The 2025 season has been full of twists and turns thus far for the Kansas City Royals.
It took four months for the Royals to start hitting, and injuries have curbed them more than once. At the same time, you’ve got to admire the team’s gumption for hanging in the playoff race as long as they have, even in the weaker American League.
Ironically enough, the Royals wouldn’t be where they are without a player they can no longer call upon when they’d sorely love to.
Left-handed Kris Bubic had his season ended prematurely with a rotator cuff strain, but through 20 starts, he was among the very best pitcher in Major League Baseball, putting up a 2.55 ERA and 3.2 bWAR across 116 1/3 innings.
Not bad for a hurler who wasn’t a lock to crack the Opening Day rotation. And FanSided’s Chris Landers went as far as to say Tuesday that Bubic, despite missing the final month and a half of the season, was Kansas City’s “biggest success story” of 2025.
“Bubic revived his career as a reliever last season, but he came up through the K.C. system as a starter, and he was so good in 2024 that the Royals gave him another shot in the rotation,” Landers wrote.
“He’s taken it and run with it, earning an All-Star nod and looking like an ideal fit behind Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo moving forward. And he has one more year of team control before hitting free agency next winter.”
That last point is key, because most players don’t enter contract years immediately after their breakout seasons. Bubic is going to be under a lot of pressure to perform when he comes back healthy, and with the Royals always looking for young offensive contributors, his name will probably surface in some trade rumors as well.
But considering Bubic didn’t have a season with an ERA below four as a starter, 2025 can only be considered a giant win for the 2018 first-round pick.
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