Royals try to resurrect former Blue Jays All-Star's MLB career with surprise signing

J.J. Picollo and the Kansas City Royals have been active on free agent market when it comes to depth signings over the past few days.

After signing Héctor Neris to a minor league deal on Monday night to help bolster the bullpen, they didn't wait long to make their next move to address their pitching staff's depth.

According to a report from FanSided MLB insider Robert Murray, the Royals are in agreement on a minor league deal with former All-Star Aaron Sanchez that includes an invitation to spring training.

Now, do the Royals need more starting pitching at the major league level? No, in fact they still enter the last few days of January with arguably more names in their rotation than they know what to with.

However, the opportunity that Sanchez provided them just seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up, especially on a low-risk MiLB gamble.

Could Aaron Sanchez make a major league comeback with the Royals in 2026?

According to Murray's report, after an extremely successful stint in the Dominican Winter League this year, there were not shortage of interested parties in the former prized Blue Jays hurler.

"Multiple teams expressed interest in Sanchez after a strong showing with the Toros del Este where he won the Dominican Winter League’s Pitcher of the Year award after sitting out last season," Murray wrote. "In eight starts (46.1 innings), he posted a 1.55 ERA, 34 strikeouts and nine walks."

Now, as promising as this stint is though, a major league comeback for Sanchez would still be quite the tall task.

The former first-round pick hasn't played in the majors since 2022 after appearing in 60.0 innings across 15 total appearances split between the Washington Nationals and the Minnesota Twins. In that season, he posted a career worst 6.60 ERA along with a 1.55 WHIP and .318 BAA.

And Sanchez hasn't played affiliated baseball since his 2024 stint with Toronto's Triple-A team in Buffalo, where in 14 starts he threw to a 7.92 ERA and 1.68 WHIP.

However, given how much depth the Royals needed to rely upon in 2025 amid their immense injury woes, proven major league additions like this are never a bad option to, at the very least, get an extended look at in the spring.

At his best he was a flamethrowing starting option capable of posting low-3.00s ERAs and and fWAR totals above 3.0. And Murray also reported that Sanchez "went to the Dominican Republic to tweak different things". So, given his excellent results down there this winter, perhaps he could be inching closer to that All-Star arm than the mid-6.00 ERA arm he was when last in MLB.

If he were to crack the Royals roster, the fit is still somewhat ambiguous, given that between Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha, Noah Cameron, Kris Bubic, Ryan Bergert and Stephen Kolek, there's seven names that have proven recently that they can, at the very least, handle their own as big league starters.

And Sanchez has primarily been a starting pitcher during his time in the majors, having made only seven appearances out of the 'pen since becoming a full-time starter in 2016.

How the Royals plan on using him this spring remains to be seen, but there are certainly worst gambles they could have taken. He's the definition of low risk and high reward.