How Cole Ragans elbow injury affects Royals long-term plans

The worst five-game span baseball has seen in nearly 11 months began in Tampa Bay last week, traveled to Chicago over the weekend and, at last, extended its stay in Kansas City on Tuesday night.

The Royals were outscored by 40 runs — 40! — over six games alone, and they actually won one of the six. You have to trace back to early August 2025 to find a stretch that underwhelming — courtesy of the Rockies, of course.

The Royals own the worst record in the American League at the onset of July, and a team in desperate need of a jolt instead opens the month enduring precisely the opposite.

Cole Ragans, the Opening Day starter for three straight seasons, underwent elbow surgery Wednesday. The details will be more precise later this week, but he’s done for the year, and general manager J.J. Picollo said the Royals are operating with the assumption they won’t have him when next season begins, either.

What now? The Royals say they will wait until the All-Star break to determine whether they plan to sell at the trade deadline, a comment from general manager J.J. Picollo that might have caught your attention, but the most pertinent conversation is not where they stand in 2026.

It’s where they’re headed beyond.

How the third elbow surgery of Ragans’ career affects next season is not only a relevant topic of conversation but a mandatory one.

The pulse of this iteration of the Royals, even though it includes an annual MVP candidate occupying shortstop, has been built on the back of a rotation that finished second in baseball in ERA in 2024 (playoff berth) and seventh in ERA in 2025 (above .500) but now ranks 23rd this year (worst record in the American League). The rotation has not only been operating without its best talent for most of this year — it will likely need to do the same for at least part of next year.

Can they be competitive without him?

They haven’t been.

• In the last three years, the Royals are 136-122 (.527) when Ragans is part of the rotation; and they are 67-85 (.441) when he’s on the injured list.

• In the last four years — the Royals acquired him midway through their 2023 rebuild — they are 166-163 (.505) when Ragans is a member of the rotation and 93-150 (.383) without him.

That’s drastic — because his absence might be mostly about not handing him the ball every fifth day, but it also affects the roles of several others to account for it.

The rotation is the pulse, and Ragans is the heart of it.

Or he was.

Without him, the Royals need to soon decide not only what they want to be in 2027 but how they can get there — or if it’s even realistic to get there without their oft-injured ace. They are already talking about the offseason and things to prioritize, and they’re still framing that as win-now mode.

Bobby Witt Jr., Jac Caglianone, Carter Jensen and Maikel Garcia is not a bad place to start. The bullpen will be the highest priority.

But the Royals are likely to enter next year without an apparent ace; and Kris Bubic is a free agent; and Ryan Bergert, a potential option as a fill-in piece in the rotation, also had Tommy John surgery this year and is expected to miss the first half of next season.

Should the Royals really be in win-now mode without Ragans? I can’t answer that definitively, because I don’t know how much the Royals are willing to spend next offseason to overcome what they just lost — though it’s reasonable to wonder how much any team will spend with a potential lockout.

What I can say definitively is the path back to the postseason just got harder. It would require more than what they have on the roster— because of who they won’t have.

That needs to be in their minds.

Now.

There will be calls for Seth Lugo and particularly Michael Wacha at this trade deadline if they’re on the market — and probably calls for them even if they’re not on the market. Those two are tied to the Royals through 2027. When (or if) Ragans is fully healthy again, those guys might be on the way out.

For now, they’re two of the few known pieces of the 2027 rotation that probably also might also feature Noah Cameron (though his ERA is nearly 5), Stephen Kolek (4.15 ERA) and, well, who exactly?

Theoretically, That would make it harder to part with Wacha or Lugo — if the priority is to run it back in 2027.

“I think this is going to be a little tricky — keeping an eye on what we have in ‘27,” Picollo acknowledged of this year’s trade deadline, speaking more generally. “Knowing we have to improve our bullpen — there’s no doubt that’s going to be a major part of our offseason, to improve the ‘pen.

“When you look at the deadline now, you’re also thinking about those things for ‘27. If you just punt on everything for ‘26, now you have to climb a big mountain for ‘27.”

That is indeed the trick.

And it’s the 2027 trickle-down effect of one left elbow surgery on July 1, 2026.

It’s an immediate blow to any ill-conceived notions they can return to the race this year, even among a weak AL field. But the real repercussions extend far beyond.