Have you watched the Kansas City Royals recently? Fewer people are—Kauffman Stadium has drawn over 2,500 fewer fans per game compared to last year, which tracks because the on-field product has been much worse. It doesn’t quite look like the 2026 Royals will hit 100 losses when it’s all said and done, but the number of losses they’ll get to by the end will almost certainly be a two-digit number starting with a “9.”
There’s not a lot to love about this team. The relief squad is probably the worst Royals
bullpen of all time, the offense ranks 24th in the league, and the starting pitching wobbles anytime the momentum shifts it off the three-legged stool of Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha, and Noah Cameron. On top of that, pretty much every key member of the team has been on the injured list at some point.
So with the Royals being so bad this year, and with more than one important players coming up on free agency the next offseason and the year after, the opportunity presented itself to sell at the trade deadline, mark down 2027 as a transitional campaign, and target 2028 for full steam ahead.
The Royals did not do so. Instead, they navigated a quiet trade deadline despite their record and on-field play. The message was very clear: the Royals think they can content in 2027. JJ Picollo said as much in the press conference immediately following the trade deadline:
“When you go around the field, we’re not rebuilding a team… All that being said, as optimistic as we were going into this year, we hold the same optimism for next year. We believe we can compete. We believe this wasn’t a teardown for us.”
And on Monday, principal owner John Sherman held his annual radio one-on-one post deadline interview. Sherman said that he still supports Picollo and the front office, and that the team’s work is set to put together a more competitive team next year.
I mean, look, JJ has done a good job. I spent a couple hours with him today, as a matter of fact. This is the time of year, particularly in a situation like this post-deadline, we’re going to try to play the best baseball that we can and win as many games as we can out here in this season. But it’s time to start thinking about ‘27 and what we need to do to get ready to put a better product on the field…
…And again, back to our division. You talked about Cleveland and others. This thing’s tight. We had some bad breaks this year. We didn’t execute well as well, but you know we would expect to be in the hunt next year. But look, we got a lot of work to do. I’m not predicting anything. I think the proof will be in the pudding, and we’ve got a lot of work to do as soon as this thing’s over in October.
I think it’s very interesting that Sherman said that Picollo has done “a good job,” because it is clearly up in the air whether that is the case. From a 30,000 foot view, Picollo has certainly done a better job than his predecessor; Picollo constructed a playoff squad in the second full season he was in charge, while it took until Dayton Moore’s seventh full season to even come away with a single winning record. And while Picollo took over an organization that was outdated and poorly run, Picollo is at least somewhat culpable for the organization’s fall from grace after their World Series run a decade ago.
Regardless, I think that this rhetoric from both Picollo and Sherman about winning next year shines a very, very interesting light on 2027. The team had the option to refocus, increasing 2028’s likelihood of a playoff berth at the expense of 2027’s playoff likelihood. They didn’t. They think they can win in 2027, which they will do at the expense of putting a better squad in 2028 and beyond. And can they really win in 2027? I mean, again, have you seen them play this year? That doesn’t bode well.
The consequences of pushing the chips forward and missing the playoffs, again, in 2027 are actually pretty large. If the Royals miss next year, it’s probably unlikely that they will ever make the playoffs with Witt again. Witt is functionally under contract through 2030, after which he can trigger a player option to become a free agent. Miss 2027, and you’ll probably have to go through a transition year. If 2028 is that transition year, you enter some spooky game theory about the value of Witt as a trade piece eclipsing his on-field value to the team, and you wonder if the constant losing will prompt him to force himself out a la Zack Greinke a decade and a half ago.
The other reason why this is interesting is because it makes it extremely easy to evaluate 2027. Win, and the gamble worked, with the haters silenced and October baseball played once again. Lose, and literally everybody’s job should be on the chopping block, with Sherman himself due a huge portion of blame. On Monday, Sherman even set this scenario up:
We have our payroll that I think is probably at the highest sustained level as the Royals maybe ever have had, right? And it didn’t work out this year, and that’s frustrating. But it doesn’t take away from what we want to accomplish here. We want to win. We want to win now. We think that our division is still there for the taking.
Now, I can say that today, but we’re in last place. We’re 20 games below .500. Those results are unacceptable. It doesn’t really matter why you lost those games, how you lost those games, the kind of setbacks, because those are the results that we’re going to have to live with, and it’s compelling that we kind of dig out of that and come back on behalf of our fans here.
I am very doubtful that the Royals will accomplish what they say they want to accomplish. My trust in this organization has nosedived in such a short time this year. And yet, it is true that fixing a bullpen can be done without requiring a huge capital cost, and it is true that the injury bug likely won’t strike as hard next year, and it is true that the Royals have some financial flexibility to do work.
But if the Royals fall on their face out of the gate? After insisting that they were right and that everyone suggesting some change might be in order is wrong? Well, there will be hell to pay, as it were. Here’s hoping they’re right and I’m wrong.
