BALTIMORE — One night 15 months ago, Royals general manager J.J. Picollo sat inside his suite at Kauffman Stadium and pondered a trade proposal with the Texas Rangers.
The deal would send Royals reliever Aroldis Chapman to Texas for a young lefty named Cole Ragans, and Picollo had his doubts. First off, there was the timing: it was still late June, more than a month before the trade deadline. Second, there was the value: Ragans was a former first-round pick, but that was seven years earlier and he’d undergone two Tommy John surgeries since.
As the Royals faced the Cleveland Guardians in Kansas City, careening their way toward 106 losses, Picollo decided to spend the evening in survey mode, querying his staff on the pros and cons of the trade.
“At the end of the day,” one lieutenant told Picollo, “I would do this deal.”
A few innings later, another staffer came by.
At the end of the day, I would do this deal.
“I heard it three or four times that night,” Picollo says. “At the end of the day, I would do this deal.”
It was only a short while later, as Chapman jogged in from the bullpen, that Picollo had an epiphany. If Chapman got hurt that night, it was the end of the day. One of the most valuable relievers on the market would yield nothing. So Picollo went home that night and called Rangers general manager Chris Young.
The story seemed particularly relevant on Tuesday night at Camden Yards, as Ragans tossed six scoreless innings in the Royals’ 1-0 victory over the Orioles in Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series. In his first career postseason start, the 26-year-old Ragans pumped 98-mph fastballs, disarmed the Orioles with a bevy of offspeed pitches and finished the night with eight strikeouts and no walks.
It was the kind of dominating performance befitting a fire-breathing ace, the only hiccup a calf cramp that ended his night after just 80 pitches. It was the kind of performance the Royals have come to expect from Ragans.
“Pure electricity,” said Royals closer Lucas Erceg, who notched a four-out save. “The guy wants it.”
“He pitched his butt off,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “That was incredible.”
“I plan on having quite a few more starts,” Ragans said, referencing the cramps. “So I just didn’t want to push it.”
The kismet of October baseball is ever charming. On Wednesday afternoon, the Royals will send right-hander Seth Lugo to the mound with a chance to sweep Baltimore in the best-of-three game series and advance to play the Yankees in the ALDS. The last time Kansas City had this good a chance to make an October run was 2015, when the roster featured a 6-foot-10 veteran pitcher named Chris Young.
The Royals won the World Series that year, and it was Young who etched himself in franchise lore by throwing three scoreless frames in extra innings of a marathon Game 1, earning the win. Young was a beloved teammate who returned a few days later to start Game 4, sprayed Champagne after a series-clinching Game 5 win, and then returned to the Royals the next year, donating a portion of his contract to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City.
And then, eight years later, he delivered another gift: Cole Ragans.
The trade, of course, turned out plenty terrific for Texas, which won its first World Series championship last October. But Ragans has transformed into a monster that even the Royals did not see coming.
As Picollo puts it: “If I would have known that, I would have done the trade three weeks earlier.”
But such are the breaks that turn a 106-loss team into a World Series contender. When Ragans arrived last summer, he linked up with pitching coach Brian Sweeney, returned to Triple A, refashioned his arsenal and turned in a 2.64 ERA in 12 starts. The performance put the American League on notice and turned Ragans into a dark horse Cy Young pick to start this season. Yet Quatraro was delighted when the lefty showed up to spring training with a chip still firmly imprinted on his shoulder.
“Cole approached the offseason and spring training like he was trying to make the team and didn’t even entertain the thought that he might be the Opening Day starter,” Quatraro said. “(That) tells you something about his humility.”
The mentality helped Ragans make his first All-Star Game and finish the regular season with a 3.14 ERA and a league-high 10.8 strikeouts per nine innings. It also permeated a clubhouse where the starting rotation has set the tone. The Royals spent last winter bolstering their rotation with the signings of Lugo and Michael Wacha. The heightened quality of arms seemed to rub off on homegrown starter Brady Singer, himself a former first-round pick. But looking back, the first domino of a rejuvenated rotation — one of the best in the postseason — was the rise of Ragans.
“That was the start of it,” Picollo said.
That the Royals even had Chapman in the first place was a harbinger of a revamped front office. Chapman had suffered through a turbulent and ineffective last season in New York in 2022. But the recommendation to sign him had come from Royals assistant general manager Rene Francisco, who had witnessed Chapman working out in Miami.
“Trust me on this,” he told Picollo.
Sweeney, the Royals pitching coach, helped Chapman return to form. The Royals flipped him into a No. 1 starter. The result has been a full-scale identity change. On Tuesday, the Royals won a baseball game while sending just 31 hitters to the plate and not recording an extra-base hit. The victory was encapsulated by a message that has percolated throughout the clubhouse, revealed afterward by Bobby Witt Jr.
“As Tommy Pham says, whenever you allow the other team to score zero runs, you get a 99.999 percent chance to win the game,” Witt said. “So I like our odds whenever we do that.”
On Tuesday, most of the credit for the zero belonged to Ragans, and the performance translated into a victorious scene, a stream of jubilant players streaming through the clubhouse doors as Dr. Dre’s “Still D.R.E” blasted out of a speaker. Moments later, in a corner of the room at Camden Yards, catcher Salvador Perez considered the arc of baseball history.
Nine years ago, he caught Chris Young in the World Series. Last year, Young sent an ace to Kansas City.
“Chappy is one of the best closers in baseball,” Perez said. “And Chappy helped him to win a World Series. So I think it was a good trade.”
In this case, good for everybody.
But especially the Royals.
(Top Photo of Ragans: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
