Crown Jewels: A Plan Emerges, Grading the Winter and the Television Deal
The Royals did a lot this week!
These past few days have been quite a turn of events for Royals fans looking for some action. They spent an offseason signing only Ryan Yarbrough and Jordan Lyles along with some minor league deals. Then things started to get a little crazy. The Aroldis Chapman news came out a little more than a week ago, but that was the start of some action. As you know, the Royals traded Michael A. Taylor on Monday and Adalberto Mondesi on Tuesday and, in doing so, set up a roster that at least makes a little more sense. There are still more moves to be made. Heck, some might be completed between me sending this out and you reading it.
And it really changed the tenor of the whole offseason. I wrote a few times that I believe the Royals weren’t planning to all but sit out the first half of the winter, but the way the market set up, they felt it didn’t make sense to do much. I kind of agreed with it even though I think quite a few of you didn’t, which is okay. But they’re active now and will continue to be active over the next few weeks. There are conversations around Scott Barlow, Hunter Dozier, Amir Garrett and Nicky Lopez that I know of and I’m sure there are more that I haven’t heard about. They’re rumored to be after a bat or two as well, though the market is pretty thin now, so we’ll see what they do next.
They Have a Plan
One thing I’ve believed all winter is that the Royals had an idea of what they were doing. They’ve confirmed that both with their actions and their words. JJ Picollo, much to the chagrin of many, admitted that they’re building for 2024 or 2025. I don’t think anyone who followed the team thought they had a real chance to win in 2023 even if they had spent money and brought in a couple of impact players. That he said it out loud is something that, as I’ve said in the past, is where I think he differs from Dayton Moore more than anything. Moore believed the Royals were right there, or at least that’s what he stated publicly and with some moves he made over the years.
To be upset that we’re now going into the seventh season since they last even finished at .500 and they’re still a year or two away in the front office’s minds is frustrating. But I also think the moves they’ve made and what they represent show a little of what I’ve thought for awhile now. They messed up and it was a pretty bad mess-up over the last few seasons. The past can’t be changed now. And the man at the top, John Sherman, showed with his actions that he believed Moore was the biggest issue. That’s all we can take from the fact that he left the majority of the front office in tact. Time will tell if he’s right, but Picollo (and Matt Quatraro) seem to be putting their stamp on the team.
In trading away Taylor and Mondesi, the Royals opened up a clear path to playing time at the position they want young guys playing. Bobby Witt Jr. is clearly the shortstop. Drew Waters and Kyle Isbel now don’t have a third to fight over center field innings with. The other can either play right field or be a heck of a fourth outfielder, depending on what the team does with Edward Olivares. And as of this moment, if you look around the diamond, they have two players born before 1995 slated for regular playing time. One of them, Hunter Dozier, is someone I’ve heard repeatedly that the team is trying to trade.
You wanted youth, you got it. They may go out and sign someone like Josh Harrison or Matt Duffy to provide some depth, but I think the last few days should at least give us some comfort that a one-year deal isn’t likely to become a three-year deal with this current regime. This is going to be a young team all around the diamond. And while the pitching staff has some veterans, and I think will add another in Zack Greinke, the other part of the plan has been something I wrote about on Wednesday. It’s to build staff depth. Depth doesn’t always mean quality, but you have to like the idea that the more you throw at a problem, the more likely it is to find a solution.
I’m not going to go through the names again, but I count 10 rotation candidates, not including Greinke, and 23 bullpen candidates, including Aroldis Chapman, out of spring training. I think the rotation needs some guys to seriously step up, but there is very real depth here that we haven’t seen with the Royals in quite some time and I think that’s a very good start.
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Grading the Winter
It’s obviously not over yet, so this is subject to change but something I’ve been asked in two radio spots this week is the grade I’d give the offseason. Friends, let me tell you something. It’s both an easy answer and a hard answer. Why is it easy? I think they’ve done a fine job. They’ve confused me a couple of times, made some things right a couple of times and made some moves that I’ve liked a couple of times. If that’s not a C/C+, I don’t know what is. If you’re judging this winter in a vacuum, knowing only what we know and not speculating, I’m generally fine with what they’ve done. If I was more than fine, I’d have the grade higher. If I hated their direction, I’d have it lower. But it’s perfectly adequate.
But here’s the problem. This winter isn’t just about this winter. And I know that’s true of every team every year, but I feel like given this particular path they’ve taken, it’s especially true of this club. They have been, ahem, light on spending this offseason. And, as I said, I get it and I’m good with it. But they can’t continue to be light on spending for long after doing what they’re hoping to do in 2023. This season has become a full-on evaluation year. And it’s not just evaluating the players. It’s evaluating the coaching staff and how they work with players, how they improve them, etc. It’s evaluating the fit on the diamond. Can MJ Melendez play outfield. Is Witt a shortstop or does Maikel Garcia take over there? Is Michael Massey a platoon guy or an every day guy? Can Lynch and Bubic and Heasley and Kowar and whoever else become competent to good big league starters with new coaching?
All those questions need to be answered. But once they are, what they do next will determine whether or not this offseason was a good one. You can sit a winter out and do what the Royals are doing if and only if you go into the next winter with a clear plan to fill the holes you find during your evaluation. What if they don’t have a third baseman after the dust settles? Are they going to go out and sign, I don’t know, Matt Chapman? Or are they going to bring in Joey Wendle? What about Melendez? If he can’t play the outfield, do they actually do something about him and Salvador Perez both being catchers? And if two guys don’t step up to join Brady Singer as legitimate members of a big league rotation, do they make a play for someone like Aaron Nola or do they go the same route they’ve gone this year and sign someone like Jake Odorizzi to just give innings?
It doesn’t have to be in free agency either. They can make buyer-type moves at the deadline as well if the right player is available. You can buy without being a contender if they can get someone with a couple years of control. So I don’t especially care when they do it, but if they spend 2023 evaluating and then head into 2024 with the same roster and goals, this offseason becomes a big fat F. They need to make the most of this season and come out swinging for the 2024 team. I don’t have any problems with what they’ve done, but I think they’ve backed themselves into a corner too.
Bally Bankruptcy Baffles Ballclubs
Okay, I don’t know if it actually baffles anyone, but it sure sounds like Diamond Sports Group, which is part of Sinclair and runs Bally Sports is going to be filing for bankruptcy soon. I don’t know enough to know how this will impact the Royals or any other team who have their rights through these guys, but I don’t think it’ll be good. Well, that’s not true. In the long-term, I actually do think it’ll be a good thing. In the short-term, it could be an issue given that the Royals receive about $50 million per year from their contract.
I’m including this because I think it’s very relevant to the Royals, but I’m far from an expert. From what I’ve read, it sounds like Diamond could skip an interest payment of more than $100 million sometime next month. They’d then have 30 days and that could lead to them restructuring and filing for bankruptcy. In the restructuring, the largest lenders of the company would become owners, which should be complete by June or so and then they’d look or buyers. Where it gets tricky is that I don’t think anyone knows if rights fees will be paid out or even if contracts will end.
They do have the option of ending contracts as part of the bankruptcy. They can also halt payments and keep the contracts, which might be worse. Diamond has said in the past that they aren’t going to be rejecting the contracts, but I think we all know how something like that can go. Talk is talk, let’s see them back that up. If this is all wrapped up by summer, we likely won’t notice it. Honestly, we likely won’t notice much all season long regardless. But it’s interesting that the league seems to have no interest in bailing out Diamond. Is that because they have bigger plans?
The answer is probably and one of the few good things to come out of the commissioner’s office in a long time is Rob Manfred wanting to figure something out to end blackouts. Manfred said back in June that the existing television contracts are what are preventing the league from either ending or relaxing the policy. So that’s why I think in the long-term, this whole issue with Diamond and Bally could end up a positive. Plus, boy is Bally awful. Again, if you’re looking for real information on this, I don’t have much, if any, but I am interested in following the story and giving my thoughts as I have them. I did reach out to someone just to ask if we’ll be able to watch our teams this summer and my source was very confident nothing would be impacted. I’ll believe it when I see it, but that’s encouraging at least.
I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it would redeem him (because Manfred sucks), but if he actually manages to end blackouts, the Commish's stock will skyrocket with me, because Bally (and Sinclair) suck even more.
A few pointers on a possible Sinclair/Bally's RSN bankruptcy. Under BK law, filing BK creates an automatic stay (meaning that the other party to a contract with the RSN such as the Royals can't either terminate the contract or sue the RSN for damages without the BK court's permission). However, in reasonably short order after the case commences, the RSN is either going to have restart making the required rights fee payments to the Royals or the BK court will eventually let the Royals and the other sports franchises terminate their rights grants to the RSN. The lenders to the RSNs are going to have the most incentive to fund paying the rights fees, as without the rights contracts the RSNs and the lenders basically have nothing. I'd expect the RSNs to eventually be taken over by the lenders and then sold to someone else. In a perfect world, that would be MLB.TV and then MLB.TV would be able to lift the blackout for MLB.TV subsribers who would pay a local team surcharge that looks a lot like the $15-20 /month that Bally's was trying to charge but no one trusted them enough to pay it.
I agree with David, that this could be a short-term financial hit for the Royals (which might be another reason they are not expanding payroll this year) but potentially far better for the Royals and baseball more broadly in the future.