Is Kansas City Royals Pitcher Randy Dobnak Pitching Himself to a Return in 2027 with Team?
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Everyone loves a good story in baseball, and the Royals have a pitcher with an interesting road to the majors in Randy Dobnak. The undrafted pitcher is out of Division II Alderson Broaddus University and came up through the United Shore Professional Baseball League, beginning his career with the Utica Unicorns. Shortly after that stint, the Minnesota Twins signed him in 2017 and while in the minors was making extra money through Uber before he rose through the minors and made his debut in 2019.
Fast-forward to 2026, and Dobnak is now a Kansas City Royal after five seasons with the Twins, who gave him a 5-year, $9.25 million extension. Since acquiring Dobnak on June 17 from the Mariners (he was in their minor league system) and his subsequent call-up on July 1, he has been arguably the Royals' best pitcher. Has his play warranted a return to the Royals for the 2027 season? Let's dive into the numbers.
Lives Up to the Archetype of Pitcher He is
When people think of a finesse ground ball pitcher, who do many think of? The first that might come to mind for many might be Greg Maddux, who used elite precision to coax batters into many outs while not being overpowering. Tim Hudson is another pitcher that fits this criteria, but Randy Dobnak also slots into this archetype, albeit probably not on the levels of Maddux or Hudson.
There are two key numbers a pitcher of this archetype needs to be good at producing or limiting: groundball rate and barrel rate. Dobnak is an elite groundball pitcher so far this season, with a 55.8% groundball rate, and he has limited barrels at a 4.2% rate. For a nice bonus, he also gets a good amount of chases on his pitches with a 30.4% chase rate.
In his 36 innings of work so far with the Royals, he has also left plenty of runners on base with an 88.5% LOB%, which is ideal for this archetype of pitcher. As is the case for pitchers like Dobnak, he doesn't have overpowering stuff, whether it is high velocity or good break. His stuff+ sits at 82 on the season, meaning his stuff is 18% worse than league average (for a more detailed explanation, see article here). His stuff isn't the best, but he is really good at locating his stuff with a location+ of 109.
That value puts him tied for sixth among pitchers with at least 30 innings pitched on the season, and he locates all his stuff well. His best-located pitch is his fastball with a value of 126, which is the third-best in the league, ignoring the fact that he only throws his 4-seam 8.8% of the time. Let's dive a tad deeper.
Living on the Edge, in Multiple Ways
This is the case with most pitchers with this archetype, but Dobnak is playing with fire while also putting it out more often than not. He doesn't strike anyone out (12.4% K-rate), walks a good number of batters (9.2% BB-rate), and allows a hard-hit rate of 41.7%. He has a 1.33 WHIP so far this season, and as discussed earlier, his 88.5% LOB% shows he has been his own fireman.
How is he getting away with this (outside of his last start against the Cubs)? He has done a good job of living on the edge of the zone. If we look at his pitching run value chart, he has positive run values in the heart and shadow of the zone meaning whenever he is locating in those areas of the zone positive things have happened.
To further his effectiveness in locating, 45.0% of his pitches sit on the edge of the zone. Then we go back to him playing with fire, as he allows a lot of contact with an 83.5% contact rate. That rate balloons to 93.1% when pitches are in the zone, and when batters chase, they still make contact at a 67.6%. Dobnak's saving grace is that his BABIP is .271 on the year so far.
While there are some positives on the surface, a lot of underlying numbers don't believe Dobnak's success continues for much longer. He has a 2.00 ERA on the surface; if we look at xERA, it is expected to be 4.79 and his FIP sits at 3.92, so some of his success has been luck, but it is also what is going to happen for a guy with this archetype.
He allows a ton of contact, doesn't strike anyone out, walks a fair number of batters, and allows a lot of loud contact, but all of that is counteracted, so far, by the fact that he can locate and get outs when times get tough. As per his splits, he has a wOBA of .260 in situations labeled as medium leverage and .170 in high-leverage situations. Now, to discuss the elephant in the room with the headline.
The Royals will Badly need Starting Pitching in 2027
The 2026 season has seen the Royals lose five starting pitchers, who were either expected to pitch a lot this season or act as depth, to various elbow injuries throughout the season, meaning there is very little depth to end this season and heading into next season. Dobnak is heading into his final year of arbitration this offseason, since his first club option from his 2021 extension with the Twins was declined by the Detroit Tigers after he was traded to them.
He isn't likely to want a lot of money, and the Royals will be in the market for depth pitching. The question lies in whether they go through arbitration or sign him to a cheap extension. He has pitched some of his best baseball with the Royals, and he is well on his way to smashing a lot of his career bests if he doesn't get hurt.
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Trey is no stranger to writing about the Royals as he has done it for 6 years now for various blogs (Kings of Kauffman, Inside The Royals, and Farm to Fountains). He is a graduate of Baker University with a degree in Mass Media with an emphasis in sports media. He enjoys watching and researching sports as well as gaming.
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