11.24, 11.00, 8.82, and 8.47, respectively. As for Wacha? He has a 6.62 K/9.
And yet, despite not being a strikeout artist, Wacha has remained one of the most valuable starting pitchers in the American League this season.
According to Fangraphs, his 3.5 fWAR is the seventh-best mark in the AL this year, better than Texas’ Jacob deGrom, Toronto’s Kevin Gausman, and Seattle’s Bryan Woo. His 159 innings are also the 12th-best mark in the AL for starting pitchers, ahead of Baltimore’s Dean Kremer, Toronto’s Chris Bassitt, and Minnesota’s Joe Ryan.
His starts haven’t always been the most comfortable outings, but Wacha has proven to be an effective starter for the Royals, who has ended up being Kansas City’s “go-to” starter in big spots.
Looking at Wacha’s Arsenal This Season
When looking at his Stuff and Statcast metrics via TJ Stats, Wacha has succeeded this season by not just flooding the strike zone, but generating a decent amount of chase and weak contact. That has overcome his lackluster whiff rate (21.6%).
Wacha only sports a 97 TJ Stuff+ overall, but his zone rate is solid at 53.1% and his chase% and xwOBACON are decent at 28.3% and .365, respectively. As the case in previous seasons, his changeup has been his best pitch overall with a 59 grade, 53.9% zone rate, 36.7% chase rate, and .296 xwOBACON. Those are the best marks in those categories of the six pitches he throws. His 27.9% whiff rate on the changeup is second to his curve, which has a 31.7% whiff rate. However, Wacha throws his changeup 25.3% of the time, while he only throws his curve 7.8% of the time.
Nonetheless, the change and curve have been two of his best “swing and miss” offerings this season, and Wacha has found success with both of them in different ways, especially when it comes to command of the pitch.
When it comes to the changeup, Wacha has been able to generate a good number of whiffs on the pitch while throwing the offering in the strike zone, as seen in the pitch heatmap on changeup whiffs below via Savant.
As for the curveball, he has located the offering more out of the strike zone to generate whiffs. Furthermore, the curveball has been more of an offering located gloveside, while the changeup has been located more armside, based on the heatmap data.
Here’s the curveball whiff heatmap below via Savant.
The following compilation clip below demonstrates how Wacha has commanded the changeup and curveball effectively to generate whiffs, even though he’s not a great “whiff-inducing” pitcher overall. His strikeout of Arizona’s Blaze Alexander on the changeup and Minnesota’s Austin Martin on the curveball are prime examples of when Wacha’s command and pitch quality fully click.
When it comes to contact, Wacha has shown interesting trends in his cutter and sinker this year, as they have had an inverse relationship in terms of hard-hit rate. That is evident in his month-by-month hard-hit% rolling chart via Savant.
Notice how the cutter and sinker have been on opposite ends of the spectrum each month, until August, when they both met at the same point rate-wise.
Now, let’s take a look at Wacha’s pitch usage to see if any correlating trends emerge. While neither offering is a primary pitch, they both have been essential parts of his arsenal in 2025.
The cutter has been a more utilized offering, with a usage rate of 15.4% while the sinker has a usage rate of 10.4%. Interestingly enough, Wacha saw a bump in sinker usage in August, but saw that rate go down in his first start in September against the Twins.
In fact, here’s how his overall arsenal fared against the Twins in Friday night’s 2-1 win.
Even though he’s generated more whiffs with the change and curve, his sinker produced the second-best whiff rate of his offerings on Friday, with a 50% mark. Conversely, the cutter only produced an 11.1% whiff rate, but it was his best offering zone-wise with a 71.4% mark. He gave up a lot of hard contact with it (.577 xwOBACON), but overall, it was a solid pitch, stuff-wise, on Friday with a 97 TJ Stuff+, around his season average.
Wacha’s cutter produced some weak contact in key spots, like this one against Martin in the first inning, which resulted in a pop-up to Michael Massey and ended the inning with two runners on base.
Lastly, his four-seamer has been an intriguing offering for Wacha this year.
It seems like he has been more assertive with establishing his four-seamer this year compared to seasons past, and that is illustrated in his pitch% chart by season. According to the chart, his four-seamer surpassed his changeup as his most-used offering this season. The changeup was his primary pitch in both 2023 and 2024, the latter being his first season in Kansas City.
Last night was no different from the season trend for Wacha. He threw the four-seamer 31.3% of the time, and he effectively located the pitch, as illustrated by his four-seamer pitch description zone chart via Savant.
Not only did Wacha not allow any base hits on the four-seamer, but he also generated a good number of field outs and swinging strikes with the offering. This is despite the four-seamer sporting a 95 TJ Stuff+ mark last night. However, Wacha’s command of the offering and how it mixes with his other pitches can help make the pitch more effective, especially when Wacha’s overall command is on.
Below is an example of Wacha blowing a 93.7 MPH four-seamer right by Minnesota’s Matt Wallner, even with the pitch located right down the middle.
That shows that Wacha had the Twins hitters off balance all evening, with Wallner obviously looking for something else. Even though Wacha only went 5.2 IP in the outing, just one out short of a quality start, it was enough for the Royals to get the much-needed victory on Friday evening at Kauffman.
Wacha is a Crucial Key to the Royals’ Playoff Hopes
If all things go well, Ragans may be able to get a few starts this year, which would be huge since he’s been arguably the Royals’ best strikeout starting pitcher this season. He has a 36.4% K rate and 28.7% K-BB%, which leads all Kansas City pitchers by a wide margin, according to Fangraphs.
That said, while a Ragans return would be nice, the Royals need to depend on the established starters currently in the rotation to help carry them down the stretch. They need Lorenzen to have quality starts, like he did in Tuesday’s loss. Cameron has to be able to grind through outings, much like he did on Thursday after giving up three runs in the first. Lastly, they need young starters Ryan Bergert and Stephen Kolek to continue to step up during this critical time of the season.
At the end of the day, however, a lot falls on Wacha and how he performs for the remainder of the year.
Wacha right now is the leader of the rotation, especially with Lugo on the shelf. Even with Lugo healthy, no one on the Royals rotation has the playoff pedigree that Wacha does from his St. Louis Cardinals days. The Royals acquired Wacha not just to throw quality innings, but to help change the culture of a pitching staff that had been poor since the 2015 World Series runs.
Wacha has done that in nearly two seasons in Kansas City. He will likely do that for another couple of seasons with the Royals, at least.
Now, they need him to help lock things down over the next few weeks. Friday night was a promising sign that he may be ready for his best stretch of the season yet.
With 15.1% odds to make the postseason, according to Fangraphs, the Royals need the best version of Wacha now more than ever.
Photo Credit: Charlie Riedel/AP
[…] one walk in five innings of work, which isn’t good, especially for a starter who’s been seen as their go-to guy in the wake of injuries to Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo, and Kris Bubic this season. Conversely, he […]