Royals prioritize critical pitching need with official Rule 5 protection decisions

The Kansas City Royals went into Tuesday having to make some key roster decisions for not only 2026, but for their organization’s future as a whole.

Tuesday was the day that all teams needed to protect prospects from next month’s Rule 5 Draft, and the Royals had plenty of names that were strong candidates to be added to the 40-man roster.

However, after the 5 p.m. CT protection deadline came and went, the Royals made their priorities clear with which prospects they added to the 40-man fold.

They could have protected several position players like Gavin Cross or Daniel Vazquez or high-upside raw pitching prospects like Frank Mozzicato, but instead they opted to protect a pair of more mature right-handed starting pitchers in Ben Kudrna and Steven Zobac.

In doing so, they addressed an underrated but still vitally important offseason need, as both Kudrna and Zobac now insert themselves into the starting pitching depth conversation, something the Royals struggled with mightily in 2025.

Royals add to MLB starting pitching depth by protecting Ben Kudrna and Steven Zobac from Rule 5 Draft

Last season, Kansas City faced a myriad of starting pitching injuries, with all five of their Opening Day five-man rotation landing on the injured list at some point or another.

Other than the promotion of Noah Cameron, the Royals had to resort to veterans past their prime or bullpen days for the most part to provide that injury cover before they acquired the likes of Stephen Kolek and Ryan Bergert at the trade deadline.

So, while both may be unproven at the big league level, adding both Kudrna and Zobac to the 40-man roster gives Kansas City another pair of starting arms in the upper minor levels to consider should push come to shove and they need an extra starter in a pinch.

Now, both aren’t surefire options by any means after each had some pretty underwhelming 2025 seasons.

Kudrna may’ve looked strong in the nine outings leading up to his Triple-A promotion, but he book ended that span with an extremely poor 11 appearances to start his year and 14.29 ERA once he did reach Triple-A afterwards.

Then there’s Zobac, who was plagued by injuries himself throughout the year and when he was on the mound, he only managed to post a 7.25 ERA in 14 starts in Northwest Arkansas.

All that to say though, as poor as a lot of their 2025 seasons looked, these are still two arms whom scouts seem to regard fairly well in the Royals’ system. According to MLB Pipeline, Kudrna is firmly among the team’s Top 10 prospects at No. 7 and Zobac is just on the outside looking in at 11.

Kudrna was a low-4.00s ERA arm across High-A and Double-A in 2024 and again did show plenty of promise right before his late season Triple-A promotion this past season. And Zobac is only a year removed from being a mid-3.00s ERA arm in High-A and Double-A. So, there’s plenty of reason to think that 2025 may’ve just been a somewhat of a hiccup and they’re both still on track to contribute in the majors down the road.

What these two being added to the 40-man could also mean is that the Royals now have a bit more wiggle room to really explore trading away from their current MLB-ready starting pitching depth – whether that be Kris Bubic or somebody else who appeared in their rotation in 2025.

There may’ve been some other names fans would’ve liked to see protected from next month’s Rule 5 proceedings, but it’s easy to see the vision that the front office had in mind here by protecting these two names.

The Royals will now have to wait until December 10 to see if their omission decisions will come back to bite them.