Jake Junis, drafted and developed internally by the Kansas City Royals, is the team’s best starter. He leads Royals starters in ERA (1.74, next closest being Daniel Lynch at 3.30) and FIP (3.35, next closest being Zack Greinke at 3.44) and K-BB% (17.5%, next closest again being Lynch at 12.5%).
Junis has taken a step forward because of a radical change in pitch usage. This year, he’s used his wipeout slider a whopping 56.3% of the time per Statcast, a career-high rate. That’s an increase in usage, but he was already throwing it a lot. The bigger change is that he essentially junked his four-seam fastball entirely in favor of his sinker.