The Kansas City Royals today announced a one-year contract with outfielder Lane Thomas. Kansas City now has 40 players on its Major League Reserve List.
Thomas, 30, has spent seven years in the Majors with three different clubs, including St. Louis (2019-21), Washington (2021-24) and Cleveland (2024-25). Spanning 600 career games, he’s slashed .242/.309/.418 (489-for-2023) with 194 extra-base hits and 254 RBI. He’s made 276 of his 496 career starts in right field, with 170 starts in center field and 50 starts in left.
He’s a career .292 (179-for-612) hitter vs. left-handed pitchers, with a .500 slugging percentage and .859 OPS.
He was limited to 39 games in 2025, as he endured three stints on the Injured List, with a right wrist bone bruise from April 22-May 22 and right foot plantar fasciitis from May 31-June 9 and July 6 through season’s end. Over his 39 games with the Guardians, he made 32 starts in center field and 1 start in right field.
Thomas made the Guardians postseason roster in 2024 and was the starting center fielder in all 10 of Cleveland’s playoff games, including 5 games of the American League Division Series against Detroit and 5 games of the AL Championship Series against New York. He drove in 5 runs in the Guardians series-clinching Game 5 of the ALDS, including his tie-breaking grand slam in the bottom of the 5th inning off Detroit’s Tarik Skubal, who has won the AL Cy Young Award in each of the last two seasons.
In 2023, Thomas was named a Rawlings Gold Glove Award finalist as a National League outfielder, after posting a .985 fielding percentage over 151 games (148 starts) and 1,292.2 innings in right field. That season, he also recorded the sixth 20/20 campaign in Nationals history (since 2005), as he tallied 28 home runs and 20 stolen bases.
Since the start of 2023, he ranks tied for 3rd in the Majors with 28 outfield assists, trailing only Steven Kwan (32) and Nolan Jones (31) in that span.
Thomas was originally selected by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 5th round of the 2014 Draft out of Bearden High School (Knoxville, Tenn.).