Crown Jewels: The Rumor Mill, Improvements and a Small Trade

Things got moving this week for the Royals and really the rest of baseball.

Things can go from quiet to loud pretty fast. A week ago, we were talking about how quiet the whole world of baseball has been and now we’re looking at a week where the Royals have spent $58 million in guaranteed dollars on three free agents to help fill out their pitching staff. Oh yeah, and some guy named Shohei signed a contract that hasn’t had anyone talking at all, no sir. It’s just nice that there has finally been some action, both around the game and for the local heroes. As I wrote the other day when I wrote about the Seth Lugo and Chris Stratton deals, I like their activity and even like the players they acquired, but they can’t be done.

What I’m pretty surprised by, though, is the lack of bats who have signed. Sure Shohei Ohtani got his bag while Jeimer Candelario and Jung Hoo Lee have signed, but Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, Teoscar Hernandez, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Jorge Soler, JD Martinez, Mitch Garver, Rhys Hoskins, Kevin Kiermaier and others remain unsigned with really very few rumors even talking about them. I’ll get to the Royals rumors in just a second, but I find that really interesting. I guess it makes sense given how weak the free agent market is for bats, but outside of a few little rumblings here and there, you just don’t hear much.

Royals Rumors

So with these signings, the question fairly asked is if they’re done. There was a lot made of JJ Picollo’s $30 million number for what the Royals have to spend this winter. I said at the time that if someone is publicly saying a number, that is not the maximum. You have nothing to gain by stating a maximum number. But a minimum makes a lot of sense. “Hey we’ve got $30 million to spend!” Fast forward three months and they’ve spent $40 million and people love it. But if they’ve spent $27 million, people are livid. So there’s no point in giving a number if they’re not going to exceed it.

All that is to say that they’ve spent about $25.5 million for 2024 in free agency, which means they’ve got some funds left to burn. It’s certainly possible that they go the trade route and get someone who doesn’t take them too far over that $30 million number, but I’ve talked to a handful of sources and none of them have any thought that they aren’t still involved in a handful of players who they were interested in prior to signing Lugo.

The biggest name we keep hearing attached to the Royals is Marcus Stroman and I’ve yet to find someone who thinks they’re out on him. My guess is he gets something like three years and $60 million or so, and the fact that the Royals are still in on him says a lot. Now, I tend to think at least some of the reported interest is coming from Stroman’s camp because his market has been pretty quiet and using a team as leverage is Agent 101. The fact that the Royals have shown themselves to be an actual threat to spend helps them quite a bit, so we’ll see.

But Lucas Giolito and Michael Wacha are still on the table too. Jack Flaherty was, but the Tigers got him for $14 million for one year. I heard some conflicting rumors on how much the Royals were interested so I’m not terribly surprised he ended up elsewhere. I’ve also heard that they’ve checked in on Martin Perez and Hyun-Jin Ryu as a little lower cost options, though they both have their warts for various reasons. Frankie Montas remains an option too, but nobody I’ve spoken with has heard much on him from anyone. It could just be that he’s negotiating quietly, but that’s a market that I think might take closer to spring to accelerate.

They are interested in some arms from the Mariners and Marlins, but my editorialization on that is that I’m not so sure they have what it takes to get what they actually need. I’m sure they’ve asked about Logan Gilbert from the Mariners, but I just don’t think they have the ammunition to get him. Maybe they could get Bryan Woo, though, which I would absolutely love. On the Marlins, I’d be on Braxton Garrett, but how do you get him? If Maikel Garcia can headline a deal, I think that’s a good use of Garcia, but I don’t think I’d use Garcia to get Edward Cabrera, for example. So it’s sort of tough to see how that works out.

On the bats front, they are still absolutely in the market for a corner outfielder, which tells me that MJ Melendez is probably on the move if they can get that done. But there hasn’t been a whole lot of movement there. Various people have heard the Royals connected to Tommy Pham, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and one person relayed an Adam Duvall vague rumor to me. I’ve also heard some speculation about TJ Friedl, Dylan Carlson and Anthony Santander, though trades are so much harder to connect sometimes. My gut is they get another starter, maybe another relievers and a bat, but I’ll say that I listed those in the order that I think I’m most confident on.

What Are the 2024 Royals Right Now?

I was asked on a radio spot this week where I’d put the Royals win total for 2024 right this second. It’s obviously a bit of a silly exercise because there’s still so much time left in the offseason, but it’s a fun question to answer. You have to start with what the baseline is. Are they a 56-win team like the actual record stated? Are they more of the 64-win team their Pythagorean record says they are? Are they the 66-win team they are by base runs? Are they the 68-win team that their second-half pace said they were? Or the 71-win team they were after the deadline? I don’t think there’s a wrong answer in what you choose, but it does make a difference.

The truth is that they’re an amalgamation of all of them. You are what your record says you are, sure, but that tells you what happened while some of the others may be more predictive. I tend to believe the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. If you’re trying to set a baseline to determine what the 2024 Royals are based on their moves, my opinion is you set the number around 63. Before anyone jumps down my throat for being way too optimistic, keep in mind that I’m still calling them a 99-loss true talent team. That’s bad. So what have they added so far?

In 2023, Will Smith was worth 1.1 fWAR. Stratton was also worth 1.1 fWAR. Lugo was worth 2.8 fWAR. Nick Anderson was worth 0.9 fWAR. And finally, Garrett Hampson was worth 0.7 fWAR. Add that all together and 6.6 wins above replacement added. But that’s not so simple. Based on roster moves, the three relievers are replacing Collin Snider, Dylan Coleman and Jackson Kowar. Those three were combined worth -0.9 fWAR. Lugo takes the starts of Alec Marsh, who was worth -0.5 fWAR. And Hampson, right now, takes Matt Duffy’s spot on the roster and his -0.1 fWAR. So now we’re looking at an extra win and a half. Just by that measure, they add eight wins to this team. If you think they were a 63-win team, they’re at 71 now.

It certainly doesn’t work this way. Lugo might regress, Anderson could get hurt, etc. But I don’t think there’s any way you can argue that the Royals haven’t gotten a fair amount better on paper. It all comes back to the bottom of the roster, which was just so bad that it cost the Royals wins in ways we don’t even want to know. These five additions, none flashy, help move guys who were in the middle of the roster to the bottom and guys who were at the bottom off it. One more starting pitcher, for example, moves Jordan Lyles to the five spot in the rotation. Suddenly, six innings every fifth day no matter the result doesn’t sound horrible when the other four starters are competent (let’s pretend Brady Singer bounces back for the sake of argument here). One more bat makes Michael Massey a seven-hitter instead of a six-hitter. Even if the Royals aren’t adding to the top of the roster, it makes a real difference.

And because of that, I’m finding myself looking at the 2024 team as a team sitting around 72 wins instead of around 62 as of this moment. That’s not nothing. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.

Taylor Clarke Didn’t Make it to January

Yesterday’s announcement of the Lugo deal was met with more activity. To clear the 40-man spot, the Royals traded Taylor Clarke to the Brewers for Ryan Brady and Cam DeVanney. I think this is interesting because there wasn’t a lot of love on social media for the Royals tendering a contract to Clarke when they did it and actually agreeing to a deal with him at the time. I noted that they did the same thing with Ryan O’Hearn and he was off the roster a few weeks later. This year, history repeated itself but in a much better way because they actually got a couple of players for him.

First, though, I want to make a plea. If Clarke pitches well for the Brewers, please don’t lose sleep over it. I watched people go nuts over Jakob Junis posting a 2.63 ERA through June 10 in 2022 and it clouded judgment so much that nobody noticed him finishing up with a 5.77 ERA in his last 64 innings that year. O’Hearn was talked about like the Royals gave up on an MVP when he was hitting .345/.383/.642 in mid-May. He hit a respectable but not at all noteworthy .270/.300/.429 with eight homers and nine walks in his final 274 plate appearances. Clarke may pitch well. Heck, he may even be sitting with a 2.70 ERA, 3.49 FIP and a 27 percent strikeout rate in mid-June. That’s exactly what he did in Kansas City, by the way. But if he does do well, it’s really fine.

Now for the return. Brady is a 25-year old righty who signed with the Brewers as an undrafted free agent in 2022 and has generally performed at every level. He finished the year in AA with 26 strikeouts and 10 walks though did give up some hits. He is likely minor league depth, but there is some big league upside because his sweeper is legitimately fantastic and can get some swing and miss. He’s not terribly well known, so I haven’t gotten a ton of information on him, but I did talk to a scout who happened to see him in one game and said that if he can figure out how to get a little more depth on his fastball, he’s a big league middle reliever.

DeVanney reminds me a little bit of Devin Mann, though with more ability to play in the middle of the diamond. He has a pretty good approach at the plate, can put the bat on the ball and has a little pop. He played a lot of shortstop for Nasvhille last season and from what I’ve heard can handle it well enough. The Royals don’t have a huge need for that right now with Maikel Garcia on the roster, but a utility player who can play shortstop is very useful and at this point, he’s a better option there than Nick Loftin. He also feels more like minor league depth at this point, but someone who could come up and hold his own.

All in all, for a guy who could have been DFA’d to make room for Lugo, that’s a solid return. Clarke does have two more years of control, so if the Brewers can get more out of him than the Royals could, good for them. But likely he’s going to be fine for them, flashing better than fine at times. And that’s okay. I appreciate getting something when a move needs to be made rather than getting nothing.

Bonus! Royals Sign Hunter Renfroe

Since this happened early enough in the day, I’ll just go ahead and add it here. It was just reported that the Royals are signing Renfroe to a one-year deal with a player option (there’s that player option again) for $6.5 million per year. I had mentioned Renfroe at the start of the winter, but I’d have honestly preferred Tommy Pham or Gurriel. But Renfroe isn’t without his positive traits.

He has legitimate power. Last season was the first year of his career with an isolated slugging percentage (ISO, slugging percentage minus average) below .200. And while a career-low ISO isn’t a great sign, the .183 he put up was still top half of the league and would have been fourth on the Royals among hitters with 250+ plate appearances.

He also can really throw from the outfield, though he isn’t an especially good outfielder. He has been closer to average in the past, but the Royals are betting that he’s more the 2021/2022 version when he hit .257/.315/.496 with +1 DRS in the outfield than the 2023 version who hit .233/.297/.416 with -9 DRS. Would I have bet $13 million over two years on that? I don’t think so, though if they’re right, they’re not going to be on the hook for the second year. And he’s also very tradeable if he’s playing well.

We’ll see what this means for the now glut of corner outfielders on the roster. They now have MJ Melendez, Edward Olivares, Nelson Velazquez, Renfroe and Tyler Gentry in the minors along with Drew Waters, who played plenty of the corners last year. I’d bet a trade is coming sooner than later.