Royals place veteran pitcher on release waivers

The Royals have released veteran right-hander Jordan Lyles, according to Anne Rogers of MLB.com. Should he pass through waivers unclaimed, he will become a free agent in the coming days. Lyles, 33, was placed on the restricted list back in April due to an undisclosed personal matter. Per Rogers, Lyles reported to the organization last month, opening up a 30-day window for him to either be added back to the roster or released. Saturday was day 30 of that window, prompting the right-hander’s placement on release waivers.

A veteran of 14 MLB seasons, Lyles has posted an above-average season by measure of ERA+ just once in his lengthy career but has nonetheless managed to stick around the majors consistently thanks to his workhorse tendencies. From 2019 to 2023, the right-hander posted a lackluster 5.20 ERA with a similar 5.09 FIP, both well below the league average. In doing so, however, he covered a whopping 735 1/3 innings of work. Just 15 pitchers in the league ate more innings than Lyles over that period and that ability to handle a sizable workload has earned him big league deals with rebuilding clubs such as the 2020 Rangers and 2022 Orioles that were in need of reliable volume in the rotation.

The latest rebuilding club to offer Lyles a contract to solidify its rotation mix was the 2023 Royals. The right-hander signed a two-year, $17M pact with Kansas City during the 2022-23 offseason and while the righty posted his typical volume of 177 2/3 innings and 31 starts, the results were borderline disastrous. His 6.28 ERA was by far the worst among all qualified pitchers last year, as were his 5.62 FIP and 5.34 xFIP. Only Patrick Corbin and Miles Mikolas stuck out batters at a lower clip than Lyles’s 16% rate last year and his 39 home runs allowed last year were fewer only than Lance Lynn and Lucas Giolito.

Those lackluster numbers led the Royals to aggressively pursue rotation upgrades this winter, adding veterans Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha to a rotation that had already acquired young lefty Cole Ragans over the summer. The new additions pushed Lyles to the bullpen to open the 2024 campaign and the veteran actually took to the new role quite well in the early going. He made just five appearances prior to being placed on the restricted list, but each of those outings was scoreless. In all, Lyles allowed just two hits and two walks across five innings of work while striking out three in his limited work as a short-relief arm prior to his departure from the club.

Rival organizations will now have the opportunity to claim the veteran (and the remainder of his $8.5M salary for 2024), though it’s extremely unlikely that any club will do so between the hefty price tag and the fact that the veteran seemingly hasn’t pitched competitively since mid-April. In the likely event that he clears waivers, Lyles will become a free agent and be available for any club to sign at the pro-rated league minimum, which would be subtracted from the amount Kansas City owes Lyles for the remainder of the season.