Royals get a right-hander from Rangers.
On Monday morning, the Rangers declared that they had sent minor league lefty Walter Pennington to the Royals in exchange for right-hander Michael Lorenzen.
Just prior to the announcement, Jon Heyman of the New York Post revealed that Lorenzen had piqued the interest of Kansas City. Since Pennington is listed as part of the 40-man roster, no equivalent changes were required.
The Rangers, who are now in third place, are not betting on their season with the trade of Lorenzen. Over the past few weeks, there has been a lot of discussion about how Texas could be able to trade some arm from its current rotation as Max Scherzer, Dane Dunning, Tyler Mahle, and eventually Jacob deGrom all start to get healthy.
The most likely of the group to move hands has been Lorenzen, who is now playing on a cheap one-year contract and will become a free agent at the conclusion of the season.
The Rangers rotation going forward will be Lorenzen (to Kansas City), Scherzer, Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Andrew Heaney, and possibly Dunning; although, Mahle, who is about to finish a minor league rehab assignment, may fill the fifth position.
The rest of Lorenzen’s stats aren’t as good, but he has tossed 101 2/3 innings with the Rangers and has a very respectable 3.81 earned run average. While Lorenzen’s 11.5 percent walk rate is significantly higher than the 8.2 percent league average, his 17.9 percent strikeout rate is much lower than the 22.3 percent league average.
However, Lorenzen has also profited from a.243 average on balls in play and an 80.7 percent strand rate, which are both far better than his lifetime norms of.279 and 74.2 percent. He has kept the ball on the ground at a respectable 42.3 percent clip. It’s conceivable that one or both may regress.
Nonetheless, Lorenzen is a respectable enough back-end starter even with some slippage. After spending five seasons in the Reds bullpen, he decided to pursue a career as a starting pitcher three years ago, and his results this year very much reflect who he has been since then.
During the 2022–2023 season, Lorenzen pitched 250 2/3 innings between the Angels, Tigers, and Phillies, recording a 4.20 ERA, 18.9% strikeout rate, and 8.8% walk rate. When one considers his work this year, he has a 4.09 ERA, below-average walk and strikeout rates, but not dramatically so.
That’s a decent sign for what the Royals might anticipate going forward, and Lorenzen has occasionally displayed bursts of more production. For Phillies fans, his first two starts after being traded to the organization last summer will always be special. In his team debut, he pitched eight innings of two-run ball, and in his home debut at Citizens Bank Park, he pitched a no-hitter against the Nationals.
But as he approached a career-high innings workload and threw a career-high 124 pitches in that no-hitter, Lorenzen faltered in the latter part of the game. Late in the season, the Phils shifted him to the bullpen.
Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo, Brady Singer, Michael Wacha, and Alec Marsh represent sound one through five in Kansas City’s rotation, which is typically full. Despite having a strong start to the season, Marsh has suffered greatly, giving up a 6.37 ERA in his last ten outings. While he has blended in a few strong performances over that time, after May 27 he has allowed at least three runs in eight of his ten starts (and at least four in six of them).
Marsh may be moved to the bullpen or perhaps to Triple-A Omaha if Lorenzen moves into that starting place. After hitting 120, 140, 160, and 180 innings pitched, respectively, Lorenzen will get bonuses of $300, $400, and $500 thousand dollars, increasing his base pay of $4.5 million to $5.5 million.
Although Lorenzen could theoretically be used in the bullpen by the Royals—they recently saw both Hunter Harvey and John Schreiber leave a game due to injuries—that would be a surprising use of Lorenzen considering that they traded a big league-ready reliever who is having an excellent Triple-A season to acquire him.
With his arrival, Pennington, 26, will provide the Rangers with a bullpen option right away. This season, the Rangers haven’t been able to locate a reliably good lefty reliever, but Pennington might be a good fit.
The 6-foot-2, 205-pound southpaw, who went undrafted in the abbreviated 2020 draft, left Colorado institution of Mines after his junior year. Earlier this season, he became just the second player from that institution to ever make it to the majors (the first being Roy Hartzell in 1906).
Pennington was brought up by the Royals for a quick appearance, but he was sent back to Omaha after pitching just two thirds of an inning. With the Storm Chasers this season, he has been pitching to a perfect 2.26 ERA in 59 2/3 innings while striking out 32.9 percent, walking 8.3 percent, and groundballing 52.6 percent of the bats faced.
Pennington completes his trio of key offerings with a sinker that reaches 92–93 mph, a cutter that reaches 89–90 mph, and a slider that reaches 83–85 mph. This year, he has thrown more than half of his pitches as sliders, and he has kept both lefties and righties in check while giving up nearly comparable batting lines to righties (.198/.250/.286) and lefties (.156/.262/.278).
Pennington is now in his first of three years as a minor league option. The Rangers will have control over him through the 2030 season at the latest, as he cannot complete a full year of big league service in 2024 (though more optional assignments could further delay that free-agent trajectory).
With so many senior arms the Rangers have returning from injury, he is a solid pickup for a rental starter whose spot in the rotation was in doubt. He might be a long-term option in the Texas bullpen.
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