The Royals Did The Thing With Bobby Witt Jr.

The Kansas City Royals spent a whole lot of money to keep a superstar.

The Royals have spent the offseason doing what they could to wash away the taste of a horrendous 2023 season. They spent some money, signed a bunch of veterans to improve the floor (and to some extent the ceiling) of the 2024 team and are talking like they have their sights set on the postseason. That’s great, and if that’s all they did after losing 106 games, it would have been plenty. But today, they put the cherry on top of their offseason with just a few days before pitchers and catchers report and they signed their superstar, Bobby Witt Jr., to a long-term contract extension that will keep in Kansas City for awhile.

The details of the deal will continue to come out, but the headline is 11 years and $288.8 million. He is able to opt out following 2030, 2031, 2032 and 2033. If he doesn’t opt out in any of those years, the Royals then hold a three-year club option for an additional $89 million. In total, the deal will end up being somewhere between seven years and $148 million and 14 years and $377 million. According to Jeff Passan, the deal comes with a perfect signing bonus of $7,777,777.

Woo boy. Okay. As of this second, we don’t know the breakdown of the money, so I can’t tell you how it impacts the 2024 payroll, but I’d assume not significantly outside of the signing bonus. What we do know is it shows that the Royals are serious. Whether or not the spending spree, culminating with this deal, is about putting a winner on the field or getting a “yes” vote on April 2, the work has been done and should at least quiet criticism of the organization for a little while. The Royals have signed a star player to a deal that can keep him in Kansas City through at least 2030 and potentially as long as through the 2037 season. They gave Witt $200 million (actually a bit more than this) more than their previous largest guarantee given out. It could end up at nearly $300 million.

As someone who has been saying all winter that this deal would get done, I have to admit I still find myself a bit surprised. I was confident in what I had been told regarding negotiations, but the sticker shock of the deal still caught me off guard a bit. And if you’re concerned about what happens after the first seven years, I’d encourage you not to be. Passan’s article indicates that Witt doesn’t intend to leave Kansas City and that’s great. A lot can happen in these next seven years, so to say one thing now can be virtually meaningless by then. But it does indicate, again, how serious this team is.

From all I’ve heard over the past year or so, it seems like Witt loves Kansas City and the same is true of those around him. If that remains true in seven years, there’s a good chance he either doesn’t opt out or he renegotiates a different deal. If the Royals can win in that time, it makes it an even better chance. The reality is that winning is probably the most important thing here because the Royals have shown they’re willing to spend with the big boys. If you don’t believe it, realize that the $377 million over 14 years would be the second-largest outlay on a contract in baseball history. The $288.8 million guarantee is the 14th-largest.

Let me reiterate this:

THE KANSAS CITY ROYALS HAVE GIVEN OUT THE 14TH-LARGEST GUARANTEE IN BASEBALL HISTORY.

That’s wild. Absolutely wild.

Okay, now let’s get into what this means. The truth is that it doesn’t change much of anything for 2024 on the field. Maybe there’s a little less wondering if Witt might get moved, but he was never going to be traded before the 2025 deadline anyway. But there is maybe a bit different feeling around the team that could lead a stray free agent that remains unemployed to take a deal with the Royals over another team. Maybe this deal, along with the others, has lessened the bad team tax by some degree.

Beyond, though, this makes the Royals players. They have one of the best players in baseball locked in through at least 2030. They have shown a willingness to spend money. They have shown a willingness to commit to an individual. They have the shortstop position locked and loaded for at least seven more years. There are so many different directions they can now go because they have both cost certainty and player certainty at one of the most important positions on the diamond.

Do they go back to something I wrote a few weeks ago and make a play for Matt Chapman while using Maikel Garcia to acquire more roster help? Maybe! It helps knowing they aren’t going to be needing to move their superstar shortstop to move the guy best positioned to fill that role. Or maybe Witt can work to recruit players in future offseasons. Great players have a way to do that.

What I think happens is they work on others now. Vinnie Pasquantino probably needs to show he’s healthy at least to start spring training, but I would think he’s next on the list to start talking long-term deal. I wouldn’t be too surprised if they’re looking at something with Cole Ragans over the next year or so. When you lock up one player, you signal that you’re willing to lock up others. Any number of other young players could find themselves looking at potential extensions if they can show that they’re the players the Royals thought they were as prospects. That’s all on the table.

And what about Salvador Perez? He was dangled at the deadline. I was told at the time that if the deadline was a few hours later, he’d have been traded. The Royals probably felt they couldn’t trade the face of their franchise without having the other face of the franchise locked up for a long time. Well, now he is. Perez spoke at the event over the weekend and talked about how he wants to retire with the Royals and he has a full no-trade clause, so maybe it doesn’t matter, but I wonder a little if that gets revisited at some point. I’d bet not, but you also never know.

I’m rambling a bit because I think this particular newsletter deserves more off-the-cuff thoughts from me than I often like, but it’s really amazing what a deal that has very little, if any, impact on the upcoming season can mean for the future of the franchise. All we know for certain at this moment is that they locked up their best player and spent a boatload of money to do it. It’s exactly what you want from your ownership team.

In my mind, they’ve given themselves a new deadline. They no longer have a stadium vote to secure but rather now have a Witt opt-out deadline to work with. They need to make sure they’ve built a winner and one that’s sustainable by the time he has to make a decision. Their goal over the next few years is to make that decision for him (or get to a renegotiation point where he isn’t going to leave). But that’s not something to worry about today. Today is a day to celebrate the Kansas City Royals doing something they haven’t done before. Today they spent with the big boys to ensure their fans get to watch a legitimate superstar play for their favorite team through at least the rest of this decade and maybe much longer. Today is a good day.

Go nuts in the comments, friends. Let’s celebrate.