Royals unsurprisingly option struggling utility man to make room for Michael Wacha

Entering the second-to-last week of the 2025 season, the Kansas City Royals were set to be faced with quite the roster conundrum with numerous pitchers slated to return from the injured list.

Michael Wacha and Cole Ragans will make there anticipated returns to the staff this week, with the Wacha starting Tuesday night’s game and Ragans getting the nod for Wednesday’s contest. Then, the likes of Seth Lugo and reliever Steven Cruz could find their way back into the big league pitching mix sooner rather than later.

This means though, the Royals will need to find space for all four of these names on the active roster. Considering his start comes on Tuesday, Wacha was, of course, the first domino to fall.

With how well the Royals pitching staff has performed this season, the Royals didn’t necessarily have four pitchers worthy of sending down to Omaha to accommodate all of these names. This meant that the likelihood of dipping into their expanded bench at least once was pretty high – especially with a few underperforming names there that warranted being demoted.

And that’s precisely what the Royals did on Tuesday, announcing that struggling utility man Nick Loftin would be the corresponding move for Wacha’s activation from the concussion IL.

Nick Loftin makes way for Michael Wacha’s return to Royals roster

It shouldn’t come as a shock that Loftin finds himself in the position he’s in, as one could argue he was living on borrowed time this season when it came to his major league tenure.

While he may have had times earlier in the campaign where he looked the part, his overall body of work in Kansas City has been lackluster to say the least.

In 188 plate appearances across 67 games, Loftin slashed .208/.278/.357 with four homers, 20 RBI and a 73 wRC+. At this point, his only true value to the team seemed to be in his positional versatility.

But with expanded rosters and the Royals bringing both Carter Jensen and Jac Caglianone into the positional fold, there were already less at-bats to go around this month.

Then, with the likes Caglianone along with Randal Grichuk able to occupy the corner outfield and Adam Frazier and Michael Massey able to occupy bench utility roles with better offensive upside, it left just Loftin and Tyler Tolbert as the odd-men out.

Ultimately though, Tolbert’s blistering speed is still more useful to the Royals down the stretch, making it a no-brainer that the Royals had to option Loftin.

Kansas City in return will be getting Wacha, one of their veteran rocks in their rotation, back for a pivotal series against the Mariners, whom they seemingly have to sweep if they want any outside shot of reaching the postseason.

So far in 2025, Wacha has thrown to a very respectable 3.45 ERA along with a 3.57 FIP, 1.18 WHIP and .241 BAA.

Next up for the Royals in terms of roster transactions be Cole Ragans, who is set to be activated off the injured list ahead of his scheduled start on Wednesday.