{"id":19266,"date":"2025-07-28T05:03:33","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T09:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/royals-secure-seth-lugo-million-dollar-extension-and-playoff-aspirations\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T05:03:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T09:03:33","slug":"royals-secure-seth-lugo-million-dollar-extension-and-playoff-aspirations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/mlb\/royals-secure-seth-lugo-million-dollar-extension-and-playoff-aspirations\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals Secure Seth Lugo: Million-Dollar Extension and Playoff Aspirations"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Seth Lugo and the Kansas City Royals Reach Million-Dollar Agreement<\/h2>\n\nRight-handed pitcher Seth Lugo and the Kansas City Royals are finalizing a two-year, $46 million extension. This news comes days before Thursday&#8217;s trade deadline, solidifying Kansas City&#8217;s intentions to fight for a playoff spot in a very open American League.\n\nThe agreement will guarantee Lugo 20 million dollars per season, in addition to a signing bonus of 3 million dollars. It also includes a purchase option for a third season for 20 million dollars, or a club option for 17 million dollars with a purchase of 3 million dollars, according to sources close to the negotiation.\n\nLugo, 35, finished second in the American League Cy Young voting last season and has maintained a similarly excellent performance in 2025, with an ERA of 2.95 in 113 innings. He was expected to decline a $15 million player option for 2026 and reach free agency, but Lugo expressed his desire to remain in Kansas City and negotiated the extension to stay in one of baseball&#8217;s most prominent rotations.\n\nLugo&#8217;s outstanding performance was key to Kansas City&#8217;s surprising 2024 postseason run. A bad streak in June, where the Royals had an 8-18 record, seemed to indicate that they would get rid of players with potential for free agency. However, the team has achieved a 13-8 in July and, with a 52-54 balance, is four games behind Seattle and Texas for the last wild card spot in the American League.\n\nKansas City demonstrated its intention to fight for a playoff spot by acquiring outfielder Randal Grichuk from Arizona in exchange for reliever Andrew Hoffmann. The Royals will do so with a pitching staff affected by injuries. All-Star left-handed pitcher Kris Bubic was placed on the injured list due to a rotator cuff strain on Sunday, while ace Cole Ragans is also out with a shoulder injury, although he has already started throwing and could soon move on to bullpen sessions.\n\nRight-handed pitcher Michael Lorenzen is close to returning from an oblique strain and left-handed reliever Daniel Lynch IV is on a rehab assignment, offering hope that the Royals&#8217; pitching staff could be in full form for the final stretch.\n\nLugo will continue to be fundamental. After debuting with the New York Mets at age 26, Lugo established himself as a solid reliever during his five years with the team. He signed with San Diego in 2023 and became a starter, with an 8-7 record and a 3.57 ERA, impressing Kansas City enough to warrant a three-year, $45 million contract.\n\nWith the widest variety of pitches in baseball \u2013 Lugo throws two types of fastballs, three sliders, two curves, a changeup, a splitter, and a cutter \u2013 he threw a career-high 206\u2154 innings in his first season with the Royals, recording an ERA of 3.00.\n\n\n<p>Although Lugo&#8217;s peripheral numbers this year suggest a possible regression, their effectiveness ranks 10th in the American League and has stabilized a pitching staff that, when healthy, is among the best in the Major Leagues, with Lugo, Ragans, Bubic, Lorenzen, Michael Wacha and rookie Noah Cameron.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seth Lugo and the Kansas City Royals Reach Million-Dollar Agreement Right-handed pitcher Seth Lugo and the Kansas City Royals are finalizing a two-year, $46 million extension. This news comes days before Thursday&#8217;s trade deadline, solidifying Kansas City&#8217;s intentions to fight for a playoff spot in a very open American League. The agreement will guarantee Lugo [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[65,3323,104,2442],"class_list":{"0":"post-19266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-contract","9":"tag-kansas-city-royals","10":"tag-playoffs","11":"tag-seth-lugo"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}