I’m glad that I’m not in charge of a professional sports team. It’s a lot of work, the pressure is intense, and at any given time a lot of people hate your guts. It is also significantly more complicated
and nuanced than fans think it is–in a real-time, zero-sum world, you aren’t even guaranteed to carry out your plan even if you have one.
That’s why I’ve really appreciated the years that SB Nation’s baseball minds took a weekend at the end of the season to simulate the offseason. Somebody would be in charge of each MLB club and we’d trade and barter and bid on free agents. It was a fascinating experience where decisions rippled throughout the participants just like they would in real life.
For many of those years, I ran the Kansas City Royals. While the days of the simulation are over, I still have the ability to post things here at Royals Review dot com, so I thought I’d regale you all with what my big goals would be for the sim if we still had it. Let’s get into it.
Spend a lot of money for a bat
Look: the Royals didn’t do a lot of scoring last year and employed a lot of bad players. Young guns like Carter Jensen and Jac Caglianone have promise, but we see in the World Series every year that you can’t just have ok players: you’ve got to have dudes you can rely on, not just guys you can hope on.
Bobby Witt Jr. will be a Royal for more years, but every year the Royals miss the playoffs is a year where the Royals don’t capitalize on having probably the single best asset in the game on their team. The Royals need to spend accordingly.
I think the Royals should pursue one of four main targets (with one bonus target!), and a rough range based on The Athletic and Fangraphs free agent predictions:
- Bo Bichette, 2B: 7-9 years, $26 – $29 million AAV)
- Cody Bellinger, LF: 5-7 years, $26 – $28 million AAV
- Alex Bregman, 3B: 4-6 years, $28 – $35 million AAV
- Gleyber Torres, 2B: 3-4 years, $16 – $18 million AAV
- Munetaka Murakami, 3B: 6-8 years, $20 – $22 million AAV)
I included the average annual value for a reason: nearly a decade ago, Kansas City signed Alex Gordon in free agency to a four-year deal at an $18 million AAV. With MLB revenues having grown since then, and with the Royals ostensibly moving into a new stadium at some point during this free agent contract, the money should be there for one big move. A few of these—Torres, Murakami—wouldn’t be that much different than that Gordon deal.
My favorite of the four is probably Bellinger, who you could plug into whatever spot in the outfield you need him most that day and be done with it. I realize that this is a longshot, but the Royals need to get significantly better to throw down with the best teams in baseball.
Say goodbye to arbitration-eligible players
The Royals this year have an eye-watering 15 arbitration-eligible players. For the uninitiated: players receive the league minimum salary for up to three full seasons, after which they go through a process called arbitration where they receive escalating salaries based on their performance and how many years into arbitration they are.
Some players are worth escalating salaries, like Vinnie Pasquantino. Others, not so much. And it’s an opportunity for the Royals to say goodbye to some players and clear up salary. There are a handful of players whose projected arbitration salaries seem steep compared to their performance:
- Jonathan India, $9 million
- Bailey Falter, $3.3 million
- MJ Melendez, $2.65 million
- Michael Massey, $2 million
- Kyle Wright, $1.8 million
Those five players combine for $18.75 million worth of salary, and they are likely not going to be worth that much in production next year. Indeed, the Royals have already put Wright on waivers, so they are proceeding in part with this portion of the plan.
Notably, outrighting a player doesn’t mean the Royals couldn’t bring them back. This is most likely for India, who is a buy-low candidate that has value at $4 to $5 million but not $8 to $9 million.
Cash in on some minor leaguers
Sustainability has been the name of the game for the John Sherman-owned and JJ Picollo-run Royals. They’ve been very disciplined and have avoided trading any of their top-tier minor league talent even though they’ve acquired useful pieces like Lucas Erceg, Stephen Kolek, Mike Yastrzemski, and others. As a result, the Royals have had back-to-back winning campaigns and are well-positioned for a third next year.
But the Royals have also reached a bit of a ceiling with their current talent. With everything going right in 2024, the Royals got to 86 wins. Kansas City simply must get more talented baseball players in order to get to the 90 or so wins that virtually guarantee a playoff spot and bump the team into contention for the American League Central crown.
I think it’s time to swing a big trade for a true MLB player and use some minor league talent to do so. With Carter Jensen having already impressed and Salvador Perez on the team for the next two years, that means that Blake Mitchell could be the centerpiece for a game-changing deal. A guy like Taylor Ward would be a huge improvement over what the Royals have now.
