{"id":2230610,"date":"2026-01-11T18:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T18:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2230610"},"modified":"2026-01-11T18:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T18:38:13","slug":"royals-lose-2025-strikeout-leader-to-rockies-in-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/royals-lose-2025-strikeout-leader-to-rockies-in-free-agency\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals Lose 2025 Strikeout Leader To Rockies In Free Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Michael Lorenzen was far from an ace for the Kansas City Royals, but he was pretty solid in the role he was asked to play.<\/p>\n

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As the team’s No. 5 starter when healthy, Lorenzen produced a 4.12 ERA across 170 1\/3 innings after arriving in a 2024 deadline trade with the Colorado Rockies. He re-signed with the Royals last offseason on a one-year, $5.5 million deal that included a $1.5 million buyout this offseason, which the Royals chose over picking up a $12 million option to keep him.<\/p>\n

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Now, Lorenzen is headed to a new destination, and it’s one that will challenge him a lot more than the pitcher-friendly Kauffman Stadium.<\/p>\n

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If you like our content,\u00a0<\/em>choose Sports Illustrated as a preferred source on Google<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

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Lorenzen joining Rockies, facing new challenges<\/h2>\n

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Apr 24, 2025; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Michael Lorenzen (24) throws a pitch in the first inning against the Colorado Rockies at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Peter Aiken-Imagn Images | Peter Aiken-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

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According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, Lorenzen and the Rockies agreed Wednesday<\/a> to a one-year, $8 million deal with a $9 million club option for next year. That option comes with a buyout of just $250,000.<\/p>\n

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The Rockies have a new front office taking shape under president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta, and they have to know that their pitching needs are different than any other team’s. Breaking balls move a lot less than usual at altitude, meaning changeups and splitters are often the most effective secondary pitches to deploy.<\/p>\n

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Lorenzen’s changeup was his most frequently deployed offspeed pitch last season, and it was probably his best pitch as well, holding opponents to a .178 batting average on 67 batted ball events, with a .261 expected slugging percentage.<\/p>\n

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For the Royals, Lorenzen was the surprise team strikeout leader last season, racking up 127 punchouts in his 141 2\/3 innings. It was an odd bit of trivia, considering the Royals had five starters with at least 100 punchouts, and ace Cole Ragans nearly joined them with 98 in his 61 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n

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Michael Wacha had 126 strikeouts, while Seth Lugo had 125.<\/p>\n

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The Royals were confident enough in their existing rotation, which also includes 2025 rookie standout Noah Cameron and All-Star Kris Bubic, to lose Lorenzen without putting up a fight of any kind.<\/p>\n

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More MLB: <\/strong><\/em>Mets Linked To Royals All-Star In Possible Rotation Trade<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

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\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.si.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Lorenzen was far from an ace for the Kansas City Royals, but he was pretty solid in the role he was asked to play. As the team’s No. 5 starter when healthy, Lorenzen produced a 4.12 ERA across 170 1\/3 innings after arriving in a 2024 deadline trade with the Colorado Rockies. He re-signed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2230611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2230610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Royals-Lose-2025-Strikeout-Leader-To-Rockies-In-Free-Agency.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2230610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2230612,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230610\/revisions\/2230612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2230611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2230610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2230610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2230610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}