The Royals Have Lost Cole Ragans for Awhile

The Royals’ rotation was a key reason last year’s team made the playoffs for the first time since 2015, with the one-two punch of Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans leading the way. It was the first full season in the majors for Ragans, whose five-pitch mix helped him dominate hitters en route to an AL All-Star selection and a fourth-place finish in the Cy Young voting. Unfortunately, his follow-up season hasn’t gone so smoothly, and after landing on the injured list with a groin strain in May, Ragans has now been diagnosed with a rotator cuff strain and figures to miss significant time.

A 2016 first-round pick who underwent two Tommy John surgeries before debuting for the Rangers in ’22, Ragans enjoyed a meteoric rise in ’23, after his average fastball velocity jumped from 92.1 mph to 96.5. Not until he was traded to the Royals in a June 30, 2023 deal centered around Aroldis Chapman did he finally stick in a rotation (he had a nine-start trial in 2022), but once he did, the results were revelatory. He posted a 2.64 ERA, 2.49 FIP, and a 31.1% strikeout rate in 12 starts totaling 71.2 innings post-trade; his 2.4 WAR ranked 12th in the majors from July 1 onward. On the strength of an impressive fastball-changeup combo accompanied by a knuckle curve, slider, and cutter, he solidified his spot among the majors’ top pitchers last year. He made 32 starts and finished second in the AL in FIP (2.99), strikeouts (223), strikeout rate (29.3%), and WAR (4.9); seventh in innings (186.1 innings); and eighth in ERA (3.14).

This season has not gone as well for the 27-year-old lefty. Though Ragans strung together three consecutive starts with double-digit strikeout totals at the beginning of April — the only pitcher who has done so in either of the past two seasons — he’s allowed 22 runs in his past 25 innings to push his ERA to 5.18 (more on which below). He’s dealt with multiple interruptions in that span, first departing his April 24 start against the Rockies after three innings due to tightness in his left groin, then skipping a turn, then making three more starts before landing on the injured list due to a mild groin strain following his May 16 start. He lasted just three innings in his return on June 5, walking three and allowing five runs. Afterwards he experienced shoulder stiffness and soreness, which lingered as he went through his between-starts routine.

“It wasn’t like I threw a singular pitch and felt something,” Ragans said last week. “It was nothing like that. After, just got pretty stiff. Did some treatments and stuff. It just never really got better.”

The Royals placed Ragans on the 15-day injured list last Wednesday (retroactive to Sunday) with a shoulder strain, and an MRI on Thursday confirmed the diagnosis of a rotator cuff strain. He’ll get a second opinion on the severity of the injury this week. “All things considered, I think we caught it early,” said manager Matt Quatraro. “[But] there’s no real point in me saying anything, until he sees the doctor and we get another test.”

The Royals don’t believe that Ragans’ groin injury precipitated his shoulder injury by compromising his mechanics, nor do they think he’ll need surgery. That said, they’ve shut him down from throwing for “awhile,” suggesting he’ll need some amount of treatment and rest before a full rebuild of his pitch count, which could mean an absence of a couple of months barring some surprisingly good news from the doctor this week.

As for his performance thus far, Ragans’ supporting stats, including his 2.40 FIP and his 2.61 xERA, suggest he has substantially outpitched that hefty ERA. At the 40-inning cutoff, his 2.78 runs per nine differential between his ERA and FIP is the second-largest among starters:

Inflated ERAs aside, a few of those pitchers have been pretty bad, with FIPs in the high 4.00s and up, while Ragans has been by far the best. His 36.4% strikeout rate is the highest among major league starters with at least 40 innings, his 28.7% strikeout-walk differential is second, and his 7.7% walk rate is over a percentage point lower than last year. His big problem is that his BABIP spiked from .290 last year to .382 this year, but only some of that is attributable to batters hitting the ball harder in the aggregate:

Ragans’ batting average allowed is 49 points higher than his xBA, suggesting a lot of extra balls in play turning into singles, even on a team with an above-average defense. Oddly, his actual slugging percentage allowed nonetheless trails his xSLG, even with his pulled air rate increasing from 18% to 28.7%. He is giving up more hard contact than last year, as his rising barrel rate and xwOBAcon (up from .356 to .376) indicate. While Ragan’s average exit velocity and hard-hit rate rank in the 70th and 64th percentiles, respectively, his barrel rate is in just the 43rd percentile, down from the 79th last year.

Our two pitch modeling systems show that Ragans’ stuff has fallen off a little bit relative to last year; they both agree that his four-seam, changeup, and slider are still better than average to some degree but differ on the quality of the other two offerings. Though his average four-seam velocity of 95.3 mph is just an eyelash below last year’s, his other pitches have lost a bit more speed. His slider is getting about three inches more vertical drop, and it’s down nearly one full grade on the 20–80 scouting scale according to PitchingBot, as is his changeup:

Both systems agree that his one pitch with a better stuff grade in 2025 than ’24 is his cutter, but he’s throwing it just 4.1% of the time, down from 11.3% last year; meanwhile, his four-seam usage has jumped from 41.7% to 48.6%. Hitters have improved their slugging percentage against all of those offerings this year except for the knuckle curve, with their SLG against the four-seamer climbing from .349 to .420 and against the changeup from .280 to .404. He still shouldn’t have an ERA above 5.00 given his strikeouts and the quality of his stuff, but he hasn’t been quite as good as in 2024.

After going 86-76 last year and 31-28 through the end of May, the Royals have lost 10 out of 13 to start June. An offense that has averaged an AL-low 3.31 runs per game overall and hasn’t had a month above 3.50 per game yet is the primary culprit. Even with the rotation scuffling this month with a 5.19 ERA and 4.83 FIP, the unit owns the AL’s third-lowest ERA (3.40) and fifth-lowest FIP (3.77) overall. Lugo (3.18 ERA, 4.79 FIP) and Michael Wacha (3.38 ERA, 3.94 FIP) are both carrying ERAs similar to last year, though their FIPs have risen — drastically so for the former (up from 2.5). Lugo’s home run rate has more than doubled as he’s been hit much harder than in 2024, while his strikeout and walk rates have converged. Wacha just isn’t missing as many bats; his strikeout rate has dropped from 21.2% to a career-low 17.9%, though he’s done a good job of preventing hard contact.

Despite getting beaten up by the Yankees on Wednesday, lefty Kris Bubic — who spent last year pitching out of the bullpen after returning from Tommy John surgery — has delivered a Ragans-type impact, in that he has the AL’s second-lowest FIP (2.56), third-lowest ERA (1.92), and fourth-highest WAR (2.5). Michael Lorenzen (4.91 ERA, 4.80 FIP) has taken his lumps, but he’s also eaten 77 innings, third-highest on the staff.

Another lefty, 25-year-old Noah Cameron — a 50-FV prospect who’s currently 86th on The Board — took a no-hitter into the seventh inning in his major league debut on April 30, a spot start against the Rays. He’s been up for good since May 17, the day the Royals placed both Ragans and Lugo on the 15-day IL; the latter had a right middle finger sprain but returned after a minimum stay. Cameron, who has a plus changeup and plus command, has pitched to a 1.91 ERA and 3.64 FIP in seven starts totaling 42.1 innings. The Royals used a six-man rotation between his return from the minors and last week’s loss of Ragans, with Daniel Lynch IV also taking a couple of turns, but for the moment they’re back to a five-man staff.

They do have a couple of noteworthy options at Triple-A Omaha in Kyle Wright and Rich Hill — a pair worth pulling for even if their performances to date have been iffy at best. The 29-year-old Wright, who hasn’t pitched in the majors since September 28, 2023, is working his way back from surgery to repair a torn shoulder capsule. He’s on his second try at a rehab assignment after needing to hit the pause button for a couple weeks in May, but he’s trending in the right direction. After walking four and allowing five runs without a strikeout in 2.1 innings on June 10, he rebounded with four shutout innings and six strikeouts in a 65-pitch outing on Sunday.

The 45-year-old Hill signed a minor league deal in mid-May; he had a June 15 opt-out, but as of this writing, nobody has reported whether or not he exercised it. After making two turns in the Arizona Complex League, he’s pitched to a 2.81 ERA but a 5.51 FIP in three starts totaling 16 innings at Omaha. He only threw 3.2 innings in the majors last year, in what must have been his 47th stint with the Red Sox, and managed just a 5.47 ERA and 4.87 FIP in 146.1 innings with the Pirates and Padres in 2023, so nobody should expect miracles.

The Royals will miss Ragans for however long he’s out, but their bullpen did just get a much-needed boost with last week’s return of Lucas Erceg from a lower back strain. Still, their hopes for another playoff berth — the odds of which have dropped from 42.2% through the end of May to 14.2% today — hinge on improving an offense that has ranked among the majors’ worst, with top prospect Jac Caglianone struggling mightily since his arrival earlier this month. Doctors can do only so much to fix this team.