The Royals Are Awfully Quiet
A free agent frenzy like we've never seen before happened over the last few days and the Royals have sat out. Is that okay though?
 |
|
With the end of the CBA near and a lockout basically a certainty, we saw over the Thanksgiving holiday a free agent frenzy that has never happened before. Over the last few years as teams wait out free agents and the winters have been long and boring before deals start to trickle in during January, many had advocated for something more like an NFL or NBA offseason where the deals are signed as soon as possible. This hasn’t been exactly that, but we’ve gotten a glimpse of what a deadline would do to the free agent market. And, friends, it’s been fun. I hate the reason for the deadline, but where I wasn’t so much on board before, I think I am now because that was a rush.
But the Royals have remained quiet. It isn’t just the Royals as a lot of teams basically sat out the insanity. The Rangers have been very busy. The Blue Jays did some work. The Mets went nuts. But outside of some free agent relievers, the Giants bringing back a couple of their starters and the Tigers swooping in on one of the free agent shortstops, almost everyone was quiet. I can’t speak to the other teams because they aren’t my focus here at Inside the Crown, but I can talk about the Royals a bit.
We’ve discussed this a bit, but they’re in an odd position with so many positions set in spite of not being especially good in 2021. Two-thirds of their outfield is locked in. Their infield is already crowded and they have the All-MLB first team catcher behind the plate. It stands to reason that they would be looking for pitching upgrades and I wrote last week about how they should probably shift to starting pitching because of the reliever market looking crazy.
Since then, two of the big names on the market signed, but also Jon Gray got four years and $56 million, which is right in the area where I expected and that’s not a crazy expenditure. Alex Cobb is said to be nearing a deal with the Giants (and it might be agreed to before you read this). Corey Kluber took a one-year deal for $8 million, though I think he wanted to go someplace where he could win and Tampa is in a much better position for that than the Royals. Michael Lorenzen got $7 million from the Angels, but I’m not a huge Lorenzen fan anyway. Hector Neris signed for the big money as a reliever that I wasn’t too excited about. Yimi Garcia signed a much more reasonable deal. And Daniel Hudson, one of my favorite Royals targets signed as well, so that was disappointing.
The general consensus is that these deals needed to be agreed to by yesterday in order to get the physicals and paperwork done before the owners lock out the players, so it appears the rush is over, though maybe there is a little wiggle room there as I saw some reports that players still want to sign by Wednesday. And the Royals are left with their team looking a lot like it looked before Thanksgiving. So what’s next?
On the pitching market, I actually don’t hate them not doing much of anything so far. The reports are that Corey Knebel is on the Phillies radar, but he’d be a nice fit for KC. While I think they could have benefited from a starting pitching addition, it’s important to remember that there are still options. I thought Cobb was a great fit, but while he’s gone, they could still look to someone like Michael Pineda. If they want to go big and deal with the social media presence, Marcus Stroman is still just waiting out there and would be very successful with the infield defense they’ll throw out there.
And there are still trades to be made. The A’s are open for business, but they’re still sitting with Chris Bassitt, Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas on their roster. The Reds have had talks about Luis Castillo, Sonny Gray and Tyler Mahle. While I’d love Castillo, I’d be good with either Gray or Mahle as the prospect cost likely wouldn’t be prohibitive for either. And who knows who else is available? So there are still quite a few possibilities out there.
Plus, I think it’s fair to note that standing pat this year isn’t the worst thing either. I think there are ways the Royals could find themselves contending in 2022. It’s not hard to squint and see the big hitting prospects all come out of the gate successful (not likely, but possible) and the young pitching hits their stride in year two and three (and even year three is kind of year two with how short 2020 was). But the target should be 2023 for them given the growing pains and they can utilize 2022 as a year to sort through the pile and see what works and what doesn’t. Would I love to see an upgrade? Of course. Is it the end of the world if they don’t find one? Absolutely not.
If you look ahead to the next free agent class, it’s not quite as loaded as this one, but there are some names out there. Plus, there are quite a few coming up in the couple years after next season, which makes the trade market very interesting next winter. Aaron Nola, German Marquez, Zack Wheeler, Chris Paddack, etc. are some names that could be available for any number of reasons. If you really want to get crazy and look to the next year’s free agent class, guys like Zac Gallen and Jose Urquidy could maybe be had next winter in a big trade. So there are options is the point.
In the outfield, I’m less optimistic. If the Royals don’t jump now, and I certainly wouldn’t give a guy like Nick Castellanos what he wants, they might miss out for a bit. The market next year is pretty dim and they may have all three spots to be looking for if they decide to shift Michael A. Taylor to a fourth outfielder role. Yes, some can come internally, but they’ll likely need to add. I don’t blame them for not going to that fourth year in Avisail Garcia, but he’d have been a nice fit. I’d love to see what the Michael Conforto market looks like after the lockout. Maybe he can be had for a relative bargain, though I’m not confident in that. The hope now is that Kyle Isbel can lock down one spot and others emerge. Trades will also exist there, though it’s a bit harder to pinpoint near-ish free agents who might be available.
The list of remaining free agents is impressive, though not quite as much as a week ago. And that’s okay. I anticipate we’ll see some very creative trades when things open back up again as GMs have all the time in the world to chat and try to connect the dots to make some deals. I would guess the Royals will add before the season, but now we have to wait to see.
Crown Jewels
Non-Tender Time
The non-tender deadline was moved due to today due to the expiration of the CBA, so the Royals get to finally make the move they need to make and that’s to non-tender Ryan O’Hearn. I said a couple weeks ago when they had the deadline to add for the Rule 5 that if they didn’t remove him then, it didn’t mean he would be back. Well, this is the date where it does mean he’ll be back. Okay, he could still go, but once the contract is tendered, some of it is guaranteed even if we don’t know what the amount will be. O’Hearn is cheap, projected to earn just $1.4 million. But he isn’t good and he isn’t going to be. He had a fantastic debut in 2018, but has hit .205/.280/.357 in 756 plate appearances since then. He isn’t a good defender, he isn’t a good baserunner and he plays the position of one of the team’s top prospects.
The 40-man roster is currently completely full, which means if the Royals want to make any moves, they’ll have to DFA someone, so why not make this move on O’Hearn now so you’re not on the hook for any of the contract moving forward, as little as it is? It’s the right move and I think they’ll do it, but I also don’t know for certain. The other candidates are the same as they have been. Players don’t have to be arbitration-eligible to be non-tendered, so Joel Payamps, Emmanuel Rivera, Gabe Speier and Tyler Zuber are all also candidates. I still wonder if Richard Lovelady is, though I don’t think so. He’ll miss all of 2022 after he had Tommy John, so I could see a scenario where they decide to non-tender him but I don’t think it’s especially likely.
Playoff Changes
One of the latest leaks in the labor discussions is about a proposed change to the playoff format.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same proposal we heard about before everything shut down in 2020, or at least close to it. I hate it. Many of my issues with it are similar to what you can find in that article. More playoff teams will de-incentivize teams from spending money, which goes against what the players are fighting for in this dispute. Teams can say they can catch lightning in a bottle to be the seventh seed and still make it to the World Series, which is absolutely right. Baseball is inherently very random. You might even see a Wild Card team come back from a four-run deficit in a winner-take-all game and then not lose again until the World Series. Crazy, sure, but it could happen.
But what I dislike the most about it is the reward for mediocrity. In 2021, all seven AL playoff teams would have been 90-game winners, so that’s great. But look to the NL, the sixth and seventh seeds would have won 83 and 82 games respectively. In 2019, the seventh seed in the AL would have been an 84-game winner. In the NL, an 85-game winner. Most years, you’re looking at a team in the mid-80s at best making the playoffs and maybe more than one. You only have to go back to 2017 to find two teams in the AL making the playoffs under the new format who finished under .500. That won’t happen every year, but it’ll happen sometimes. Baseball’s postseason generally features the best of the best teams better than any other sport because it features the lowest percentage of teams in there. If they want to expand, fine, whatever, but I think seven in each league is too many.
doubt we see any trades until almost all the free agents sign. With the lockout. On that note though....say this lockout goes until March....do you expect much activity on that front if teams are rushing back to spring training? I guess a trade in April isn't the end of the world. Just thinking I could see a situation where teams don't trade as much the longer the lockout goes.
"You might even see a Wild Card team come back from a four-run deficit in a winner-take-all game and then not lose again until the World Series. Crazy, sure, but it could happen." -- I see what you did there...nice. :)