Royals End Winter Meetings with Minor Moves

After much hand-wringing, the Royals cleared a 40-man spot to make a pick in the Rule 5.

As the hours nearly turned to minutes ahead of the Rule 5 draft, the Kansas City Royals roster sat at 40, which meant they wouldn’t be able to make a selection. I wrote yesterday about my thoughts on that, but I also maintained that I would choose to make a selection rather than not. And like a phoenix rising from the ashes, there was finally news. The Royals had traded Dylan Coleman to clear a spot on the 40-man to be able to make a selection in the Rule 5 draft. I’ll get to that trade shortly when I recap yesterday’s events.

But first, I continue to be absolutely floored by how slow these meetings were this season. I truly can’t remember anything like it. We were captivated on the first night by news that Erick Fedde, of all people, was nearing a decision to sign. Look, Fedde is someone I wanted the Royals to sign, but that doesn’t mean he should be the biggest news of a day. Tuesday night’s excitement came in the form of a trade of an outfielder with one year of team control who has been worth about 2.2 fWAR per 600 plate appearances. Alex Verdugo is a bit above average. There’s nothing wrong with that. You need that. But he shouldn’t have been the biggest news of the day.

Yesterday was at least naturally busier with the Rule 5 draft and all the reporting that comes from that, but there were other moves. Craig Kimbrel signed with the Orioles for $13 million, which is a lot of money. Jeimer Candelario signed for three years and $45 million with the Reds. That’s even more money. Eduardo Rodriguez signed with the Diamondbacks for four years and $80 million with a fifth year option that can take it to $100 million. That’s the most money. The huge news, though, is that the Yankees trading for Juan Soto finally happened, which is a legitimate blockbuster trade. So at least we had one of those at these meetings.

I still can’t wrap my head around Ohtani alone being the reason that movement is so slow. I think finances for most teams are a big deal. And while the Royals wanted to pounce on this market, they just haven’t been able to do that. That’s at least partially their fault if not more than partially. They’re a bad team. Players want to sign with good teams. It’s a rough cycle that’s tough to break, but they have to figure out how to break it.

Dylan Coleman to the Astros for a Flyer

I mentioned that they cleared a spot on the 40-man roster ahead of the Rule 5 draft by trading Coleman. They moved him to the Astros in exchange for Carlos Mateo. If you’re looking for information on Mateo, well, you’ve come to the wrong place. I may end up getting some intel on him at some point, but nobody I know has much on him. I can tell you that he will be 20 in about a week and threw 8.2 innings in rookie ball for the Astros in 2023. He is a true lottery ticket, which is fine.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time wondering why Coleman. I think Max Castillo has lower upside for this team. I think Jonathan Heasley has lower upside for this team. I think Collin Snider has lower upside for this team. I am struck by the fact that there are fewer pieces of dead weight on the pitching portion of the 40-man roster than I realized, but I think there were still pitchers with less to give the 2024 Royals than Coleman. And then I thought a little more about it and realized that maybe the inconsistency and the fact that he was the one of those four who could bring back even a lottery ticket was the reason.

Think about this. Coleman’s average velocity fell from 97.5 MPH in 2022 to 95.2 MPH in 2023. It’s not the first time in his professional career that he’s seen a drop like that. He obviously has worked his way back from it before and he’s spending the offseason working with Tread, but I wonder if the complete inability to know which Coleman they’re going to get led to them saying he’s the guy to go. His sweeper is still an elite swing and miss pitch, but he scrapped a very good slider last season that he used 13.4 percent of the time in 2022 and added a cutter and just didn’t throw enough strikes.

The truth is that Coleman might go to Houston and have a great year. His 2022 is one of the more underrated relief seasons I can remember given the way he finished. But I sort of get wanting to move on from someone who just doesn’t allow the team to know really anything about what they’re going to get on that day. I loved Coleman’s potential, but from that perspective, yeah, I get it. Plus, if the Royals are going to be making the moves they’ve been rumored to be in on and are talking about, they’re going to need to clear more spots eventually anyway.

Sweet and Sauer

I can’t promise this is the last sour pun I make regarding the Royals selection in the Rule 5 draft, but I can promise that they won’t get better, so buckle up. The Royals took Matt Sauer with the second pick in the big league portion of the draft. You might remember I wrote about him about three weeks ago:

If I can quote myself:

Matt Sauer, Yankees

2023 Stats: 74 IP, 51 H, 3.41 ERA, 30.3% K, 9.4% BB
Highest Level: AA
2024 Age: 25

The Yankees used their draft savings they got by taking Clarke Schmidt and spent it on Sauer in 2017. Then he blew out his elbow in 2019. He hasn’t been the same. The fastball doesn’t hit the upper-90s, but does get to the mid-90s. His slider is really good and his curve is just sort of there. I see reliever profile now, though there is a chance things can come back for him or he can improve on his changeup. Either way, he gets a lot of swings and misses and his control is good enough to succeed.

There isn’t a lot more to learn about here other than that, after the pick, I talked to someone I hadn’t spoken to before writing the above who gives him more of a chance to start than I do. Still, there is legitimate swing and miss stuff here and good enough control that I think he can not only stick in the big leagues for a full season but succeed. My favorite pick would have been Justin Slaten who was picked by the Mets and immediately traded to the Red Sox, so I’ll be curious to see how that works out.

But Sauer is a good pick here. I wrote yesterday that I’m fine if they don’t make a Rule 5 pick due to the nature of the draft. But I also wrote that I wouldn’t have passed on the opportunity and Sauer was one of my guys, so I like the pick. JJ Picollo spoke about him and other picks in a comment I thought was really interesting.

"There were a handful of arms we liked,” said Royals GM J.J. Picollo, who added they got several good looks at him during his AFL stint. “The difference between him and the other guys is we liked his ability to potentially start long-term. There's some similarities in what we liked about Brad Keller when we selected him a few years ago. Physical guy, good fastball, good breaking ball, strikeout numbers are good.

“When you're trying to break ties and splitting hairs, that was the difference between picking some of the other guys. Our scouting department did a great job, because all the names we talked about were selected. But he was one at the top of our list."

So I’ll take that all day.

Royals In On Guys?

There was a report on Tuesday that the Royals were one of the five teams in on Lucas Giolito. They were listed by Jon Morosi with the Dodgers, Mets, Red Sox and Diamondbacks. They were also reported to be one of the teams in on Rodriguez before he signed. I think it’s fairly likely that the Diamondbacks are out on Giolito now that they’ve signed Rodriguez, but I don’t know that for certain. The point here is that the Royals are actually being mentioned with guys who aren’t like Jordan Lyles.

It’s a small consolation if they don’t ever take home the prize. Teams like to put their names in the mix all the time and it gets really old when they’re mentioned and then never actually get the player. I’d love them to sign Giolito. I don’t expected it, but I’d love it. What I find most interesting is that I didn’t think they’d be in on someone at $20 million or so per year. And maybe they thought they could get Rodriguez for five years and $75 million or something and when they found out the price was much higher, they were out. I can’t tell you that either way. But I can tell you that it opens up the possibility they’ll spend more on a single player than I expected.

Does that open up the possibility they go after Jordan Montgomery? I’m a little iffy on that personally because I think he gets more than Rodriguez and I’m not so sure I’d love paying more than $20 million per year to him. But, again, the fact that they’re part of the conversation really opens doors. Maybe they really are looking at Marcus Stroman, as I mentioned this week. Maybe they can get Stroman and a guy like Michale Wacha. One thing I can tell you that I’ve now heard from multiple people is that they are not interested in Jack Flaherty. All the caveats apply that it could change, but given his velocity fluctuation, the Coleman trade and that information do fit together pretty well.

Brett

Before I end this, I wanted to just put a quick note here. I had a chance to view Brett, the documentary that’ll air on MLB Network tonight, and it was outstanding. There were a lot of things I didn’t know about the best player the Royals have ever had and many things I did know, but I found myself enthralled basically the whole time. And yes, there is mention of the famous crab leg story. I won’t give away too much because I truly was surprised by some of the topics, but definitely give it a watch if you’re able to. It airs tonight at 7 central.

It’s easy to see the meetings end with the Royals having done nothing of significance and be a little frustrated. But just remember, friends, it’s December 7. We don’t even get to 2024 for more than three weeks and pitchers and catchers don’t stretch for the cameras for like six and a half weeks after that. There is plenty of time for some action and for the first time in what seems like years, the Royals are at least in conversations, so we’ve got something to keep an eye on for these cold months.