The Royals introduced Wednesday that they’ve signed left-hander Dallas Keuchel to a minor league contract. ESPN’s Jeff Passan notes that Keuchel held a exercise for golf equipment final week, which the Royals attended. He’ll earn a prorated $2MM wage for any time spent on the key league roster.
Keuchel, 37, has pitched in elements of 13 large league seasons and was one of many high lefties within the sport at his peak. The 2015 American League Cy Younger Award winner with the Astros, Keuchel starred for Houston from 2014-18 when he pitched a mixed 950 1/3 innings with a 3.28 ERA, a 20.2% strikeout price, a 6.5% stroll price and a mammoth 60% ground-ball price. He had a strong partial season with Atlanta in 2019 and signed a three-year pact with the ChiSox spanning the 2020-22 seasons. The primary yr of that contract performed out splendidly, however Keuchel was ineffective in 2021 and pitched poorly sufficient in 2022 to be launched earlier than the contract had concluded.
Since his profession started trending downward with the South Siders, Keuchel has slipped into journeyman standing. He’s pitched for the White Sox, Rangers, D-backs, Twins and Brewers previously three years and in addition had a stint with the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan’s Nippon Skilled Baseball. Keuchel began 4 video games for the 2024 Brewers and yielded a 5.40 ERA with 11 strikeouts in opposition to eight walks in 16 2/3 innings pitched. He additionally made 13 strong begins for the Mariners’ Triple-A affiliate in Tacoma final yr.
Kansas Metropolis entered the 2025 season with a robust quintet within the rotation. Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo, Kris Bubic, Michael Wacha and Michael Lorenzen is a deeper one by way of 5 than most golf equipment can boast, and there have been high quality depth choices like righty Alec Marsh and prospect Noah Cameron. Ragans is now sidelined with a strained rotator cuff that’ll maintain him out till a minimum of Aug. 7. Marsh has been on the IL all season on account of a shoulder impingement that’s taking longer than anticipated to fix.
That’s left the Royals with scant depth past the presently wholesome group of Lugo, Bubic, Cameron, Wacha and Lorenzen. Cameron has been a godsend on the entire however has regarded much more mortal in his previous six begins (4.26 ERA in 31 2/3 innings) than he did in his historic first 5 begins (0.85 ERA in that very same pattern measurement of 31 2/3 innings). His efficiency has been direly wanted, particularly with a number of of the group’s different high younger arms both struggling (e.g. Luinder Avila, Ben Kudrna, Steven Zobac) or falling to damage (e.g. Tyson Guerrero).
Keuchel is the second veteran lefty whom the Royals have signed to a minor league pact to function depth. He’ll be part of Wealthy Hill on an Omaha pitching employees that additionally consists of a number of journeymen with large league expertise: Thomas Hatch, Justin Dunn and John Gant amongst them.
