With the offseason officially kicked off, the Royals have some moves they could and should probably make soon. One of those moves is to secure Randy Dobnak for 2027. Dobnak put together one of his better stints in his Major League career with the team in 2026 and looks to be a cheap option to retain as depth.
In 2026, Dobnak pitched in a career-high 74.1 innings, had an ERA of 3.51, and was one of the better starters in the Royals' rotation in the second half. He may have many flaws, but his second half warrants a return to the team as a depth piece.
Dobnak didn't do particularly well, according to the stats, in 2026, as his Baseball Savant page is a light shade of blue for the majority of his profile. What he does do, however, is get ground balls, limit the long ball, and limit barrels. When batters hit Dobnak's pitches, they are on the ground 51.2% of the time, don't go over the fence a ton with a 0.85 HR/9, and they don't barrel him often, at a 4.6% rate. Those are the three main things Dobnak was great at.
Outside of those three numbers, Dobnak is either league average or well below league average in many metrics. He doesn't have great stuff, but his pitch-to-contact ability is what makes him a solid option to bring back. If we dive deeper into his run value chart, it sort of mimics that as well.
His sinker was technically his best pitch, result-wise, mainly because it generated a ton of ground balls. It had a value of 5, which is great, but the underlying numbers don't share that greatness. His sinker still got hit at a .302 clip and slugged at a .413 clip, basically meaning that if the ball was not hit on the ground, it was more than likely going to be a hit. In terms of opposing batting average, his sweeper was his best pitch as batters only hit .222 on it, but slugged it at a .511 rate.
His repertoire is set up to do one thing well, and that is generating ground balls. In fact, four of his five pitches share similar movement patterns: his sinker, changeup, slider, and 4-seam.
Randy Dobnak's pitch movement profile for the 2026 season. | Chart courtesy of Baseball Savant
This is where Dobnak's profile gets a little interesting. For one, every pitch is pretty much a variation of his sinker. Starting with his 4-seam, which acts more like a 2-seam fastball, it has similar tail movement with a touch more rising action. His changeup is pretty much a sinker with a little more drop and slower. The slider is where his repertoire gets a touch more interesting, because it seems he has a gyro slider that pairs well with his sweeper. In short, his slider is a second changeup with a different observed spin.
One last thing about his repertoire is that his slider and sweeper make an interesting combo. For one, both pitches have similar spin-based movements (what a pitch should look like out of the hand): 7:00 for the slider and 7:45 for the sweeper. That means if batters see the spin, both pitches are an option, but the final observed movement (the real-world movement of the pitch) differs a ton. His slider sits at an observed movement of 5:00 and his sweeper sits at 8:15. This basically means that this adds a layer of deception to these two pitches and it could be an interesting thing for him to work on in the offseason.
Now that we have discussed the flawed but interesting profile of Dobnak, what would it take for the Royals to bring him back?
If the Royals bring back Dobnak, it will be through arbitration. Dobnak got paid $622,727 by the Royals during his tenure, and there are a couple of projections that people have put out there. Spotrac has his arbitration projection set at around $2.5 million, which is the third-highest arbitration value for Royals players this offseason. MLB Trade Rumours has a similar projection at $2.3 million.
The curveball in all of this is the fact that Dobnak signed a 5-year deal with Minnesota to buy out his arbitration years, meaning this will be his first season in arbitration. Just Baseball , due to this and the arguments that could be presented by either side, projects Dobnak to make $900K if he gets to arbitration.
His arbitration case would be interesting, but the Royals will more than likely get him back on a pre-tender contract that will be close to his arbitration total, probably around $2.0 million more than likely.
It is borderline a no-brainer for the Royals to bring back Dobnak after he pitched arguably the best he has in his career. He has an extreme profile and has experience both in the rotation and in the bullpen, so bringing him back as depth just makes sense for the Royals. After the 2026 season, the Royals learned that you can never have enough depth, especially in the starting rotation.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/royals/onsi as Royals should look to Keep Randy Dobnak in Offseason after Solid 2026 .
