Michael Lorenzen is lastly staying put. After signing one-year offers forward of the final three seasons, and after getting traded on the deadline in every of the final two, the right-hander has performed for six groups in 4 years. All that stops now. On Monday, a day when the temperature in Kansas Metropolis peaked at a balmy 5 levels Fahrenheit, Lorenzen determined that the Metropolis of Fountains was a superb place to spend at the least one other half of a baseball season, agreeing to signal with the Royals on yet one more one-year deal. For the primary time since 2021, he’ll get to start out a season in the identical metropolis the place he ended the earlier one. The deal is for $5.5 million plus efficiency escalators, and due to a $12 million mutual possibility for 2026 with a $1.5 million buyout clause, the assured worth involves $7 million.
Regardless of a hamstring pressure that value him a month, Lorenzen excelled after being traded to the Royals on the 2024 deadline. In six begins and one reduction look, he ran a 1.57 ERA over 28 2/3 innings. Nonetheless, his peripherals had been roughly the identical earlier than and after the transfer, and he principally benefitted from the traditional culprits of an unsustainable bounce: a .213 BABIP, an 89% strand price, and a 6% HR/FB price. The one notable change he made in Kansas Metropolis was ditching his common slider totally in favor of his sweeper. Over that brief pattern dimension, the transfer labored: The slider ran a 24% whiff price in Texas, whereas the sweeper was at 41% in Kansas Metropolis.
I’m afraid I’m not performed raining on Lorenzen’s parade simply but, as a result of I’ve to let you know that this transfer terrifies me a bit. Between Texas and Kansas Metropolis, Lorenzen ran a 3.31 ERA, his finest mark since 2019, when he put up a 2.92 mark as a reliever with the Reds. Nonetheless, the underlying metrics had been downright scary. Lorenzen’s 4.58 xERA, 4.89 FIP, and 4.95 xFIP had been all his worst marks since his rookie season in 2015. The stuff fashions didn’t love him both: Now we have stuff numbers going again to 2020, and Lorenzen’s 5.10 predicted ERA from Pitching Bot and his 95 Stuff+ rating had been each the worst they’ve been over these 5 seasons. His 23.9% chase price was the bottom of his profession. His strikeout price ticked up a tiny bit from 2023, however each it and his stroll price had been among the many worst of his profession. Lorenzen’s four-seamer carried out effectively, however it misplaced half a tick and a little bit of motion. After his sinker spent the 2023 season flirting with the lifeless zone, in 2024 it determined to maneuver in. Identify a stat – aside from BABIP, HR/FB, or strand price – and Lorenzen was worse than his profession common.
I’m sorry. That was loads of negativity. I don’t essentially suppose that Lorenzen is a misplaced trigger, and a reunion with the Royals makes loads of sense. They wanted somebody to interchange the innings they misplaced by buying and selling Brady Singer to Cincinnati. Additionally, even when he was at his finest, Lorenzen routinely outperformed his peripherals. He was far more of a contact supervisor than a strikeout pitcher, and there’s no place higher for such an strategy than Kauffman Stadium. Coming into his age-33 season, he now not has above-average fastball velocity, however he throws the kitchen sink – four-seamer, sinker, changeup, cutter, slider, sweeper, curveball – and he’s nonetheless determining methods to optimize the combo. In 2024, he introduced again the cutter and curve, which he’d beforehand deserted; the curve labored effectively and the slider didn’t. That’s helpful data. He may hold throwing the sweeper extra. He may stand to throw his changeup, which ran a 37% whiff price, extra as effectively. He additionally brings versatility, as he’s spent his profession hopping between the rotation and the bullpen.
Talking of versatility, there’s additionally the odd circumstance of Lorenzen’s two-way ambitions. He got here up each a pitcher and a hitter after posting an .869 OPS with 41 residence runs at Cal State Fullerton, and he has 147 main league plate appearances below his belt. A number of weeks in the past, Ken Rosenthal detailed a plan hatched by Lorenzen and his agent. Lorenzen would take a kitchen sink strategy to free company as effectively, pitching himself as a candidate to qualify as a two-way participant, thereby giving his group (or, extra possible, the group that trades for him on the deadline) an additional roster spot for a pitcher.
Whereas it’s enjoyable, the gambit was all the time a bit farfetched, and now that Lorenzen is returning to the Royals, it appears extraordinarily unlikely to occur. In an effort to qualify, Lorenzen would want to get at the least three PAs as a DH or a place participant in at the least 20 video games. Lorenzen ran a .640 OPS within the minors, he has a profession wRC+ of 84 within the majors, and he’s taken simply two plate appearances over the previous 5 seasons. Even when he was hitting, he by no means made it to 60 PAs in a season. The Royals simply made it to the ALDS final season, and they’re, in their very own means, displaying each indication that they intend to return to the playoffs in 2025. It’s arduous to see them giving 60 PAs to a man whose final hit got here in 2019.
This isn’t a very dangerous transfer both for Lorenzen or the Royals. He’s again on a one-year contract, again in a pitcher-friendly park, and again enjoying for a group with which he had some success final season. The worst-case state of affairs is that the Royals don’t return to playoff competition and Lorenzen doesn’t pitch effectively sufficient (or hit sufficient, interval) to get traded to his seventh group in 5 years. The most effective-case state of affairs entails Lorenzen throwing a pair extra no-hitters and launching a pair extra bombs. In fact, that worst-case state of affairs is way extra possible than the most effective one, however both means, the potential advantages of this reunion far outweigh the potential pitfalls.
