SURPRISE, Ariz. – New pitch? New grip? Those are the first questions asked to every pitcher in Spring Training, essentially asking what’s different about them than what we saw last year.
There are no shortage of changes in Royals camp this spring, some big and some subtle. Cactus League games are a good way to assess those differences and start to think about how they could help the pitching staff in 2026.
Here’s what we’ve gathered so far:
Seth Lugo
One thing you can count on with Lugo: He’s always tinkering. The 36-year-old is shrewd and has made a career out of reinvention. In his spring debut Monday, Lugo threw five sliders and averaged 85.6 miles per hour with the pitch – a 2.4 mph increase from his slider last year. Not only that, but Cubs batters swung four times on that pitch and whiffed all four times. Now that is interesting.
Never one to give away his secrets, Lugo was fairly vague when asked about it.
“It’s something I’m working on,” Lugo said, noting that it’s a relatively recent addition. “It’s a new grip, new mentality. Something I’m coming up with.”
That’s enough to tell us that this is something worth monitoring. Having a slider with true depth that's hard and that gets swings and misses is just more movement hitters have to think about when they step into the box against Lugo.
Daniel Lynch IV
There were rumblings early on that Lynch was seeing more velocity in his bullpens and live batting practice sessions, and now there’s some public data to back it up, albeit in a small sample size: In a scoreless inning Tuesday, Lynch’s six fastballs he threw averaged 95.5 mph. That’s a 1.4 mph increase from the 94.1 mph he averaged last year. Reds batters swung four times and didn’t whiff, and there was one hard hit, but the Royals like what they’ve seen with the uptick in velocity.
Where did it come from? Lynch spent a lot of time this offseason on his delivery, making sure he doesn’t rush through it and leak energy. The way to do that is to keep his glove arm strong and level or above his shoulder. It not only helps him generate more strength, but by focusing on the same delivery for every pitch, he’s hopeful he doesn’t give away clues to hitters.
“When it’s not good, my glove side would dip toward first base and dip way below my lead shoulder, and I’d sort of coil,” Lynch said. “When it’s good, my glove side is actually a hair above my lead shoulder, and my shoulders are tilted back. When I’m landing, if my head and shoulders are stacked over my hips, not tilted forward, those are the checkpoints I look for.”
Luinder Avila
Avila already has a nasty curveball that generated a 50% whiff rate in his short sample size as a reliever last year. He can spin the ball well, and now he’s tinkering with a slider. It’s a pitch that he learned at the very end of last season and said he threw once in his final outing of the year on Sept. 28.
“It needs to be 88-90 mph, and I feel good with it,” Avila said through interpreter Luis Perez. “It’s all about the grip. I talked to a lot of players that throw it and are successful.”
There’s a lot of debate in camp about what Avila’s role will be this year. If he’s a starter, he’ll likely be in Triple-A as depth, and the slider would certainly help. But he could force his way onto the Opening Day roster as a reliever, and another offering is never a bad thing.
John Schreiber
Add Schreiber to the list of pitchers working on a kick-changeup, a pitch he introduced last season but then worked on consistently the entire offseason. The right-hander posted a 3.80 ERA and will be a reliever the Royals turn to in middle- to high-leverage situations again, but he has to be able to get lefties out. Last season, left-handed batters had a .754 OPS in 111 plate appearances against Schreiber compared to a .671 OPS in 154 plate appearances for right-handers. With his four-seam, sinker, sweeper and cutter, Schreiber has the east-to-west movement plot covered.
A good kick-change could give him some vertical drop.
“I wanted something that could go south and complement the other pitches,” Schreiber said. “Increase strikeout rates, get weak contact, all that good stuff. Whether the situation is that I come in with two lefties coming up or two righties and one lefty, being able to say that they can trust me going into any situation is my goal.”