The 2028 Project

Bobby Witt Jr.'s extension with the Royals means they have five seasons to convince him to stay for 14.

As the dust settles on the almost shocking contract the Royals gave Bobby Witt Jr. on Monday, the aftermath becomes the discussion point. As I wrote on Monday, the calculus for 2024 doesn’t change too much. Witt was always going to be the shortstop and was always going to hit in the top third of the lineup. His salary is going to be a little bit more than his pre-arbitration number, but it’s also a negligible difference when it comes to big league salaries. So other than potentially being a bit more of a destination for any remaining free agent (which may happen), 2024 isn’t really any different than it was on Sunday.

While Witt is now under full team control through 2030 with the possibility of being a Royal through 2037 on this contract, the reality is that he has individual opportunities to become a free agent after four consecutive seasons starting after the 2030 campaign. Every scenario I’m thinking about here is one where Witt is everything he and the Royals think he will be, which likely means that he will be opting out of that deal following the 2030 season. And if something odd happens in 2029 or 2030, for example, he’ll probably be opting out after 2031.

I don’t think it’s completely a foregone conclusion because of the number on each of the options. If he opts in for all four seasons, he’ll make $140 million over four years. At this moment, $35 million per year is the eighth-largest AAV in baseball. Seven years ago, two players were making $30 million per year and none $35 million. So where will the league be in seven more years, further removed from a pandemic season and likely with two new teams adding revenue? I’d guess $35 million will still be one of the higher paid players, but probably somewhere around 18th-25th. I might be off by a bit.

But what if Witt is good and not great over the course of his deal? Four years at $140 million with three more years likely tacked on at $89 million might be more than he’d get in free agency. What if he gets hurt and he can still hit, but he’s no longer the speed threat he is now? Or maybe he simply slows down at 30 years old? There are actually some somewhat reasonable scenarios where he does opt in to those years. But again, I’m looking at what happens if he’s so good that he continues to be worth one of the top-10 AAVs in baseball when the time comes.

Then the Royals have to start thinking about when the best time to get the most value out of a player is. This is not anything to worry about today or tomorrow, but teams generally get the most return for a player with two years of control left. And Witt would be entering his age-29 season. That’s how I’ve landed on the 2028 season as the important one for the Royals moving forward. That’s the point when the Royals will have to decide to either renegotiate with Witt on the current deal or start to shop him in an effort to get the highest return possible.

We’ll see what the returns are on the ballot on April 2, but I anticipate the vote will be there for the Royals to get a brand new stadium that will sit downtown. That stadium will likely open for the same 2028 season that’s so important in the Witt discussion and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. By all accounts, Witt enjoys Kansas City. As I wrote when he signed, his people seem to like Kansas City. There seems to be a good relationship with the leadership of the club and him (though that could easily be different by 2028). And a brand new stadium in an area that surely appeals to Witt makes it so everything off the field lines up with him being happy to stay.

But what happens on the field will likely tell the tale of what the Royals long-term future with him is. They now need to start showing him that they can regularly compete for not only division titles, but World Series titles. I don’t think he signs this deal that he signed without some assurances that money would continue to be spent, but it goes beyond money with winning every single year. The infrastructure of the organization needs to be strong enough that they don’t have to go out and sign a bunch of 30-somethings to short-term deals. Yes, it works for now for the 2024 season, but it’s not sustainable.

The Royals need to build something sustainable in order to have an opportunity to retain Witt beyond the guaranteed years of his new deal. I think there are three main things that need to happen in order to keep him happy and willing to stay in Kansas City longer than the next 5-7 years.

Extend Others

There aren’t a lot of options on the current club to get long-term extensions next to Witt. I think the most obvious one is Vinnie Pasquantino. In a bit more than one full season’s worth of plate appearances, Pasquantino has a 121 wRC+. He was excellent as a rookie in 2022 and looked like he was heading for another excellent season in 2023 before his troublesome shoulder gave him even more trouble. As long as he’s healthy, though, he looks like a pretty good bet to be a well above average offensive contributor. I predicted last year he’d be a top-30 hitter in baseball. Using the health caveat, I’ll predict that again in 2024.

I’m fine with the Royals wanting to get a look at him doing actual baseball things instead of just hitting in a cage, but once they deem him healthy, I’d get a contract in front of him. He’s 26, and has skills that age well. He doesn’t have any positional versatility, but if you can walk as much as you strike out and hit the ball a long way, that’s really no big deal. I also think the cost of his deal wouldn’t be so prohibitive that if it came to it, they’d be able to trade him. You’ve got Witt in KC for seven years, so give Pasquantino the same amount of time. I think you can probably get it done for $80 million or so, maybe even a little bit less.

Other than him, I’m not sure where you turn. When I was on with Soren Petro on Monday, he brought up Michael Massey. Many will scoff at that, but I’ve been thinking he has a shot at a big year given the offseason work of his I’ve heard about. Add in that he cut his strikeout rate considerably in the second half and showed off legitimate power that matched what he did in the minors, and I think it’s fair to think the best is yet to come. Plus, he and Witt have excellent chemistry up the middle. If you believe he’s about to break out, give him six years and $35 million with a couple of options to get out ahead of it.

I also don’t think it’s crazy to sign Brady Singer long-term if you believe that 2023 was an aberration and he can be more what he was in 2022. I personally wouldn’t do it, but if a 5 year, $60 million deal makes Witt happy and Singer can be an average to slightly above average starter, okay, go ahead and do it. A guy like Cole Ragans is also a huge risk to sign to a deal, but with this part of The 2028 Project, it’s about doing things that make Witt feel happy and valued.

Add More Young Talent

The big league club, starting as soon as possible, needs more young talent. The fact that I was stretching to find a third extension candidate on a team that has a farm system rated so poorly is telling that they simply don’t have the talent to compete. I think the Royals told us that with the offseason they’ve had bringing in eight new pieces for the 26-man roster with the youngest being Garrett Hampson at 29. Again, that’s fine for a year, but it’s not sustainable for the long run.

They have to find a way to add more young talent to the big league roster. Is that via the farm system? It had better be. I wrote about the system recently and mentioned that there is depth in the system. If Witt and Pasquantino are stars and Massey breaks out and you feel good about offense behind the plate, do you need more stars? It’s not that anyone would turn down more, but if Tyler Gentry, for example, is a .270/.340/.450 hitter, is that enough? Probably? But if the system can produce another borderline All-Star or two offensively and hopefully the pitching development changes can get a couple more young arms in the rotation, that would help.

But it’s not just the system that can produce talent. We saw the Royals sign a veteran last year and flip that player for a guy projected to be their best starter in 2024 in Ragans. I’m not sure you can count on that every year, but no matter what is said by the front office, when you sign veterans to a team that lost 106 games, their trade value is in the back of their minds. If things aren’t going the way they hope this year, guys like Michael Wacha, Hunter Renfroe, Will Smith, Nick Anderson and Chris Stratton need to be shopped. I didn’t mention Seth Lugo because of the extra year, but sure, find out what the return for him would be.

What’s nice is after getting Ragans for Aroldis Chapman, Nelson Velazquez for Jose Cuas and James McArthur for a lottery ticket, you at least feel decent about the ability of this front office to scout talent close to the big leagues in other organizations. It’s far too early to start looking at targets, but that’s a way to add talent too. As much as people hated the idea of guys who are big league ready or close to it last season, that’s the play now when targeting a return on deals. It’s not that they can’t look to get younger talent as they did at the 2023 deadline, but if this is The 2028 Project, they need to put guys on the field who will be entering prime years by then.

Of course, development is the bigger precursor to success here. You can’t just make a living off trading veterans, so the development changes they’ve made recently need to take hold and results need to start being seen at the big league level by 2026 at the very, very latest and probably before that.

Spend Money

This one is easy. I’m sure Witt was given assurances that the Royals wouldn’t be running payrolls like they’ve had since the end of the World Series team’s run. Yes, they’re a lower revenue team in one of the smaller markets in baseball. But they can spend more money than they had. John Sherman was pretty forthcoming and said that he’d be willing to spend when the time was right. Well, the time is right.

This winter is a great start. But it can’t be a one-off. If there’s a hole, it needs to be filled with someone proven and not with hopes and dreams of a young player. It’s not that you can’t graduate prospects and rely on them because that’s part of the last point, but they need to be willing to go get what is needed to get over the top when they need it.

If all this spending that they’ve done to this point in this offseason is about getting the new stadium and it works, well they better spend. Part of the draw and allure being put out there is the revenue stream it will afford the team to be able to run bigger payrolls. If that stadium and connecting entertainment district open in 2028, you better believe they’ll need to be spending the additional revenue as they promised or else they’ll have plenty of questions to answer. I suppose there’s not really anything anyone can do once it’s built, so maybe that doesn’t matter, but I would hope it does.

It’s sort of funny because these steps are basically just the steps to being a winning organization, so they should have been doing these things all along. But sometimes there being a target helps. I believe that Witt wants to be in Kansas City. He didn’t have to sign this deal. It’s not a ridiculously over the top deal that he couldn’t say no to and it’s not like his family is badly in need of a long-term pay day. Maybe I’m wrong, but I get the impression he’ll be looking for a reason to sign another deal to spend another decade in Kansas City beyond the rest of this one that he’s already signed up for. The Royals just need to give it to him.