Crown Jewels: Adding to a Strength, Royals Injuries and Spring Extensions

Spring training is underway for the Royals (and everyone else), but there's still players out there. Plus, two injuries already and who could sign an extension?

Baseball is back! I mean, sort of. Pitchers and catchers reporting is a great point on the calendar, but it’s also kind of meaningless. So many of the players had already been in Surprise working out that it’s just sort of another day, but hey, it means that things are officially underway as the Royals try to build on a surprise playoff season in 2024. I haven’t seen any stories of players in the best shape of their lives or really any new pitches, which is a hallmark of spring, but I will say that seeing Salvador Perez, I sort of thought he looked a bit slimmer than in the past. And if you show up slimmer, you’re likely going to lose a little bit more as the season progresses as well, so that’s interesting at least.

Soon we’ll get to see the fruits of the offseason. Where does Jonathan India play? How about Michael Massey? Will MJ Melendez’s new swing pay off? It looked good in a video on Twitter yesterday, but we need to see it during an actual game. Can Seth Lugo repeat his success or at least 85 percent of it? How many starts do they get from the rotation? These are all questions we don’t know the answer to yet, but we get to start learning now, which is the joy of spring. I’m just happy we have actual baseball to talk about instead of dragging through an offseason.

I do have a new promo for subscribers, both new and old! As you know, the Royals are covering admission to the Negro League’s Baseball Museum through the month of February. I’d like to do something too. I’m going to give away a year of membership to the NLBM, but I’m going about this a little differently than I did last year. I’m going to give away two. One will go to someone who is already a paid subscriber. And one will go to someone who becomes a paid subscriber between now and when I give away the membership. I get back from Arizona in the second week of March and I’ll give away the memberships then, so you have about a month or so to become a paid subscriber! And anyone who already is will be eligible to win as well, of course!

This week’s newsletter:

Strengthening a Strength

The Royals pitching staff is undoubtedly their backbone. I’ll continue to harp about how well the offense performed last year without a real leadoff hitter and remind you they acquired a real leadoff hitter. But I do understand that some of that was due to exceptional situational hitting which doesn’t have a ton of predictive nature and on the back of one of the most productive seasons the Royals have ever had in Bobby Witt Jr. I think the offense will be better than people expect, but the pitching is the thing.

If you look at the reported offer for Anthony Santander - 3 years, $66 million - and then the $10 million that the Royals are giving Carlos Estevez for this season when they pivoted, you can surmise that they probably are willing to spend about $12 million more. What if they pivot and go sign a starting pitcher like Jose Quintana or Andrew Heaney, who likely won’t require a huge deal, and keep Kris Bubic in the bullpen at least to start the season? You might argue the better use of the money is to find a bat, but here are the options remaining that make any sense positionally:

Mark Canha
Paul DeJong
Adam Duvall
Manuel Margot
Whit Merrifield
David Peralta
Kevin Pillar
Alex Verdugo

I mean I guess I can squint and see a couple of them, but I still think that the preferred method to add the bat at this point has to be a trade. I’ve mentioned this a couple of times in comments or maybe on social media (who can remember?), but I did hear from a scout that he thinks this’ll be one of the more active trading springs in awhile, so it’s possible something happens. But I think, at this point, it’s more likely that something happens mid-season, which is a different beast.

So why add a starting pitcher? The one who specifically tickles my fancy is Quintana and it’s because I think some innings would be helpful. I’ll get to a couple of their injuries they already have in a minute, but Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha either way exceeded career-highs last year or, in the case of Wacha, went well above what they’ve done in recent years. Lorenzen has never been a workhorse. Bubic is coming back from a season where he threw around 70 innings total. It’s not that he can’t throw 150, but it wouldn’t be the worst idea to make it so he can ease back in.

And the added benefit is that you get his arm in the bullpen. We saw what he did. He struck out 39 and walked two batters unintentionally in 30.1 innings. He was a beast back there. Add him to Estevez and Lucas Erceg and maybe Hunter Harvey and you have a truly elite back of the bullpen, at least to start the year. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d need to call on Bubic to start later in the year, and they can certainly do that. But a guy like Quintana, who threw 170.1 innings in 2024 could be a fantastic fit at a reasonable rate for 2025.

I don’t know. I don’t think that a run scored and a run saved have the same value long-term. You save a run and you still have to score. But they are related, and if the Royals ran a rotation out with Ragans, Lugo, Wacha, Lorenzen and Quintana and a bullpen of Erceg, Estevez, Bubic, Harvey, Daniel Lynch IV, Angel Zerpa, Sam Long and John Schreiber, that looks pretty salty on the pitching side. The Royals have taken advantage of bargains in the past. I don’t know if they’d do it here, but it’s an idea that I’ve been batting around.

Walking Wounded Already

News as camp broke on Wednesday was that two pitchers were behind schedule. One is James McArthur, who I think people forget how excited they were for him just a year ago and continued to be excited about him into the season. The other is Alec Marsh, who is competing for the fifth starter job with Bubic right now. He came to camp with some right shoulder soreness that he felt in the offseason. It seems like he’s getting ramped back up, but I can’t tell you that doesn’t concern me some. Maybe it’s as simple as the fact that he did too much too early, but shoulder issues concern me with a pitcher.

I had talked with some people who believed that if Marsh didn’t win the fifth starter job in spring that he’d start in AAA to stay stretched out, sort of what happened with Lynch last year. I think that makes a lot of sense. If you need a starter and your best option has thrown 17 pitches an outing for six weeks, he’s going to need some time to build up. I do believe Marsh has a chance to be a big weapon out of the bullpen, but I like the idea of him being rotational depth if he isn’t flat out in the rotation. And I guess we’ve learned that if Marsh won the job, Bubic would just go to the bullpen, so maybe I’m off in how they’d handle that. Still, it’d be a blow for this team either in the bullpen or the rotation if Marsh isn’t able to be a part of the competition (another reason I wouldn’t be upset to sign a starter).

McArthur is less concerning from a big league roster perspective, but I just can’t put to bed the idea that he’s useless. When the Royals announced a handful of players who had signed their 2025 contract and he was on it, some of the responses were downright cold about him. Look, I know relievers can get hot for a month or two, but his September 2023 is something I’m going to remember for awhile, probably moreso if he never really makes it back. He threw 16.1 innings and allowed no runs on five hits with 19 strikeouts and five walks. That’s absurd. That’s more than a hot streak. He flashed some of that in April last season before the season went off the rails.

It doesn’t sound like his injury - surgery to stabilize an olecranon fracture - will impact his season too much, but he’s behind too and he’s part of the strong bullpen depth the Royals have, no matter how you feel about the guy. Maybe I hold on to moments too much with players, but I just can’t agree with anyone who is just done with the guy because he struggled off and on throughout his first big league season. He’s miscast as a closer, but if he can figure things back out, that’s not his role. He becomes another arm in the middle who can pitch in the back of a bullpen if needed. Hopefully, these two injuries are anomalies and not a spring of pain for the Royals.

Any Extension Candidates?

This is the time of year we see a lot of extensions for players. The player and team are together all day, every day and a lot of players who may sign longer-term deals want to do it before the season to eliminate distractions, so it happens when distractions aren’t the worst thing in the world. So I started thinking if the Royals have any true extension candidates, and the answer was a pretty easy no for me. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t guys who both sides could consider a deal if it met pretty well in the middle. For a player going year-to-year through their six years of service time, signing an extension gives them security. For a team going year-to-year with players through their six years of service time, an extension gives them cost certainty.

I count four players who make some sense to sign deals that either go through their team control years or just beyond them. I’ll go alphabetically.

Kris Bubic

The lefty came back from Tommy John strong last year in the bullpen and now, as we know, is the favorite for the fifth starter job. I think we also can agree he has the upside to be a number three starter, which we just saw cost the Royals $51 million over three years in free agency. Bubic is in his third year of four in arbitration so he’ll be a free agent following the 2026 season. If he pitches well, he’s probably looking at something like $9 million in 2026 in his final season. That’s what Ranger Suarez got from the Phillies. Nestor Cortes got $7.6 million, so I suppose you could look to the middle of their numbers and call it $8-$8.5 million, but let’s go with $9 million just to aim a bit high.

I think given the uncertainty for him, the Royals could look at something like four years and $36 million, giving him $13 million per year in his first two free agency years and get him locked up for two years beyond free agency. It’s a risk, but not the most massive one given that they have a pretty good idea that his floor is a top shelf reliever. I think it’s interesting. Bubic would still hit free agency heading into his age-31 season with a chance to get five or six years if he shows more than even we think is possible. Or he could get a three-year deal like Nathan Eovaldi, Sean Manaea, Luis Severino or Yusei Kikuchi. I went into this thinking no way and now I sort of think I wouldn’t have a big problem with this.

Michael Massey

The key is to sign the guy before they break out if you want to save a little money. Massey isn’t even eligible for arbitration until next year and then he’ll have three years. So take this year’s salary and round it to $1 million for ease of math. Based on some other players this year, he’s probably looking at around $3 million in the first year and then there aren’t a ton of comps for the second year, but let’s call it $6 million and then maybe $9 million for the third year. Second basemen are kind of hard to comp in aribtration. That puts him heading into his age-31 season. Maybe you want to buy an extra year before he hits free agency? I guess you could call that $12 million just to continue the trend. The total there is $31 million over five years, including 2025.

I don’t think I’d do it for that. His back issues are concerning, plus he hasn’t shown he can get on base. I think there’s upside in Massey and you might regret waiting a year if you’re going to eventually do it, but I’d pass here. Now, if he agreed to something like five years and $25 million, I’d probably jump on it if I was the Royals. You have a good defender at second and a guy who can hit for a little pop for a relatively cheap deal. Maybe I’m wrong and he’d do it, but I don’t think he would sign for that little when he can make near that through arbitration and potentially more if he breaks out.

Vinnie Pasquantino

The big first baseman is heading into his final year of pre-arbitration and then will have three years. Pete Alonso’s free agency should scare Pasquantino some and the way teams operate should too. The type of player he is just doesn’t get big deals anymore. That said, Freddie Freeman did, so if Pasquantino can stay healthy and put up bigger numbers, he could still be looking at a big deal in free agency. Nathaniel Lowe is an interesting comp for him and he went $4 million to $7.5 million to somewhere around $10.5 million in arbitration, though he was a super two, so he still has one more year. That’s $22 million over three years. Give Pasquantino that plus his $1 million this year (rounding) and add something like $14 million per year for two years and you get six years and $37 million. I’d probably do that because of how little it is, but I have a hunch Pasquantino wouldn’t.

Cole Ragans

Pitchers get hurt and Ragans has had multiple Tommy Johns already. Now, it’s not exactly the same as having two because he had to have his first correct. He didn’t get hurt again. But he still had multiple. The Royals have Ragans under team control for his age 27 through 30 seasons, which means he’d hit free agency at 31. Max Fried got eight years at 31. Corbin Burnes got six at 30. Blake Snell got five at 32. If Ragans remains an elite starting pitcher, and that’s what he is, I don’t think he’s delaying his free agency, so you’re probably just buying some certainty in arbitration with him and getting him on a four-year deal if it includes the $1 million rounded in 2025.

If I had to guess, I’d say he starts arbitration at around $5 million and then jumps to $10 million the second year. The third year is the year players can comp to free agent deals. Dylan Cease and Zac Gallen only ended up at $13.75 million and $13.5 million respectively, so I think that’s probably around Ragans spot. I’m a little surprised it didn’t jump more for those two. But let’s round up and say that’s $30 million over four years. I think I’d go year-to-year with him, but if the Royals want to lock that budget down, it makes sense on both sides.

7:40pm Update: Well, it looks like they were working on something all along. He agreed to a three year deal for $13.25 million, so that covers this year at about $750k and his first two of three arbitration years at $12.5 million. It’s a slight discount for the Royals on what I think he’d get going year-to-year, but certainty for Ragans. Without another deal after this one, he’ll still be arbitration-eligible for the 2027 season.

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