The Kansas City Royals and veteran right-handed beginning pitcher Seth Lugo are closing in on a multi-year contract extension, ESPN studies. The deal is predicted to pay about $46 million whole for 2026 and 2027, with a vesting choice for 2028, in response to the New York Post.
Lugo, 35, has this season pitched to a 2.95 ERA/141 ERA+ with a 99 strikeouts and 32 unintentional walks in 113 innings. This comes on the heels of a 2024 marketing campaign for Kansas Metropolis by which Lugo put up a career-best WAR of 5.4 and completed runner-up to Tarik Skubal of the Tigers within the American League Cy Younger vote. For his profession, Lugo has an ERA+ of 123 and a WAR of 19.1 throughout elements of 10 major-league seasons. His lone All-Star choice got here final yr, his first with the Royals.
At 52-54 on the yr and solidly out of playoff place within the AL, the Royals have been presumed to be trade-deadline sellers main as much as July 31. As such, Lugo, who would have develop into a free agent at season’s finish assuming he turned down his $15 million participant choice for 2026, was the topic of a lot commerce hypothesis. Not way back, CBS Sports activities ranked Lugo as the No. 5 deadline trade candidate for this year. Now, although, he is primed to be faraway from the buying and selling block and additional tighten up what figured to already be a skinny marketplace for rotation assist. As nicely, Lugo will not be part of the 2025-26 free-agent class. Not in contrast to the present commerce market, the upcoming offseason was gentle on front-end rotation assist, and the lack of Lugo nudges issues additional in that path.
For the Royals, they hold within the fold a high quality frontline beginning pitcher as they little doubt hope to rebound again into competition in 2026 and past. Along with Lugo, two different members of the Kansas Metropolis rotation — Cole Ragans and Michael Wacha — are locked up by means of at the very least 2027.
From the Royals’ standpoint, there may be threat in committing to a pitcher into his late 30s, even one who has been as profitable as Lugo has been on their watch. Talking of which, Lugo this season has seen his fastball velocity, FIP, stroll fee, and whiff fee all get considerably worse. The Royals, although, are betting that he’ll be capable to stave off deep decline for the lifetime of the deal.
As for Thursday’s commerce deadline, beginning pitchers together with the Pirates’ Mitch Keller, Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara and Edwin Cabrera, Diamondbacks’ Merrill Kelly, and Zac Gallen are amongst these anticipated to be out there.