Randy Dobnak Survived Hard Contact In 2026, & Deserves A Shot On The 2027 Royals

[Yirsandy Rodríguez]

There is something we cannot avoid when Randy Dobnak pitches: the feeling of danger surrounding all his pitches, because the league knows he cannot generate enough swings and misses, since velocity is not his primary weapon of destruction. So every matchup is the complete opposite of a power-versus-power battle. It is Dobnak trying to locate his sinker on the corners, throwing his changeup to induce groundballs, and constantly trying to disrupt the hitter’s timing. He has a slider that sometimes turns into a sweeper because of the combination of its velocities and movements, and although I found it fun to follow him, it is impossible not to wonder how long his luck could last.

When I talk about “luck,” I mean the way Dobnak has escaped many difficult situations, even when hitters have had some success hitting his pitches. The clearest example is his sinker, the pitch he threw the most—using it 38.6% of the time—and with which he finished 141 plate appearances against the opposition. Dobnak finished with a +5 Run Value and ranked in the 82nd percentile of the league.

That sounds great, and to some extent, he deserves credit for it, since he finished with an xFIP even higher than established starters such as Seth Lugo (4.49) and Michael Wacha (4.39), but hitters posted a .346 xBA and .466 xSLG against him, with a 49.6 Hard Hit% and just 7.4 Whiffs%. Granted, those expected averages are far from convincing us that Dobnak will be able to sustain a similar pace in the future, especially if he remains in the starting rotation. With the exception of his fastball (+1 RV with just .224 xBA allowed in only 33 plate appearances), all his other pitches were vulnerable and finished with negative Run Value marks.

But nothing defines Dobnak better than this Swing Timing + Miss Distance table.

Here are the pitchers with the highest Perfect Contact%, and precisely the sinker, Dobnak’s best weapon, is leading the report that includes the pitch types of qualified pitchers across the entire league. Hitters have made perfect contact nearly 50% of the time, with an 83% Lined Up, another metric that indicates the latent danger Dobnak has managed to survive.

Yes, there is definitely more to see. And I think this will surprise you as much as it surprised me when I discovered it midway through my research on Dobnak’s challenges. Let’s look at the opposition’s averages in each zone, against both left-handed and right-handed hitters.

I’m sure you’ve already noticed this craziness. Haven’t you? Have you seen the batting average righties posted against Dobnak’s pitches right down the middle? They hit .000. As you will almost certainly suspect, it came in a small sample of just 17 pitches and six at-bats, which makes me think more about how careful he was against both righties and lefties to avoid pitches right down the middle. Another trend reflected in both graphs shows how vulnerable Dobnak was in the lower zones and when he tried to throw pitches inside.

It is difficult to overcome all those problems when you do not have enough velocity on your fastball. Dobnak finished the season with the most innings (74 ⅓) and starts (13) of his career, contributing 0.7 fWAR with a 3-5 record and a 3.51 ERA, considerably below his 4.85 xERA. His fastball continued to lose average velocity, from the 93.8 mph it reached in 2021 to its lowest point this year, 92.3 mph. That said, I think Dobnak deserves a spot on the pitching staff for 2027, and then we will see if he can survive in the same way again, avoiding hard contact—he finished in the 91st percentile in Barrel%—and with a high 51.2% groundball rate allowed, which placed him in the 88th percentile across the entire league and saved him many times when he had his back against the wall on the mound.

Image courtesy of William Purnell-Imagn Images

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