Pitcher List Conversations are transcripts of interviews with professional baseball players—and sometimes, players discuss topics other than baseball. This has been lightly edited for clarity.
This is the second of three interviews with Kansas City Royals pitching staff. I want to thank Kansas City Star reporter Jaylon Thompson, who shared his insight on the team. Jaylon told me about the starters’ approach to pitching as a kind of “workshop/lab.” That notion informed some of the questions I asked.
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I talked with Cole Ragans on Saturday afternoon, July 6, 2024, in the visitors’ clubhouse at Coors Field. This was the day after the Royals had taken a 4-2 loss to the Colorado Rockies with Ragans starting.
But by then, the previous night’s action was ancient history, and he talked with me about his cutter, the relationship of the Royals’ starting rotation, and his favorite pitch (among other topics).
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Renee Dechert: Some of these questions are from Nick Pollack, who is one of your biggest fans.
Cole Ragans: I talked to him in Spring Training [laughs].
RD: Some of the questions are mine. They cover a wide range of topics.
CR: Okay.
RD: Last year when you were traded, did you know that was coming, or was it a surprise to you?
CR: Like being traded?
RD: Yes.
CR: Surprised. It was also very early. We knew as a team. obviously, with where Texas was at the time in the playoff hunt and all that kind of stuff, there was going to be moves. I didn’t know who was going to be part of the moves and didn’t know when. Obviously, mine happened quite early in the process. So I didn’t see it coming.
RD: What was that transition like for you? Was it harder physically or mentally?
CR: I mean, Texas was all I had known at that point, so I had gotten very comfortable there. I knew the guys very well. I knew the staff very well. But I got over here, everybody welcomed me with open arms, and it was a super easy transition.
You know, I love this place. I love this. I love this team. I love the city. I love the fans. I love everything about it.
RD: What do you love about being here?
CR: I mean, everybody’s pulling for everybody. It’s a great group of guys. We have fun. I think everybody pulls for everybody, and everybody pushes everybody to be better than they were the day before. So it’s just a really a really fun group to be around day in and day out.
I look forward to coming to the field every day to get to hang out with these guys and play with them.
RD: It sounds like the starting rotation here has formed a workshop/laboratory environment where you all collaborate together. Can you talk a little bit about how that works?
CR: The other four guys are incredible. I mean, it’s a pretty wide range.
You have Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo, who’ve been around the game for quite a while — they have a lot of knowledge. And then you have me and Alec Marsh, who are a little younger, and you have Brady Singer, who’s kind of in between, and it’s nice.
We mesh very well. Everybody has a different way of pitching and a different way of thinking about pitching, but we all pick each other’s brains about things, talk to each other when we come out of the game, and we talk about what we see, even if it’s lefty or righty. We talk about what we saw and the little things to kind of help out the next guy that’s going the next day or two days or three days from then.
It’s just a fun group to be around, a fun group to just talk baseball, and even if it’s not about baseball, just as human beings. It’s a really fun group.
RD: This is from Nick. How has the feeling for your slider and cutter changed throughout the season? There’s been real vertical movement in your cutter.
CR: I’ve toyed around — the slider has been kind of all right, compared to where it was last year when I first started throwing it, but I made a few tweaks with it. I feel like it’s headed in the right direction, getting a little more consistency with how I want it to be and command and movement and all that kind of stuff.
And with the cutter, I changed my grip just to get a little more consistency because last year, it would back up on me a little bit. When it backs up and I leave it over the plate, that’s when it gets hit hard. So it’s just getting the feel of where I know it’s going to move — to the right a little bit, it’s going to be a true cut. I toyed with the grip, and I feel like it’s been good to me.
Cole Ragans cutter grip (side view)
Cole Ragans cutter grip (front view)
RD: I know you spent the offseason making some pretty significant mechanical adjustments. How how did that work for you? Was it harder physically or mentally?
CR: The biggest mechanical change really came going into ‘23, I feel like.
And then this past offseason was more so building off of it, tweaking a few things. I don’t think it was necessarily tough mentally or physically. It was more so, I bought into the process of alright, I have my program from Tread Athletics. They give me my movement prep, they give me my workouts, and from the moment I started doing it, I told myself, if I’m going to spend the money on this, I’m going to buy in completely with it. I’m going to do every little thing to a tee. And it’s obviously helped out tremendously.
RD: It seems like you’ve changed your arm slot from sort of over-the-top to more of a three-quarter. How has that changed your fastball?
CR: That wasn’t a thing that I was trying to do or not trying to do. It’s more so just the comfortability of throwing a baseball in a natural arm slot, I guess you could say.
Sometimes I get a little more run on the fastball than normal, and I kind of try to use it to my advantage at times. Sometimes it’s got a little more ride. But, you know, as long as I’m commanding it, if I can command my fastball to where I want it to go, it’s usually solid results.
RD: What’s it like having Salvador Perez as your catcher?
CR: That guy’s unbelievable [laughs]. I mean, what he’s done over his career, all the accolades, it’s pretty, pretty incredible to get to throw to him and pick his brain and talk pitching with him while we’re in-game and even outside of the game, pregame, stuff like that, talking about what our game plan is.
Incredible player, incredible catcher, but an even better human being — like, one of the best teammates, one of the best human beings, genuinely cares about you, and wants nothing but the best for every single one of his teammates, wants nothing but to win.
RD: So your favorite pitch you’ve thrown the season?
CR: Like, singular pitch?
RD: Singular one.
CR: I threw a fastball up at 100 earlier in the year to get a strikeout swinging.
RD: Can you tell me about it?
CR: Yeah, I got a guy 0-2 two, and we’d called “heater up,” and I was like, “You know what? I’m just gonna let it eat up there. I just got to get it up.” And I got up, and it was my hardest pitch of the season.
But I’ve also done a couple of backdoor cutters that I’ve executed to a tee in my opinion that I’ve got somebody looking on and really enjoyed that just because — I don’t know — it’s a pitch that I’ve been working on with the cutter, and being able to backdoor, it gives you a little more confidence in it and a little more feel.
RD: Remember who it was to?
CR: Shea Langeliers. I faced him quite a bit.
RD: Last one from me. If you could steal a pitch from any other MLB pitcher, what would you take and why?
CR: Single pitch. Oooh man. I’ve gotta think about that one for a second.
[Pauses.]
Hmmm. Singular pitch . . . . I mean there’s quite a few you could pick from. I mean, you’ve got Chris Sale’s slider.
RD: What do you like about Chris Sale’s slider?
CR: I mean, that guy’s a competitor on the mound. It’s fun to just watch him pitch in general, but as a left handed hitter, it’s starting behind you, and it’ll end up — you know, it might end up in the other batter’s box on the other side of the plate, and he’s getting swings on it.
He’s just fun to watch and overall.
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Additional Reading
- Cole Ragans Is Simply Amazing: Pitcher Video Breakdown
- Cole Ragans Is Unreal: Arsenal Breakdown
- Talking Pitching with Cole Ragans (PitchCon 2024)
Merch Alert
- Order your Pitcher List/Cole Ragans t-shirt here.