Crown Jewels: Royals Upgrades, Non-Tender Day and Hall of Fame Voting

It's a big day for small deals, but the Royals might make a big one soon.

Yesterday marked the end of awards season. I wrote recently that it was great to see how much the Royals were represented. They had two Gold Glove winners, two Silver Slugger winners and had finalists for every major award other than Rookie of the Year. But on the awards front where one player won, they finished second in every single one basically. Matt Quatraro was second for Manager of the Year. JJ Picollo was second for Executive of the Year. Seth Lugo was second for Cy Young. Bobby Witt Jr. was second for MVP. The latter two were expected, but at least one of the former two should have won their award. I mean, come on!

Awards voting sort of highlighted how great of a job Picollo did for this season. The runner-up for the Cy Young was signed to a cheap (by baseball terms) contract last year after one solid season of starting. He traded a rental reliever who was not in high demand as a free agent the winter before for the guy who finished fourth (Cole Ragans). His moves were part of what convinced the runner-up for the MVP to sign a long-term deal rather than play out the string in Kansas City and then go on to free agency. That’s not even to mention how good of a job he did in-season on piecing together a roster that still struggles to find impact talent in the minors because of a system that needs to be fully rebuilt from infrastructure up.

There’s nothing to be ashamed of in finishing second for major awards. There are a lot of candidates for all of these, and the winners were all deserving. But it sure would have been nice to win one. I’m not dwelling on it and I’m not necessarily even upset about it. But I am a little bummed about it. I guess they’ll just have to win all of them next season, including the World Series.

This week’s newsletters:

There'll Be *Some* Action This Week

2025 Top 25 Royals Prospects

Offensive Upgrades Are a Lock

I’ve written about this for weeks, if not months, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the rumor mill has spun a lot for the Royals. None of it matters until a deal is actually done, but it started with the Brady Singer for Jonathan India rumor over the weekend. It’s been confirmed since then that India isn’t the only player who the Royals have their eyes on. Specifically, Taylor Ward and Alec Bohm have been mentioned. I don’t think they’re the only ones the Royals are interested in, and maybe we’ll have an answer as early as today on one of their moves (I’ll get to that in a second).

I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise to see the Royals in the rumor news. They did specifically tell the world that they wanted two bats. Last year, they told the world they wanted two starters and they went out and signed two legitimate big league starters. Now they’re after the two bats they need to supplement those starters, and I do think one of those bats is likely to come from the trade market, if not both. The more I talk to people familiar with the thinking of the team, the more I believe that Brady Singer is going to be what brings back the bat they get via a trade.

I understand the idea of keeping a strength a strength, but the free agent market’s strength is starting pitching, so they can go out and sign someone who can provide similar success to 2024 Singer. Why wouldn’t a team just sign that player? It’s a fair question, but I think that pitcher may cost $14-$17 million while Singer should cost around $9 million. A team looking to save a few bucks might prefer Singer to, say, Yusei Kikuchi. It is telling to me that two infielders have been among the players connected to the Royals. Sure, maybe a guy like India could play left field, but that tells me they’re casting a wider net.

Don’t be surprised if some other names you hear over the next few weeks include Nolan Arenado, Bo Bichette, Brendan Donovan, Adolis Garcia, Nico Hoerner, Eugenio Suarez and Mike Yastrzemski (that would probably be today, is my guess, if it happened). Not all are likely or even kind of likely, but you’ll start to hear just about every name on the trade block connected with the Royals. I feel pretty confident in that.

And here’s the biggest shocker of all. Jon Heyman reported yesterday that the Royals checked in on Juan Soto. Yes, that Juan Soto. It’s Heyman, so you know, but still. The next line was “But, ultimately, it’s not a financial fit.” Well duh. I started to move on in my brain, but then I wondered why you even check in knowing what the price tag starts at. Maybe they didn’t at all and Heyman is just doing his thing as a Scott Boras mouthpiece.

But if they did, it made me think that they might be willing to spend big and use deferred money in the way the Dodgers did with Shohei Ohtani. Obviously it won’t be that crazy of a split with the money, but the whole world knows what Soto wants. They don’t need to call to find out there’s not a financial fit for a guy who’s going to sign for $500+ (and the + is doing a lot of work there) million. Just something to think about when you wonder if they’ll spend a lot of money on a player. Maybe they will, but a lot of it will come later.

Non-Tenders and Trades

I’ve written about non-tenders a lot, so I’ll keep this relatively short (hey, don’t laugh, it’s been known to happen). The Royals have nine arbitration-eligible players left after moving on from Josh Taylor - Kris Bubic, Hunter Harvey, Carlos Hernandez, Kyle Isbel, Daniel Lynch IV, MJ Melendez, John Schreiber, Brady Singer, Kyle Wright. I’ve seen Harvey and Hernandez mentioned as non-tender candidates, but I don’t see that happening. Their 40-man roster is only at 37 right now, so there’s not a huge need to make a move and neither makes much money. Plus, they just gave up a decent haul for Harvey and do like what he can do if he’s healthy.

The first point here is that I do think Hernandez gets traded and maybe today. I don’t think he’s really a non-tender candidate, but he is a 40-man casualty candidate if they need the space as a reliever with no options remaining. If a deal isn’t there, they don’t have to move him, but I’ve heard that multiple teams have called about him, so don’t be surprised to see his name in a minor deal at some point today. He could also be included in another deal for a bat later on. I just think I’d be pretty surprised if he makes it to camp with the Royals given that teams have called and they already have a few guys with no options. Jonathan Bowlan is another, if you were wondering, but I think he’s far more likely to make it to camp with the team and they figure something out for him later, though maybe he’s a non-tender today.

Today is the day to clean out the roster. I believe it’s still the case that you can’t DFA a player unless the 40-man roster is full. So with that in mind, now is the time to move on from players. That could lead to the end of the line for guys like Bowlan, Nick Pratto and maybe another among players not arbitration-eligible. I don’t think they’ll just non-tender Drew Waters, but I guess you never know.

As far as a trade the Royals could make today to take advantage of a player on the block, MLB Trade Rumors mentioned Yastrzemski, Aaron Civale, Ramon Laureano and David Bednar as players who I’ve thought the Royals could have some interest in. Civale is an interesting one because of his career moves now. He struggled a lot with the Rays, but put up much better numbers with the Brewers. That said, the underlying stuff wasn’t any different. If the Royals were to come away with Civale, I’d say it means that Brian Sweeney signed off on it and that Singer goes from like 75 percent traded to 100 percent. Brendan Rodgers is also an interesting name on their list, though I struggle with mediocre bats leaving Colorado.

My Hypothetical Hall of Fame Ballot

I am not a Hall of Fame voter. Yet. There isn’t anything necessarily on the horizon for me, but it’s all about vision boards, right? It’s still fun to do what I like to do with the awards voting and give what I would do if I had that coveted vote. I’ll use the ballot the great Ryan Thibodaux puts out there every year in his phenomenal Hall of Fame ballot tracking.

Much like my award voting, I’d spend a lot more time on this if I actually had a vote, but with some time to mull it over, these are the four I’d pick.

Carlos Beltran

I would have voted for him on the first ballot. If you’re not familiar with JAWS, it’s a metric created by Jay Jaffe to measure a player’s Hall of Fame worthiness. Their JAWS is their career WAR averaged with their seven-year peak WAR. The average of 19 Hall of Famers in center field is 58.2 and Beltran is at 57.3, just a touch behind Duke Snider and ahead of 18 others. In fact, the only players he’s behind are inner-circle Hall of Famers - Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Mickey Mantle, Ken Griffey Jr. and Joe DiMaggio - and Mike Trout. JAWS isn’t everything and Beltran’s 119 OPS+ only puts him in the range of Andre Dawson among Hall of Famers, but he was so fantastic in center field and stole bases like pretty much nobody else. He’s in for me. Maybe even as a Royal, but probably as a Met.

CC Sabathia

This is the one that I could go either way on, but I think he makes it because the modern starting pitcher is very different than the bulk of the Hall of Fame. The win is a whatever stat, but over the course of a career, I do think there’s some value in it. Sabathia won 250 games. There’s an argument to be made that nobody will ever win 250 games again (well, Justin Verlander has already done it, but after him).

The active leader other than Verlander is Max Scherzer with 216 and he’s 39 years old. Clayton Kershaw is behind him at 212 and then it’s Gerrit Cole at 153. The leader for pitchers under 30 is Shane Bieber with 62. Sabathia has a Cy Young, a top-10 MVP finish and a World Series ring along with a seven-year run that is up there with Hall of Famers. If this ballot was like the ones from a few years ago with a billion candidates, he’d probably miss the cut, but I think he’s a Hall of Famer.

Ichiro Suzuki

A lot of people have cited Ichiro’s 107 OPS+ as a reason he shouldn’t be a unanimous Hall of Famer. Those people should be ignored. The guy had 3,089 hits in the big leagues after debuting at 27. He won an MVP, set the record for most hits in a season and had a .311 average and .355 OBP. His defense was fantastic. And when you add in his 1,278 hits from Japan, he ended his professional career with 4,367 hits. That’s an absurd number. I don’t care that he struggled at the end of his career and his numbers fell off because of it.

Billy Wagner

I didn’t come around on Wagner as quickly as I should have, but here I am. It was the 903 innings that I just couldn’t quite wrap my head around, but, like Sabathia, you have to take context into account. It’s the way relievers are used now. Trevor Hoffman and Bruce Sutter had similar JAWS numbers and only had 186 and 139 more innings respectively. His 422 saves are the eight-most of all-time. That’s not why he’s in for me, but it doesn’t hurt.

He was just dominant. I think the modern game means that a dominant closer is important and Wagner was one of the most dominant ones out there. Consider this: Other than his dismal 2000 season when he posted a 6.18 ERA, Wagner never had an ERA above 2.85. He never gave up more hits than innings pitched outside of that season. He never struck out less than a batter per inning. I totally get if he’s not on your ballot, but he’s on mine and I do think he gets in this year in his final one on the ballot.

One quick note. If you’re on social media and haven’t found me on Bluesky, I’m there now too! You can find me @dblesky.bsky.social. I’m still on Twitter too, but I go where the audience goes and I’d love it if you’d follow me on Bluesky as well to keep up with everything.