The Royals play their final series of the year in Sacramento against the Athletics this weekend, starting tonight. As someone who grew up in Sacramento, it’s weird not just to see the A’s in a different city (I always associated them with Oakland), but playing in Sutter Health Park, a park I got to play in once as a high schooler (I struck out in my only at-bat, lol).
It’s been a busy week at work, which has prevented me from posting more this week. Nonetheless, I wanted to share a “Jottings” post with my latest article for Just Baseball, as well as some personal thoughts to share, especially regarding two Royals starting pitchers who had solid outings in the past series against the Angels in Anaheim.
Five Royals Extension Candidates Analysis at Just Baseball
In my latest post for Just Baseball, I looked at the situations of five Royals players whom JJ Picollo and the Royals front office may consider extending this offseason. That includes Vinnie Pasquantino, Maikel Garcia, Kris Bubic, Salvador Perez, and Carter Jensen.
The post can be found in the embedded Tweet below.
Here’s a snippet from the piece, which focuses on the drawbacks of giving an extension to Vinnie this offseason.
The only concern with Pasquantino is that he doesn’t offer much value beyond his bat.
According to Savant, the 27-year-old has been worth eight outs below average, which ranks in the 5th percentile. His arm strength also ranks in the 14th percentile. Lastly, Pasquantino can be a bit of a clog on the bases. He’s produced four runs below average in terms of baserunning runs via Savant, and his sprint speed ranks in the ninth percentile.
As a result, his FanGraphs WAR is only 1.4 this year. That’s lower than pitchers Stephen Kolek (1.7) and Noah Cameron (1.7), and even Cole Ragans (1.8), who’s only pitched in 57.1 innings this year.
Check out the whole piece and great baseball content, especially with the postseason on the horizon, at Just Baseball.
Kolek Finishes Season Strong
Stephen Kolek made his last start of the season for the Royals on Wednesday evening. Kansas City lost 3-2 to the Angels, but it was another quality start for the 28-year-old who came over from San Diego in the Freddy Fermin trade.
In six innings of work, Kolek allowed three runs (two earned) on five hits and two walks while striking out two. The defense did him no favors in this one, as the Royals committed three errors (though one of those errors was by Kolek). Nonetheless, a quality start is a quality start, and his latest effort extended Kolek’s stretch to seven straight quality starts with the Royals, according to Savant game logs.
When looking at his TJ Stats summary from this game, this is how he fared below.
Like many Kolek starts with the Royals, he didn’t generate a ton of chase or whiff, as evidenced by his 22% and 16.4% rates, respectively. That said, he threw a lot of pitches for strikes. He posted a 56.4% zone rate and 67% strike rate, which are encouraging marks.
Kolek didn’t have his best stuff, as his overall TJ Stuff+ was 95, and he only had one pitch that was in the 100-range via TJ Stuff+ (his sweeper, which he threw only 6.4% of the time). Conversely, he did a good job of mixing up his repertoire and keeping pitches low in the zone, which minimized the “big” hits in his outing.
For the season, Kolek posted a 3.51 ERA and 1.14 WHIP in 19 starts and 112.1 IP. He only posted a 16.7% strikeout rate, which ranked in the bottom 10th percentile of the league, according to Savant. However, his 51.7% groundball rate and 6.1% barrel rate allowed ranked in the 88th and 82nd percentiles, respectively.
Thus, the former Texas A&M product demonstrated that he could take advantage of the solid Royals defense behind him. That should put him in the running for the fourth or fifth spot in the 2026 rotation in Spring Training.
Will Lorenzen Be Back?
Pitching in his home area of Orange County, Michael Lorenzen had a solid finish to the 2025 season in their 9-4 win over the Angels.
In 5.2 innings of work, the 33-year-old Cal State Fullerton product allowed two runs on five hits with no walks while striking out nine. His nine strikeouts were a career high in a single game, and Lorenzen did a great job of keeping Angels hitters off balance, as illustrated in his whiff and chase rates via TJ Stats.
Lorenzen gave up a decent amount of hard contact in his last outing. His .463 xwOBACON illustrates that. However, he did exactly what he needed to do in terms of zone rate (51.2%), chase (31.7%), and whiff rate (33.3%). It’s too bad that Lorenzen couldn’t finish things off to earn the quality start (he was one out away).
With Lorenzen’s season done, the Royals will have an interesting dilemma with the veteran righty this offseason.
In his first full season in Kansas City, Lorenzen posted a 4.64 ERA and 1.33 WHIP in 27 outings (26 starts) and 141.2 IP. Those numbers were worse than what he did a season ago, as he posted a 3.31 ERA and 1.24 WHIP in 130.1 IP between the Rangers and Royals.
That said, his K rate was 2.9% higher and his walk rate was 4.6% lower than a season ago. Lorenzen also showed some positive trends in his strikeout rate this year via his Savant rolling K chart, especially at the end of the season.
He was hit harder this year, as illustrated by his .406 xwOBACON in 2025 compared to his .351 mark in 2024. Nonetheless, his ability to improve his swing and miss, as well as lower his walks, makes him an intriguing candidate to bring back for 2026.
Now, I don’t think Lorenzen should be in the rotation, at least not right away. If an injury happens, sure, that makes sense. However, I believe Lorenzen could be a valuable bullpen arm who can provide value in long and middle relief, while also making spot starts as necessary.
Would Lorenzen be okay with that role next year?
That isn’t easy to determine, especially since he has primarily been a starter throughout his career. If Lorenzen’s primary goal is to win, however, then I think this move could make sense for both sides, as the Royals keep necessary pitching depth and Lorenzen gets to be with a competitive team that he is pretty familiar with.
Photo Credit: Jay Biggerstaff USA TODAY Sports