Three Key Complementary Pieces for the Royals in 2025

With Opening Day just a day away, the Kansas City Royals‘ quest to repeat their magical 2024 campaign will soon officially get underway.

There are plenty of storylines that the majority of eyes will be on this season, revolving around the Royals’ top talent.

Whether that be their excellent top half of the lineup led by MVP runner-up Bobby Witt Jr., the stellar starting rotation, or the bullpen anchored by one of the more promising back-end trios MLB has to offer, the attention-grabbing headlines are in no short supply.

At the end of the day, though, every team is a sum of its parts, and the Royals are no different. For every Bobby Witt Jr. or Cole Ragans-type, there are several complementary players across the roster that help make this team the postseason contender that it is.

So, let’s discuss three of these complementary pieces who should play key roles for the Royals in 2025.

Michael Massey Can Be a Bridge in the Middle of the Lineup

Michael Massey quietly put down a very impressive turnaround season in 2024. The 27-year-old second baseman saw significant bumps across most statistical categories, headlined by a 30-point rise in wRC+ to an above-average mark.

Now it’s important to consider that as a lefty, Massey was primarily utilized against right-handers, with just 66 of his 356 plate appearances coming against southpaws.

However, in his limited sample size against lefties last season, Massey proved he could hold his own and basically be just as effective as he was against righties.

Then came the postseason, when we saw how well he could link the bottom of the lineup to the heart of the order, featuring Witt, Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez. As the primary October leadoff man, Massey was one of the few Royals who generated offense amidst some difficulties across the lineup, hitting .304 with a .795 OPS across both series.

Now, the arrival of Jonathan India means that both second base and the leadoff role could accounted for more than they were last season, but that doesn’t diminish the role that Massey could play.

Both India and Massey have spent some time in the corner outfield during spring training, indicating there could be opportunities to utilize them both in the lineup on any given night.

Given the fact that Massey is also the only other regular option (per FanGraphs’ RosterResource), besides the big four of India, Witt, Pasquantino and Perez, who was above average in terms of wRC+ last season, the DH role could be an option for more regular at-bats as well.

While positionally there are ways to include them both in the lineup simultaneously, India seems to have the stronghold on the leadoff position for the club in 2025.

However, that doesn’t mean Massey can’t still serve as a link between the top and bottom of the order. Going back to RosterResource, Massey is currently projected to bat in the five spot.

A middle-of-the-order spot could be the next best thing to leading off for him, as his solid average and double-digit HR pop could serve well to generate run-scoring opportunities as well as simply keep the line moving after the top four in the order.

He’s coming off a major turnaround season, holds great splits and now has newfound positional versatility, meaning Massey is poised to be as important a piece as just about anyone in this lineup.

Michael Lorenzen Lengthens the Rotation

When it comes to Kansas City’s starting staff, the attention obviously goes towards the top of the rotation to the “three-headed monster” of Ragans, Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha.

However, it’s more than just the top half of this starting staff that makes it one of MLB’s top rotations for 2025.

Bringing back Michael Lorenzen this winter could prove to be a huge move for this team, as the 33-year-old right-hander has become one of the more unconventionally effective lower-half starting arms in baseball.

Since converting back to a starter again in 2022, Lorenzen hasn’t thrown to an ERA higher than 4.24, while keeping his WHIP in the 1.20s and his BAA marks no higher than .240, both respectable outputs.

Looking at 2024 in particular, he performed the best he had as a starter, with a 3.31 ERA, 1.24 WHIP and .215 BAA.

His underlying numbers were nothing special, falling below average when it came to inducing swing-and-miss, preventing walks and minimizing solid contact.

However, what’s made him so effective is the fact that he has such a deep arsenal to throw at hitters, with seven pitches to draw from.

Now, not all of his pitches are perfect ones, but seldom is that the case for a pitcher with such a robust pitch mix. What’s also equally uncommon, though, is that all his pitches would be bombarded by opposing hitters.

Of his seven deliveries, Lorenzen went to three of them more consistently than the others last season: his four-seamer (27.1% usage rate), his sinker (21.3% usage rate) and his changeup (18.8% usage rate).

Then, of those three deliveries, hitters had a particularly tough time against two of them. His four-seamer (.156 BAA and .312 SLG) and changeup (.165 BAA and .173 SLG) bared very favorable numbers.

Three of his four more secondary pitch options would also feature solid BAA clips, as his cutter, curveball and sweeper held BAA clips no higher than .235.

If Lorenzen can continue to make up for middling underlying metrics and continue to deceive hitters with his loaded pitch-mix, then there are a few ways this can benefit the rest of the staff.

Obviously, the deeper this rotation goes, the less pressure there is on the top half.

While Ragans seems as much of a lock as anyone to have yet another ace-worthy season, Lugo could be a regression candidate after exceeding expectations in a big way in his first season in Kansas City, with a Cy Young runner-up finish.

Then Wacha, while being as consistent as they come with three-straight sub-3.50 ERA seasons, is entering his mid-30s, when age typically starts to become more of a question.

Lorenzen also takes some pressure off the No. 5 starter Kris Bubic, who, despite showing great stuff and putting up great numbers in relief in 2024, may have some growing pains as he transitions back into the rotation for the first time since early 2023.

John Schreiber Is a Great Option for the Middle Innings

Now we move to the bullpen, where, like the rotation, the shine goes towards the anchoring arms, in this case the back three: Lucas Erceg, Carlos Estévez and Hunter Harvey.

Again, like the rotation, this bullpen unit is deeper than the initial eye-catching frontrunners for the seventh-to-ninth inning roles.

John Schreiber is one of those names that stands out among the rest of the ‘pen after another solid big league campaign in 2024.

In 51.2 innings across 59 appearances, the 31-year-old threw to a 3.66 ERA and a 3.03 FIP. For three consecutive seasons now since becoming a big league regular, Schreiber has posted sub-3.00 ERAs each year.

He’s not the type of arm that has a ton of past closing success or blistering stuff or a glowing red Baseball Savant page. That being said though, similar to how both Massey and Lorenzen could be key linking pieces to the top and the bottom of the lineup and rotation, respectively, Schreiber can be that for the bullpen.

Looking at the Royals’ ZiPS projections for 2025, the model views Schreiber as the fourth best option coming out of the ‘pen, which could materialize in a few ways.

First is simply being the regular sixth inning option for the Royals, to set the table for the big three in the back. This, in turn, would also ease some of the pressure off the starting staff to be lights out every single night, so they can simply focus on putting quality starts together.

Schreiber could also work as an arm to get the Royals out of mid-inning jams. This could take place if a righty is at the dish, given his good righty/righty splits in ’24 with a .216 BAA and .243 SLG. This could also happen if the Royals need a groundball in general, given the way he avoided barrels at a 96th percentile clip and induced groundballs at a 90th percentile rate last year.

Having a consistently reliable option like Schreiber will be huge for manager Matt Quatraro when it comes to game management, whether it be extending his bullpen even further or needing a go-to arm to work out of problems at key moments.