1 former KC Royals pitcher finds new home, another leaves the game

Earlier this year, as the varied promises of another baseball season began to dawn in the spring training camps of Arizona and Florida, Austin Cox and Ross Stripling, two pitchers with markedly different professional résumés, pinned their aspirations of returning to the major leagues on the non-roster invitations to spring camp the Kansas City Royals handed them. Cox's came among the club's first batch of NRIs, while Stripling received his when he signed a minor league deal with the Royals after their Surprise, Arizona, camp opened.

Unfortunately for both, their Cactus League performances didn't warrant Opening Day roster spots. Cox went 3-0, but spring training victories mean far less than regular season wins, and the 4.70 ERA and four walks he issued in 7.2 innings did little to make a case for a seat in manager Matt Quatraro's bullpen. The Royals reassigned him to minor league spring training in mid-March.

And Stripling's spring was far from productive. The veteran of nine big league seasons, including an impressive 10-4, 3.01 campaign with Toronto in 2022, was battered for 14 runs — 13 of them earned — and an ugly .447 BAA in just eight innings. That was more than enough to justify the Royals' grant of the late-March release he requested after a series of bad outings seemed to foretell such a result.

Now, well over a month after their 2025 big league hopes were dashed, Cox and Stripling are headed in opposite directions.

A former KC Royals pitcher moves on while another leaves baseball

Unlike Stripling, who came close to spending 10 years in the majors, Cox has only 24 big league appearances — all in 2023 — to show for a pro career that began when Kansas City made him part of their then-vaunted, pitching-heavy 2018 draft class. Pitching almost exclusively out of the bullpen, the left-hander went 0-1 with a save and 4.54 ERA for the Royals across three separate 2023 call-ups.

But he never managed to get past Triple-A Omaha again. And despite a serviceable 2-1, 3.55 ERA record, and 18 strikeouts in 12.2 innings this season, the Storm Chasers released him Sunday.

All, however, is not lost for Cox. His time on the open market ended almost as soon as it began when Atlanta signed him to a major league deal before the day was out. He's been assigned to the team's Gwinnett, Georgia, Triple-A affiliate. The Braves, currently near the bottom of the National League East, wouldn't have given Cox a big league contract unless they have designs on promoting him before the season ends.

While Cox's career continues, the curtain is coming down on Stripling's. The righty who both started and relieved across his major league tenures with the Dodgers, with whom he earned an NL All-Star berth in 2018, Blue Jays, Giants, and A's, announced his retirement Monday morning. He departs with a 40-54 record and 4.17 career ERA over 129 starts and 119 relief appearances.