Crown Jewels: Non-Roster Invites, A Stadium Vote and Reevaluating Some Deals

The Royals have a bunch of NRIs, a stadium coming on the ballot and some contracts to compare theirs to fially.

It feels like I talk about the passage of time in the open of these Crown Jewels every week and what each new week represents. This week is one that puts us one step closer to some additional moves coming around the game. Yesterday was teh deadline for arbitration-eligible players to avoid going to arbitration. For the Royals, they had four players who were eligible who had not yet reached deals prior to yesterday’s deadline - Nick Anderson, Carlos Hernandez, Brady Singer and Kyle Wright. All four did come to an agreement, but I’m kind of fascinated by this group.

These four could not be more different. Anderson is brand new and will earn $1,575,000. He’s an oft-injured but effective reliever who likely will never see a big payday because he’s 33 already and still has another year of team control after this one. Hernandez is young and has had plenty of big league success…and plenty of failure. He agreed to a deal for $1,012,000 which is surprising because he could find himself getting big money soon enough so he might have wanted to maximize his baseline but ended up lower than his initial projection.

Singer will earn $4.85 million with two years of team control beyond 2024 and one legitimately very good year on his resume. He went to arbitration with the Royals last year. And Wright is out for 2024, but agreed to a deal for $1.8 million in arbitration and also has two more years of control after this one. With all the deals, the Royals have 16 players guaranteed to make about $99 million. That’s including Hunter Dozier, which is the gift that keeps on giving.

With these deals signed, there is now cost certainty for many players, which is important for them to give out contracts and determine other moves. Heck, you might even see team and player so far apart that it necessitates a trade to avoid the relationship becoming untenable, though there isn’t really a big gap among the 22 who didn’t agree. So today now does mark the next phase of the offseason, and that’s a good thing. From the Royals front, they’ve done the bulk of their shopping for the winter, but still have other items on their wish list that might become clearer over the next few weeks before spring training begins.

NRIs Announced

One of my favorite announcements of the winter is the non-roster invites coming to spring training for the club. I know, I’m a freaking nerd. Tell me something I don’t know. But this year’s group is interesting and partially because of some deals they’ve made over the past six months or so.

Let’s get one thing out of the way. They always invite a bunch of catchers because there are like a billion pitchers in camp. That might be hyperbolic, but a lot less than you think. Still, all of these catchers are at least semi-interesting. We saw Logan Porter and Tyler Cropley in Kansas City in September. I’m not entirely sure either is a long-term big leaguer, but they at least have a taste. Luca Tresh is a legitimate prospect, though not a highly-rated one. And Carter Jensen has a chance to be a long-term answer behind the plate. Also, none have a real chance to make the club.

There will be some legitimate opportunities, though, in this group. I’ll get to the pitchers in a second, but Mike Brosseau has big league experience and has been actually pretty good in the big leagues before. If there’s an injury to Maikel Garcia or he simply looks like he’s regressed, he could be slotted in as the starter at third and there’s a legitimate argument it would be fine. I’d prefer Nick Loftin, but that’s another story.

Cam Devanney came over for Taylor Clarke and has more than 1,200 plate appearances between AA and AAA. He’s a utility option with potential to grow into more. The same is true of Devin Mann, who came over in the Ryan Yarbrough deal last August. Any of those three could make the roster if players don’t perform or if there are injuries. I don’t think Tyler Tolbert has a real shot, but he can continue to impress the team leadership for a callup later in the season. I don’t see a lot of opportunity in the outfield, though as bad as Nate Eaton was last year, he did hit .264/.331/.387 in the big leagues in 2022 with fantastic outfield defense, so stranger things have happened.

The pitching staff is where it gets the most interesting and mostly because of veterans. I really like Mason Barnett and Chandler Champlain, but they have to be considered ridiculous long shots to make the roster. Dan Altavilla, Luis Cessa, Tyler Duffey and Sam Long all will get long looks. I’m intrigued by Austin Cox, who I figured would be out much beyond spring training but maybe his recovery has gone well. If he’s pitching this spring, I think he has a real chance to crack the roster given what he did last season. And it’s a great opportunity for Christian Chamberlain, Walter Pennington and Beck Way to impress the coaching staff.

We’ve Got a Ballot Initiative

It’s been a long and winding road to get here, but it sure looks like there is going to be an initiative on the April ballot about whether or not Jackson County residents will approve a new stadium for the Royals and a renovation of Arrowhead for the Chiefs. The measure is to continue the current sales tax increase that was put in place for the renovations in the late aughts, so this isn’t a new tax per se, but it is tax that likely wasn’t counted on as people were counting down the days until the end of it.

After a long time of posturing in the media and theoretically negotiating, the Royals and Chiefs have agreed to provide “more than $200 million in new economic benefits to Jackson County over 40 years in a new lease agreement.” The 40 years jumps out to me. Additionally, the teams have agreed to pay for the insurance coverages for their facilities that should save Jackson County $80-$100 million. They’ve also agreed that the county can reallocate each team’s share of an existing park property tax for other uses. The estimate on the economic impact there should allow the country around $140 million for other issues. And the more boilerplate part is that the teams will enter into a community benefits agreement that wasn’t detailed at this time.

What I find interesting is that all the indications are that neither of the two sites they previewed a few months ago appear to be their top choice. Instead, it looks like it could be at the old Kansas City Star building at 16th and McGee. If there’s a rendering, I haven’t seen it yet, so I have no idea what it might look like, but it would still include the $1 billion entertainment district funded by the team and then whatever is covered by the public. I’ll reiterate something that I’ve said a few times. Public money paying for billionaires to build stadiums is absolutely a grift, but I just want to remind everyone this isn’t a John Sherman thing or really any individual owner. It’s an issue with almost every single stadium that gets built. So I get the ire toward Sherman, but I also think it’s good to take a step back and realize this is a systemic industry issue, not any one individual’s.

Ultimately, I’m not a Jackson County voter myself, so I won’t have a say in the issue. I think the Royals knew they had to be active this winter in order to get more support for the stadium. I wonder a bit if they’ve done enough, though I still think this is going to pass assuming it actually does get on the ballot. And I still think the card they can play and one that I’m still betting on them playing is announcing a Witt extension in spring training, right ahead of the vote. The team’s performance on the field right now really shouldn’t have as much to do about a vote for a stadium that will be built with the idea of lasting decades, but it does, so the optics are important.

It is not yet guaranteed to be on the ballot because there is one dissent of the nine in good old pal Frank White. I’m not completely clear on these details because politics is not my thing, but I believe he can veto the decision and then it will go to another vote that would require six of the nine to vote yes rather than five of the nine. But given that the initial vote was eight of nine, well, that seems like a formality unless something weird happens. So if you live in Jackson County, the odds are you’ll be voting for a new Royals stadium and a renovated Chiefs stadium.

I’m curious how you’d vote.

Reevaluating Some Free Agent Contracts

When a team gets out ahead of the market like the Royals pretty much did this season, it’s sort of tough to evaluate the deal in the lens of the rest of the winter. The reliever deals they signed with Will Smith and Chris Stratton were fairly boilerplate, but the deals for Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha along with Hunter Renfroe and, to a lesser extent, Garrett Hampson needed a little time before we could really compare them to the market.

After Marcus Stroman signed for two years and $37 million with a vesting option for a third year at $18 million, I think we can accurately look at Lugo and Wacha at least through the eyes of this particular offseason. I would certainly rather have Wacha at two years and $32 million than Giolito at two years and $38.5 million. I think I’d rather have Wacha at his deal than Stroman at his, but it’s close. And I’d definitely take it over Sean Manaea’s two years and $28 million. I’d probably even rather have it over the one year and $14 million for Jack Flaherty or the $16 million for a year for Frankie Montas, though those are closer being one-year deals.

The Lugo deal is a little bit different to me. I think I’d take Lugo’s deal over Giolito’s. But I’m not sure I’d take it over anyone else’s other than maybe Manaea because I’m a bit concerned about him over the last couple of seasons. It may not be entirely fair to judge Lugo’s deal that way because he was the first to sign with the bad team tax and maybe Wacha would have been 3/45 if he had signed first, but I can only go by what we know now. I can tell you I’d rather have had Stroman for his deal than Lugo, but also maybe that deal wasn’t available to the Royals at that time because they were still paying the 106-loss tax and now they’re paying a slightly less cumbersome one.

I still like getting Lugo, but I was always a little uncomfortable with the contract. Yes, I know it’s not my money, but that third year being a player option never offered anything but downside for the Royals and seeing some of these other deals makes me feel justified. Ultimately, like I said, Lugo and Wacha make the Royals considerably better than they were and that’s what matters as long as any deal doesn’t preclude them from necessary deals moving forward. I’ve heard no indications it could, so there’s probably nothing to worry about, but I’m analyzing this team, so that’s part of the analysis.

Renfroe is a little tougher because very few outfielders have signed. Lourdes Gurriel Jr., my top choice, got three years and $42 million from his previous team. What’s the number for the Royals in that case? Is it $51 million? I don’t know. I think I’d take the bounceback at a small cost option there. I’d certainly rather have Andrew McCutchen at $5 million for a year, but that’s a Pittsburgh deal and a homecoming, so I don’t think that’s anything the Royals would have even been offered. The other two deals are for Harrison Bader and Kevin Kiermaier. I might take either over Renfroe, but they’re not really comparable, so I guess that’s a TBD.

And with Hampson, I put this comparison on Twitter after Isiah Kiner-Falefa signed for two years and $15 million:

Player A: .253/.311/.333, 84 wRC+, -1 OAA

Player B: .245/.320/.345, 79 wRC+, -2 OAA

Player A is IKF and Player B is Hampson. I’ll absolutely take him for $2 million if that’s the market for utility guys.

So all in all, I think the Royals have generally done pretty well even though they didn’t have a market to compare their deals to this winter. I still think Lugo was a bit of an overpay, but maybe it was totally necessary. They don’t win anything for being in the right market, but it’s always interesting to me to see how they compare.