Roster Projection 3.0

We are about one week away from Opening Day Night* for the Royals and the camp roster has been moderately pared down so why not take another stab at a roster projection?

*As we get closer to the first game of the season, I’m getting more and more annoyed that a) MLB and Atlanta moved the game off of where it was originally scheduled on Thursday, and b) moved it to Friday evening. Come on!

The Royals have been making some minor moves, sending players over to the minor league camp. Nothing shocking. Just routine maintenance. Still, there are 49 players in the major league camp. That means there are still 23 guys to reassign or cut loose. There are plenty of transactions to come.

I’ll start with this version with the pitching.

Rotation
Cole Ragans
Seth Lugo
Michael Wacha
Kris Bubic
Noah Cameron

I tried my darndest to gin up a fifth starter competition, but it never materialized. More disappointing than anything was that nobody grabbed that spot. It’s Cameron by default. It could be worse. It could be Joe Mays.

Ragans was officially named the Opening Day starter on Tuesday.

It will be Ragans’ third consecutive Opening Day start for the Royals. He joins a short list of pitchers who made three or more consecutive Opening Day starts for the Royals. The list:

Kevin Appier - 5 - 1992-97
Gil Meche - 3 - 2007-09
Jeff Suppan - 3 - 2000-02
Bud Black - 3 - 1984-86
Dennis Leonard - 3 - 1978-80

I'm always surprised when I see

I’ll include some projections here for my rotation from Steamer, via FanGraphs. I chose Steamer over ZiPS because Steamer has a more optimistic view of playing time, projecting between 29 and 25 starts for the rotation. In turn, that gives a rosier fWAR projection. Steamer projects the Royals rotation (at least based on the guys I have in the rotation at the moment) for a total of 11.5 fWAR. That’s slightly above average from where the numbers netted out for the 2025 season, and it’s off the mark from where this rotation finished. In 2025, Royals starters combined for a 13.8 fWAR.

The takeaway from the projections is that Ragans is far and away the ace of the staff with Bubic behind him in the quality pecking order. I think we already knew that. The trio of Lugo, Wacha and Cameron are fairly similiar…at least in the eyes of the projections. I’m still not as bullish on Cameron as some. I do see an outcome where Wacha provides more value again for the Royals than Lugo. We’ll see.

Bullpen
Carlos Estévez
Lucas Erceg
Matt Strahm
John Schreiber
Daniel Lynch IV
Nick Mears
Alex Lange
Bailey Falter

I listed this group in order of what I presume to be when they will be used most frequently. Working from the ninth inning backward.

This bullpen is a baseball conundrum. The only guys on this list who have options are Erceg and Lynch. Lynch, while his performance this spring—four walks and six strikeouts in 6.2 innings—hasn’t been noteworthy, makes the squad as the second lefty behind Strahm. Erceg makes the team because he’s the damn setup man/shadow closer. That limits what the Royals can do in the early part of the season.

I was initially looking to give someone in the Mears/Lange/Falter group the axe. Just to make it interesting. Alas, I cannot.

While I think some of these Steamer projections are too low on the fWAR side for some of these relievers, the strikeouts are why guys like Mears and Lange are in pole position for spots in the pen. The Royals have been missing that flamethrower who can consistently get chase and miss bats. Mears and Lange aren't your triple-digit kind of guys, but they do average 96 mph and that's something.

The Royals moved Falter from his expected start on Tuesday and instead had him pitch from the bullpen. It’s clear that if Falter is on the team, he will be pitching in relief so why not gauge his comfort in that role? (Although there are some rumblings that he could be an early season sixth starter. Yes, a six-man rotation.) All he did was pitch three hitless innings where he didn’t walk a batter and struck out five. It was his best outing of the spring. His four-seam and sinker both had almost two extra ticks of velocity and he finished with a 42 percent whiff rate. Maybe there’s something there. Worth hanging on to him for sure.

I wrote about Carlos Estévez and how I was worried about his lack of game work while with the Dominican Republic at the WBC. He pitched on Wednesday and...woof. His four-seam was averaging 89 mph, six full mph off his average last year. And he threw 28 pitches total with only nine for strikes. He walked three batters. This is absolutely a concern.

Previously, I had touted Mason Black (8 IP, 3 BB, 8 SO, 0.00 ERA) but he has options and was sent to Triple-A earlier this week. Can they find a spot for Eli Morgan (7.2 IP, 2 BB, 8 SO. 1.17 ERA)? Steven Cruz and Luinder Avila would be deserving fits in this group as well. I'm sure all four of those guys—and a few others—will get their turn in KC this summer.

Now for the batters...

Catcher
Carter Jensen
Salvador Perez

That’s World Baseball Classic Champion Salvador Perez to you.

I always discount projections for rookies. It's especially difficult in a situation like this where we don't know how the playing time will shake out. Clearly, Perez won't get all 563 of those PAs as a catcher. He's going to see time at first and DH. Jensen, as long as he continues to exhibit the poise he showed in his cup of coffee last September, should amass more than the projected 308 PAs.

Infield
Maikel Garcia
Jonathan India
Nick Loftin
Vinnie Pasquantino
Bobby Witt Jr.

If you want to name an MVP of the Royals camp, my vote would go to Nick Loftin. With the superstars out of camp, he’s grabbed the opportunity as he’s hit .294/.385/.559 which, I know, doesn’t mean a thing, but it’s better to put up a performance like that than not hitting as well. He’s collected five walks and six strikeouts, clubbed a few extra-base hits and swiped a bag while playing all over the diamond. He can be a valuable right-handed hitting utility guy. He's seen time this spring at first, second, third and left field.

India is having a fine spring with a .500 OBP built on the back of a team-high eight bases on balls. But his average exit velocity is just 84.8 mph which is the lowest among players I'm projecting to make this roster. So while he's on the team, I'm still a bit concerned about his outlook. Steamer isn't too worried.

A .340 OBP for India isn't among his best seasons, but it's still plenty better than he posted last year for the Royals. That would play in the leadoff role ahead of Witt. Speaking of Witt, just another ho-hum season projected. Those numbers feel low. All of them.

Outfield
Jac Caglianone
Isaac Collins
Kyle Isbel
Starling Marte
Lane Thomas
Tyler Tolbert

Michael Massey, who occupied a spot on my previous roster iteration, suffered what the Royals call a “low-grade” calf srain on March 6. He hasn’t appeared in a Cactus League contest since March 8, when he left after two at bats after trying to play what, at the time, the Royals thought was just tightness. He played in a minor league game on a backfield on Tuesday but I wonder about his fitness this close to Opening Day. Unfortunately, he has quite an injury history.

Tolbert gets Massey’s spot if he’s unable to go on Opening Day. The Royals love their speed guy off the bench.

Speaking of injuries, I was waffling on Collins as he missed about a week of action with back tightness. Then, he took part in a full workout on Tuesday and was declared good to go. The Royals are progressing a bit slowly, holding Collins out of the field and instead having him as the DH in Wednesday’s game where he went 0-3 with a strikeout as the leadoff hitter. While Collins may in fact be the guy at the top of the order for the Royals, his appearance there was more to maximize his plate appearances after missing the time.

What stands out for me in this projection group is that, as I was sorting the spreadsheet, the performance from the outfielders were all well below the gang on the dirt. While the Caglianone projection is low, I'm not sure Steamer isn't spot-on for the rest of this crew.

You just have to hope they get something out of this group that can help fortify the lineup.