4 silver linings for the Royals amidst their sluggish start to the 2026 season

I don’t know if the Kansas City Royals have a team mantra, but if they do, it should be “Royal Blue, Deja Vu”. We’ve seen this before. It feels like Royals’ fans are in a memory glitch, but that’s just how bleak it’s become. Last season, the Royals' pitching staff was lights out, and carried them to the finish line when the offense had no legs. They went 82-80, a middling baseball season, a year after making it to the ALDS. Early vibes from this season don’t give much hope to think we will see a marked improvement in the win department.

It’s not all bad around this team though. While it’s easy to think "doom and gloom" with this group at the moment, there are some things the Royals can hang their hats on this early in the season.

Maikel Garcia is proving he's well worth the Royals' investment

It would have been fair to suggest negative regression for Garcia, after a career season in 2025 that saw him take home a Golden Glove and an appearance in the All-Star game. Instead however, he's proving this year that he is one of, if not the best, third basemen in the sport.

He's slashing .267/.333/.413 with two homers, nine RBIs, and five doubles. He broke an 0-15 skid with an RBI against the Tigers on Thursday. And from an advanced metrics perspective Garcia is above the 90th percentile in four different metrics and above the 80th in four more.

He's following up a great season with another good start to 2026, which solidifies the Royals' leadoff spot, which was considered a question mark last year. Garcia is doing his job, and that's more than a few players in the lineup can say.

The starting rotation is stellar once again

The Royals' rotation is doing the heavy lifting for this team, holding an AL-best 2.64 ERA, which also only trails the Braves in the full MLB picture. It's telling that when you add in the bullpen's ERA into the equation, it drops the Royals to 17th in ERA.

That should tell you all you need to know about how dominant the starters have been. Between Cole Ragans, Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo, Kris Bubic, and Noah Cameron, the Royals have someone that can lead them to victory every night.

Wacha has been the best of the bunch so far, with a 0.43 ERA (2nd in MLB) in 21 innings with 17 strikeouts. Lugo isn't far behind with a 1.48 ERA (8th in MLB) in 24.1 innings with 21 strikeouts.

Bubic followed up his best outing of the season, where he went 7 scoreless and struck out 11, with his worst on Thursday afternoon. He was roughed up against the Tigers, only going 4.2 innings, giving up five runs on six hits, walking three, and striking out three. Still, his K-rate and whiff-rate rank him inside the 90th percentile, and his ERA is under 4.00.

Ragans' season has been more unpredictable, but when he's pitched, he's looked solid. He has a 3.78 ERA, but is 0-3 and laid an egg on Opening Day. He was beaned in the hand last week and lost some velocity on his fastball, but he's still limiting hard contact. His solid hit rate of 2.4% would be the best rate of his career, considering he averages 5.9% for his career.

Cameron has been the least dominant of the group, but he's your fifth starter. You'll take a 3.94 ERA from the last arm in your rotation. His 6% walk rate sits inside the 80th percentile in baseball.

Jac Caglianone is showing his strong ceiling at plate and in the field

Contrary to popular belief, Jac Caglianone is having a solid start to his season. Compared to some of his teammates, he's light-years ahead of them as far as approach and hard-hit rate. After all, hitting the ball hard is all you can ask for. You have to let fate determine the rest. It's not just his hard-hit rate; his at-bats look much more confident. His O-Swing%, meaning how often he swings at pitches outside of the strike zone, is above Major League average.

Cags may have had his best game as a pro on Wednesday, going 3-3 with a 113.5 mph triple, a walk, and two singles. One of those singles was a bolt to the opposite field in the 9th inning with the Royals down to their last out.

He also showed off the guns in the outfield and threw out Zach McKinstry at home plate with absolute seed from right.

He followed that game with another impressive showing on Thursday. He went 1-4 with an RBI in the finale loss against the Detroit Tigers and had another highlight outfield assist, a 96 mph laser.

It looks like the game is starting to slow down for Caglianone, but fans didn't sign up to watch him hit bolts to the opposite field. They want to see moonshots.

As of this article, Cags is slashing an impressive .306/.405/.417 against right-handers. His OPS sits at .822 against righties. That will play.

We (I'll include myself here) need to remember he's still 23 and developing at his own pace. The power will come, and when it does, that's when the Royals' offense will take off.

Carter Jensen is developing power as well as his all-around game

Jensen has had an unusual start to his season, unlike any I can remember. He was punished and publicly shamed by the Royals for oversleeping and arriving to the stadium a few hours late for a game on April 2nd. Since then however, he's slashed .242/.286/.545 with three homers and seven RBI. He has a 128 wRC+ and a .303 ISO. He currently leads the team in homers with four.

He's leading the team in slugging at .463 this season. He's one of three players on the team to slug over .400, and none of them are Bobby, Salvy, or Vinnie.

The Royals came into the season counting on Carter's bat to continue the show he put on for the last month of 2025, and it's been a mixed bag. His strikeout rate is over 30%, and his walk rate is under 6%.

For Carter's mixed bag at the plate, his defense behind it, and his pitch-calling have been excellent, especially for such a young catcher. His framing gets great reviews on Baseball Savant, ranking in the 90th percentile, saving the Royals an estimated 2 runs. His pop time and caught stealing above-average numbers grade out as slightly above average.

When you dig deeper into his catching stats, you find that he actually performs quite a bit better at the plate when he's also calling shots behind it. He's hitting .353 in six games as the primary catcher with two homers and seven RBI.

He's still growing, but it easy to see the vision as to why the Royals covet him so much, why he was widely considered one of the game's better prospects and why he remains one of the better threats to capture AL Rookie of the Year honors this season.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow