One clear reason to believe in new Royals reliever’s comeback after Tigers exile

While it wasn’t the earth-shattering move Royals fans may’ve hoped for, there’s still some real reason to be intrigued by Kansas City’s latest free agent signing.

On Thursday evening, the Royals announced that they’d signed former Detroit Tigers closer Alex Lange to a one-year, $900K contract to add to their bullpen depth.

Now, it’s understandable why fans still might have some reservations about the 30-year-old right-hander. After all, between injuries and lengthy demotions to Triple-A Toledo, Lange only managed to pitch 19.2 innings in the last two seasons.

However, even amidst the underperformance, there’s one key stat that could be a real difference maker in believing Lange can return to form in 2026.

Could Alex Lange return to his prime form with the Royals in 2026?

The baseball world will best remember Lange for his season two years ago, where he was anchoring the Tigers’ bullpen with 26 saves, throwing to a serviceable 3.68 ERA, striking out 10.77 hitters per nine innings, allowing just a .181 BAA and sporting an 80th percentile fastball velocity of 95.8 mph.

However, despite only appearing in a single major league inning in 2025, a pair of his pitches reached heights that weren’t even reached during his peak years, as MLB Trade Rumors’ Anthony Franco pointed out.

“The encouraging sign is that Lange’s stuff didn’t appear diminished,” Franco wrote. “He averaged 96.2 MPH on his sinker and 88.4 MPH on his knuckle-curve in that lone big league appearance.”

“Both velocities were marginally up from where he’d sat two years ago,” he also wrote.

Lange lives off his knuckle curve and sinker. In both 2023 and 2024, he never threw his knuckle curve less than 57% of the time and never threw his sinker less than 23% of the time.

So, if 2025’s uptick in velocity on these two offerings is a sign of things to come, than Lange could be a real force in the middle of this Royals bullpen.

After all, back in 2023 at the peak of his big league powers, he was sporting a 99th percentile whiff rate, 80th percentile chase rate, 78th percentile K-rate and 85th percentile groundball rate.

The more you look at it, the easier it is to realize J.J. Picollo and the Royals front office may’ve just signed one of the ultimate low-risk relief fliers of the offseason.