Royals in the Rumors: Winter Meetings Edition
The first day of the meetings is all about setting the rumors, and the Royals were named. A lot.
This time of year is fun because the possibilities are kind of endless. There starts to be an end eventually, but we’re not there yet with so much of the offseason left to be played out. I think I wrote on Friday that I have a plan/goal to attend the Winter Meetings at some point in my life, but that year is not this year. So I’m relying on the reports we see and little snippets of information I’m able to get from people who are hanging around and have much better sources than I do. That doesn’t make it any less fun. The rumor mill is one of my favorite things about sports. Then it sometimes becomes the worst when the rumors you want to happen don’t happen, but we can deal with that when the time comes.
I may not keep this all chronological, but there was some news that came out at the start of the meetings from Ken Rosenthal at The Athletic. And it was maybe the least surprising thing, but the news/rumor was that the Royals are searching for two bats (duh) and they expect to get one signed via free agency and acquire another via trade. Yeah, that checks out. It fits everything we’ve talked about since whenever we started talking about how to fix the offense. I think they need a bat to slot in the middle of the lineup and another one that can be more complementary. The free agent market fits the complementary mold and the trade market fits the bigger bat.
On Sunday, Jaylon Thompson from The Kansas City Star wrote about a few targets for the Royals. There’s no surprises here. In free agency, he listed: