- Slug: Sports-Royals Brady Singer, 730 words.
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By James Lotts
Cronkite News
SURPRISE – Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Brady Singer faced a harsh reality last season that most major leaguers are dealt at some point in their careers – baseball can be an unforgiving sport.
The right-hander is coming off an inconsistent year plagued by a nagging back injury that ultimately shut him down in September. He finished with a 5.52 ERA in 29 starts with a career-high 159 ⅔ innings.
During spring training, Singer is still working on learning how to navigate the highs and lows of playing professional baseball ahead of the 2024 MLB season.
“Just learning how to get through the ups and downs of a really long season,” Singer said. “I kind of went through a lot of that last year trying to stay consistent more and more throughout the past year.”
The offseason allowed Singer, 27, to recover and work on his game – and spend time with his newborn son, Beau – and he took advantage of it.
“I feel really good. I feel healthy, ready to go and had a good offseason,” Singer said. “I was a full-time dad but I obviously learned to get better, try to figure out some new pitches.”
Singer was drafted by the Royals with the No. 18 pick in the 2018 MLB draft and made his debut in the shortened 2020 season during the COVID-19 pandemic. He is 27-31 with a career 4.49 ERA in 92 starts.
When healthy, Singer has shown the ability to be a quality starting pitcher. He put up a 3.23 ERA in 24 starts in 2022.
Royals manager Matt Quatraro sees how badly Singer wants to perform well, and he expects to see him return to that level with a healthy spring.
“Brady’s probably among the most motivated to get back to the form he knows he can be, so we’re expecting that,” Quatraro said.
Coming into spring training, Singer’s teammates have taken notice of the work he has put in.
“He’s always been super mature, always been an elite competitor so just maintaining those things and always just trying to get better. Looking for a new advantage, new edge, ways to improve his game,” said Royals outfielder MJ Melendez. “I’ve been able to face him live this spring so far and he’s been looking really good.”
Singer is coming into his fifth season with the Royals. That makes him the player with the second-longest tenure in the clubhouse, behind longtime catcher Salvador Perez. Royals pitcher Alec Marsh, who made his MLB debut with the team last June, said he likes to remind Singer of that sometimes.
“I always give him jokes (that) now I think of him as a veteran player because he’s been around a lot longer than some of the younger guys,” Marsh said.
Marsh said that he looks up to Singer as a person to follow by their example.
“He’s a great teammate, man. A huge competitor,” Marsh said. “Someone like that you look up to and you try to mimic kind of what he’s doing because he’s just out there going and competing every day.”
Despite being an example to the younger players on the team, Singer still knows he has a lot to keep learning. He is looking forward to having newly signed teammates Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo to watch and learn from during the season. Both pitchers played for San Diego last season.
“Obviously (they are) really, really good players that have been around for a while,” Singer said of Wacha and Lugo. “Some guys that I can lean on and really good dudes. They’ve helped out a lot just in the few days we’ve been here so far so it’s going to be really fun to learn from them and watch them.”
The Royals signed Wacha for two years and Lugo for three years, giving the Royals two veteran arms to slot into the starting rotation.
With the offseason additions, the Royals’ clubhouse has set the bar for this season – they want to compete for the American League Central title. The expectations don’t get set any lower by Singer.
“We talk about the new guys a lot but we’re returning a lot of guys that had some success last year so it’s an exciting time,” Singer said. “We got some really good young players along with the veterans that we signed so it’ll be really exciting. We’re looking forward to it.”
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