Players · R · Pitcher · 2026 regular season

Cole Ragans

Kansas City Royals American League Central

Age: 29
B/T: L/L
Height: 6' 4"
Weight: 190 lb
Number: #55

Born: December 12, 1997 in Crawfordville, FL, United States
MLB debut: August 4, 2022
Drafted: 2016, round 1
High school: North Florida Christian
Salary, 2026: $4.58M

Compare with…vs Kris Bubic vs Spencer Strider vs Michael Wacha

dbWAR: 8.6
IP: 35.1
ERA: 4.84
FIP: 6.19
K/9: 11.5
FIP−: 148

Cole Ragans is a starting pitcher for the Kansas City Royals. In 2026 he struck out 45 batters over 35.1 innings across 8 appearances, 8 of them starts, going 1-4. His ERA of 4.84 was 15.7% higher than the league average of 4.18 — 13th of 19 on his team, and 384th of 539 among MLB pitchers with 20+ innings. Stripping out defence, his 6.19 FIP suggests that his ERA had some help behind him. He missed bats on 31.7% of swings (14.4% of every pitch he threw), walked 15.2% of the batters he faced and struck out 29.8%. His -0.3 dbWAR is built from that FIP rather than runs allowed, so it credits him for what he controls and not for the defence behind him.

League context

Percentile among qualified pitchers, 2026 regular season.

FIP6.19

K/911.5

WHIP1.42

WAR-.3

WAR by season

Pitching Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only — postseason games are listed separately below.


2026	KC	8	8	35.1	1	4	27	19	45	23	4.84	6.19	1.42	11.5	5.9	116	148	-0.3
2025	KC	13	13	61.2	3	3	53	32	98	20	4.67	2.50	1.18	14.3	2.9	112	60	1.9
2024	KC	32	32	186.1	11	9	146	65	223	67	3.14	2.99	1.14	10.8	3.2	77	73	4.8
2023	TEX/KC	29	12	96.0	7	5	70	37	113	41	3.47	3.19	1.16	10.6	3.8	80	74	2.2
2022	TEX	9	9	40.0	0	3	43	22	27	16	4.95	4.91	1.48	6.1	3.6	125	124	0.0

Separate from the regular season

Postseason Postseason

Wild Card through World Series. These games are counted on their own: none of them are in the regular-season tables, career totals, league context, leaderboards or dbWAR on this page.

Postseason pitching

Postseason Cole Ragans's postseason pitching, by October and round. Not part of any regular-season figure on this page.
Season	Team	Round	G	GS	IP	W	H	ER	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	K/9
2024 Post	KC	Postseason total	2	2	10.0	1	7	1	4	13	0.90	1.10	11.7
		Wild Card	1	1	6.0	1	4	0	0	8	0.00	0.67	12.0
		ALDS	1	1	4.0	0	3	1	4	5	2.25	1.75	11.3

Box-score and rate statistics only. wOBA, wRC+, FIP and dbWAR are measured against a full league season, and a postseason is a few teams playing each other for a month, so they are not computed for October.

Platoon splits

How left- and right-handed hitters fare against him.

Season

Opponent batting by the side the hitter bats from, 2026. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
Split	PA	AB	H	HR	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	K%
vs LHB	50	39	10	4	10	12	.256	.400	.641	.436	24.0%
vs RHB	101	88	17	6	13	33	.193	.297	.420	.318	32.7%

Pitch sequencing

What Cole Ragans throws in each count, and what he follows each pitch with. Select any cell for the breakdown.

ShowBatter

Four-seamChangeupSliderKnuckle curveCutter

Select a count to see exactly what Cole Ragans throws in it.

Pitch arsenal

What he throws, how hard, how often it misses, and what hitters do with it.

Season


Four-Seam Fastball	56.0%	358	94.9	2,556	50.0%	30.9%	75	.133	.631
Changeup	16.4%	105	84.2	2,093	44.8%	40.4%	22	.318	.955
Slider	13.3%	85	85.1	2,576	38.8%	35.9%	21	.190	.673
Knuckle Curve	8.5%	54	79.3	2,451	40.7%	12.5%	5	—	—
Cutter	5.6%	36	89.7	2,582	61.1%	22.2%	5	—	—

Cole Ragans's arsenal by usage. Velocity is average release speed in mph, spin in rpm, and whiff rate is misses per swing — the cleanest single measure of whether a pitch beats hitters. BAA and OPS are what hitters did against each pitch, credited to the one that ended the plate appearance, and are left blank under 15 at-bats.

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Similar players

Nearest 2026 seasons by command, run prevention and role, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Spencer StriderATL

ERA: 5.31
FIP: 5.36
SO: 46
WAR: -0.0

Comparable

Brandon SproatMIL

ERA: 5.57
FIP: 5.22
SO: 101
WAR: -0.0

Loosely similar

JR RitchieATL

ERA: 4.91
FIP: 5.56
SO: 68
WAR: -0.4

Loosely similar

Ronel BlancoHOU

ERA: 6.68
FIP: 6.37
SO: 29
WAR: -0.5

Loosely similar

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.