Here’s what the Jordan Lyles signing means for the Kansas City Royals pitching staff

Jordan Lyles’ signing with the Kansas City Royals gives the starting pitching rotation an established veteran with a track record of durability, an effort to shore up a club formed largely around a young and inexperienced core of players.

It’s a familiar role for Lyles, 32, who spent last season with the Baltimore Orioles. The Orioles went from a 110-loss team in 2021 to above .500 (83-79) in 2022 despite having 15 first-time big-leaguers on the roster this last season.

“Playing against them, it was a young, talented group and obviously Salvador (Perez) is back there,” Lyles said of the Royals. “It was very similar to the Baltimore situation to young talent that is close or near or starting off at the big leagues. Young talent is the first thing that stuck out to me when playing against them last year.”

Lyles pointed to Perez’s presence as well as the spacious confines of Kauffman Stadium, the early and sustained interest in signing him displayed by the Royals front office and his comfort level with the people he interacted with in the organization as the attraction to KC.

Lyles’ addition, which became official on Wednesday, also appears very telling about how Royals executive vice president and general manager J.J. Picollo and the front office are approaching arguably the ball club’s most crucial unit: starting pitching.

Instead of ceding starting rotation spots to multiple inexperienced pitchers and riding out the individual and collective growing pains as they’ve done in recent seasons, the Royals decided to “target” pitchers whose level of performance should theoretically prove more predictable and consistent.

For a large portion of the past three seasons, the Royals scuffled through the wide variance of pitchers just breaking into the majors and trying to adjust to the new level of competition.

The Royals led MLB with 102 starts by pitchers who were 25 or younger in 2022.

“We’re not signing him for his veteran presence,” Picollo said of Lyles. “We’re signing him to be a good pitcher for us in our rotation, to help lead us.”

Lyles’ signing may foreshadow the Royals moving some of their highly-regarded young starting pitchers to bullpen roles.

They tried that out last season with Carlos Hernández and Brad Keller (13 relief appearances from mid-August through September).

Picollo acknowledged that the Royals are nearing the point where pitchers who aren’t in the starting rotation may become relievers instead of going to the Triple-A rotation.

Has the Zack attack been sacked?

The Lyles signing may also indicate a willingness to move on from veteran free-agent right-hander Zack Greinke.

“I think we have to still explore (adding to the rotation),” Picollo said. “Because we just don’t know how it’s going to end up throughout the offseason, regardless of who the pitcher is. So if there’s an opportunity for us to get deeper and get better, we can’t close the door right now.”

Picollo said the club will continue to explore options for adding to starting pitching, bolstering the bullpen and adding another hitter to the lineup.

Picollo stated publicly before last season ended that the Royals would be interested in re-signing the 39-year-old Greinke if he decided to continue pitching in 2023.

Both The Athletic’s senior baseball writer Ken Rosenthal and New York Post baseball columnist Jon Heyman reported in recent weeks that the delay in signing Greinke had to do with the seemingly-inflationary free-agent contracts handed out to pitchers less established than Greinke this winter.

Greinke signed a one-year contract worth $13 million last spring training after the MLB lockout ended, and he returned to the Royals franchise that drafted him and where he won a Cy Young Award.

Greinke was the club’s second-best starter last season behind Brady Singer. Greinke had two stints on the injured list, and he went 4-9 with a 3.68 ERA, 1 .34 WHIP, 2.70-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio and .286 opponent’s batting average in 26 starts (137 innings).

“We’re just going to keep looking at it,” Picollo said. “Right now, it hasn’t worked out. But we still have a ways to go this offseason, and we’ll keep evaluating how we can get better.”

Lyles already a rotation mainstay

Whereas the discussion around the signing of veteran left-hander Ryan Yarbrough centered around having an opportunity to compete for a spot in the starting rotation, the 6-foot-5, 230-pound Lyles immediately stepped into the rotation the moment the ink dried on his two-year contract.

The Royals placed an emphasis on pitchers they think they can depend on to help the starting rotation collectively account for 900 innings next season.

“When you get a guy who has shown that he can handle the innings, like Jordan has, it takes a lot of pressure off of the rest of the starting pitchers to try to eat up innings,” Picollo said.

Picollo hopes the duo of Lyles and Yarbrough can be counted on to cover at least 300 innings between them.

Lyles registered a 12-11 record with a 4.42 ERA, 144 strikeouts and 52 walks in 32 starts (179 innings), including one complete game, for the Orioles last season. His 179 innings surpassed Singer’s Royals-leading total by more than 25 innings last season.

In the past two seasons, Lyles has posted a 22-24 record with 4.79 ERA in 64 games (62 starts) and 359 innings. He struck out 290 and walked 108 during that stretch with a strikeout rate of 7.3 strikeouts per 9 innings and a walk rate of 2.7 per 9 innings.

A former first-round draft pick of the Houston Astros (2008), Lyles has made 214 career starts (321 appearances) in stints with the Astros, Colorado Rockies, San Diego Padres, Milwaukee Brewers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Texas Rangers and Orioles.

Lyles actually credited his time pitching in notoriously hitter-friendly Coors Field for helping him mature as a big-league pitcher.

“The ups and downs that came along with that have definitely shaped me and made me into who I am today,” Lyles said.