{"id":41845,"date":"2025-07-28T05:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T05:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/41845\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T05:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T05:08:08","slug":"royals-finalizing-extension-with-seth-lugo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/41845\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals Finalizing Extension With Seth Lugo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seth Lugo<\/a> has gone from a potential trade candidate to rotation cornerstone, as the right-hander and the Royals are in the final stages of negotiating a new contract extension.\u00a0 The new deal is a two-year, $46MM pact that carries a club\/vesting option for the 2028 campaign.\u00a0 The money breaks down as a $3MM signing bonus for Lugo, $20MM salaries in both 2026 and 2027, and then a $17MM club option for 2028 with a $3MM buyout.\u00a0 Should Lugo hit the vesting thresholds, that 2028 option will lock in another $20MM salary.\u00a0 Lugo is represented by the Ballengee Group.<\/p>\n

Lugo had the ability to opt out of the final season of his previous three-year, $45MM contract, but instead of facing an opt-out decision this winter, the right-hander will be staying put in Kansas City.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t much doubt that Lugo (who turns 36 in November) was going to decline his player option and leave his final $15MM on the table in search of a larger and lengthier guarantee in free agency.<\/p>\n

With the Royals also struggling to stay in the playoff race, there was some speculation that K.C. could look to move the veteran prior to Thursday\u2019s deadline.\u00a0 However, the most recent reporting suggested<\/a> that not only did the Royals want to keep Lugo beyond July 31, but the club wanted to work out a new contract to convince Lugo to forego his opt-out clause.<\/p>\n

Assuming the extension talks indeed cross the finish line, Lugo will join Cole Ragans<\/a> and Michael Wacha<\/a> as Royals starters under contract through at least the 2027 season, depending on the specifics of Lugo\u2019s new deal.\u00a0 Wacha\u2019s three-year, $51MM deal signed last November also came under the specter of a player option, as Wacha had the ability to opt out of his $16MM salary for the 2025 season and test the market.\u00a0 Ragans inked a three-year, $13.25MM extension<\/a> last February that was more about cost certainty than team control, as the deal only covers the southpaw through his second arbitration-eligible year \u2014 Kansas City still has arb control on Ragan through the 2028 campaign.<\/p>\n

\"\"Between this trio, breakout rookie Noah Cameron<\/a>, and the Royals\u2019 remaining year of arbitration control on Kris Bubic<\/a>, Kansas City\u2019s 2026 rotation may already be set.\u00a0 This doesn\u2019t include such injured pitchers as Kyle Wright<\/a> and Alec Marsh<\/a>, so K.C. has a good deal of pitching depth in place as the club tries to figure out the greater issue of its lack of offense.<\/p>\n

Lugo\u2019s career-opening seven-year stint with the Mets saw the righty begin as a starter, before moving into more of a part-time starter\/swingman role and then finally as a full-time reliever in 2021-22.\u00a0 Heading into free agency following the 2022 campaign, Lugo was looking to make a return to the rotation, and landed a two-year, $15MM free agent deal with the Padres that included a player option on the 2024 season.\u00a0 After a solid year in San Diego, Lugo declined that option and returned to free agency to find his three-year commitment with Kansas City.<\/p>\n

Over two-plus seasons since his return to starting pitching, Lugo\u2019s ERA has dropped from 3.57 in 2023 to 3.00 in 2024 and to 2.95 this year.\u00a0 His SIERAs have remained almost identical in that span, averaging out to a 3.98 number that is probably a fairer reflection of his production than his 3.17 ERA over 466 innings since Opening Day 2023.\u00a0 Despite allowing a lot of hard contact and posting subpar strikeout rates, Lugo has consistently outperformed his peripherals by limiting walks (6.2BB% in the last three seasons) and an elite curveball spin rate, not to mention a fastball that also has plenty of spin despite its modest 91.6mph velocity.<\/p>\n

Lugo has gotten a fair amount of batted-ball luck to support his numbers, yet as he is now in his third productive year as a starter, the veteran is clearly doing more than just relying on good fortune to retire batters.\u00a0 He has also answered all questions about whether he was durable enough to hold up in a rotation by pitching 206 2\/3 innings in 2024, which was a key reason why Lugo finished second in AL Cy Young Award voting.<\/p>\n

It was enough for the Royals to commit an additional $31MM to Lugo on top of the $15MM they had already agreed to pay him through 2026.\u00a0 It\u2019s a significant chunk of change for pitcher\u2019s age 36-37 seasons, yet obviously the Royals have loved what they\u2019ve gotten from Lugo to date and believe he can keep it up deeper into his 30\u2019s.\u00a0 The $23MM in average annual value is a little eye-opening, though as MLBTR\u2019s Contract Tracker<\/a> tells us, 11 pitchers of age 30 or higher have topped that AAV in free agency over the last three offseasons.<\/p>\n

It is also noteworthy than the idea of Kansas City signing a player to such a contract is no longer as surprising as it would\u2019ve been even a few years ago.\u00a0 Now that the Royals have moved out of a rebuild period, owner John Sherman has greenlit higher spending, most notably Bobby Witt Jr.<\/a>\u2019s long-term mega-contract.\u00a0 The Royals\u2019 playoff appearance in 2024 was evidence that the team\u2019s roster-building is paying dividends, and while their 2025 record has disappointed, there is enough of a pitching core in place to suggest that even league-average hitting could get K.C. back to the postseason.\u00a0 The club\u2019s recent additions of Adam Frazier<\/a> and Randal Grichuk<\/a> suggest that the Royals haven\u2019t given up on making a late run this year, even if bigger lineup upgrades will probably be saved for the winter.<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan was the first to report<\/a> that the two sides were closing in on an extension.\u00a0 MLB.com\u2019s Anne Rogers (multiple<\/a> links<\/a>) had the details about the two-year length of the deal and the financial breakdown, while the New York Post\u2019s Jon Heyman<\/a> was the first to report that Lugo would be receiving a guarantee in the ballpark of $46MM.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Jay Biggerstaff, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seth Lugo has gone from a potential trade candidate to rotation cornerstone, as the right-hander and the Royals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[33650,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-41845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-seth-lugo","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}