The Mets did not see what Lugo, an All-Star, always saw in himself

Seth Lugo, a right-handed starter for the Kansas City Royals, has an arsenal of pitches that includes a curve, a sinker, a cutter, a four-seam fastball, a slider, a sweeper, a changeup and a slurve.

According to Baseball Savant, MLB.com’s clearinghouse for Statcast data, Lugo throws eight different pitch types, which would tie him with Chris Bassitt of the Toronto Blue Jays and Yu Darvish of the San Diego Padres for the most in baseball.

Yet as Lugo listened to the list, he tried to correct the record.

“I think it’s a few more,” he said. “But they kind of blur them a little bit.”

In baseball’s era of pitch design, Lugo, 34, has become the sport’s mad scientist forever in search of the perfect pitch shape. An All-Star this year for the first time, he entered the second half of the season in the top five among starters in ERA (2.48), wins (11), innings pitched (127) — and, unofficially, in quantity of pitches.

“It’s actually 10 different pitch types,” Royals pitching coach Brian Sweeney said.

Bassitt, a former teammate of Lugo’s with the New York Mets, calls Lugo a tinkerer, while Mets pitching coach Jeremy Hefner said he was “one of the most creative thinkers that I’ve been around.”

His superlative performance so far in 2024 has kept the upstart Royals in the playoff hunt. His breakthrough has also revealed a cruel paradox in his career: The pitcher with more pitches than anyone else, who spent all those hours poring over scouting reports and studying swings, was for years confined to the Mets’ bullpen, where he was both a good major league reliever and incapable of using the full breadth of his arsenal.

“His journey, to me, is fascinating,” Sweeney said. “When his name came up in the offseason for us, I was like: I love that journey. Because it’s not typical. He had to earn the right to do a lot of different things.”

Once a long shot to even make the majors, Lugo made his debut with the Mets when he was 26 and spent most of seven seasons as a mainstay in the bullpen. It was not until last season, when he signed with the San Diego Padres, that he could prove himself in a rotation. Yet in all his years as a reliever, he never wavered from his belief that he could start. He told pitching coaches that he still viewed himself as a starter. He prepared that way, too. He wanted to be a pitcher in full, to embrace the cat-and-mouse games, to adjust to an umpire’s zone, to pitch deep into games and live the roller coaster of managerial moves.

As he waited for his chance, he came to understand: If he ever gave up on the dream of starting, it would be as if he gave up on the entire sport.

In February, when the Royals gathered for spring training, the club’s pitching coaches searched for a method to liven up the tedious days of fielding practice. They settled on a contest to rank the best athletes on the team’s pitching staff.

The name at the top seemed to be an upset: Lugo?

The argument was simple: When he was in high school in Bossier City, Louisiana, he lettered in baseball, football and soccer, a rare combination. How many pitchers could kick a soccer ball, punt a football, spin a breaking ball, showcase a sterling short game on the golf course and then take money from their friends in pool?

“He’s a great pool player,” said Mike Diaz, one of Lugo’s former coaches at Centenary College of Louisiana. “He’s got all the shots.”

Since childhood, Lugo was the coordinated kid with athletic skills. What he did not seem to be was a future major leaguer. When he finished high school, his best college baseball options were a junior college or Centenary, in Shreveport. When he did not perform well as a freshman, he was nearly cut from the team.

Lugo had a big frame, a strong arm and a curveball with plenty of bite. The Mets took a flier on him in the 34th round in 2011; he was the 1,032nd overall pick. He made his debut in 2016, for a Mets team coming off a World Series appearance the previous October.

He made eight starts as a fill-in in 2016 and another 18 in 2017, returning from a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament to post a 4.71 ERA. But by 2018, the Mets had a rotation of Jacob deGrom, Zack Wheeler, Noah Syndergaard, Steven Matz and Jason Vargas. They also had a significant issue in the bullpen.

“We had a desperate need in the bullpen for someone like him,” said Dave Eiland, who began a two-year stint as the Mets’ pitching coach that season. “The bullpen was just in shambles when I got there. And really, they did nothing to address it while I was there.”

Lugo grew into one of the Mets’ most consistent relievers. He also kept reminding Eiland that he wanted to start. The questions and conversations about getting an opportunity continued when Hefner replaced Eiland in 2020.

“If not monthly, weekly,” Hefner said.

There would be more opportunity as Wheeler departed for the Philadelphia Phillies and Syndergaard began to decline. But as the years passed, Lugo became more entrenched in the bullpen, the front office experienced waves of turnover, and once team owner Steve Cohen took control, the Mets kept acquiring free-agent starters. The Mets, as Hefner put it, followed the evidence in front of them, which was that Lugo was a valuable reliever.

“I don’t know if ‘regret’ is the right word,” Hefner said. “But obviously looking back now, it’s easy to say we should have given him some runway in spring training to build up as a starter.”

Most starters cannot handle using 10 different pitches. The Mets, for instance, tried to de-emphasize his sinker use based on metrics and industry trends. But he believed in its utility against specific hitters. He also throws three different fastballs: four-seam, sinker and cutter.

“Everyone knows he can spin a baseball,” Sweeney said, “but which one is it going to be? Is it going to be the vert sweeper, the regular sweeper, the curveball, the hard slider?”

The main beneficiary of Lugo’s sudden dominance has been the Royals, who signed him to a three-year, $45 million contract last winter. (Lugo can opt out after 2025.) The club’s front office believed Lugo could help stabilize their rotation after he posted a 3.57 ERA in 26 starts last season. But they did not forecast how his cerebral nature would rub off on the rest of the rotation.

“He has something to prove,” Sweeney said. “And when Seth has something to prove, usually he’s going to prove that he’s right.”

One day this season, Lugo found personal validation in an unusual place: He stumbled upon a statistic that position players who had been called upon to pitch in mop-up outings had thrown 16 consecutive scoreless innings. To Lugo, it made sense. If a batter sees 100 mph all game, he will be able to time it. But if a pitcher keeps the hitter guessing, it can sow doubt. Then you win.