What's Next for the Royals?
The Royals have tried repeatedly to add another bat and have come up short.
The offseason to-do list from JJ Picollo was to bring back Michael Wacha, acquire a leadoff hitter, add pitching depth, add organizational position player depth and acquire a bat to slot in the middle of the lineup after the big three. All the way to that final one, they’ve accomplished everything they wanted to do in getting Wacha back, trading for Jonathan India, signing Michael Lorenzen and Carlos Estevez and bringing in some former big leaguers on minor league deals. But the lineup still needs one more piece. And, to be frank, the Royals know it, which I can appreciate.
They tried for Anthony Santander, offering a three-year deal worth $66 million. He went to Toronto. They tried for Randal Grichuk. I haven’t seen the numbers they offered, but someone suggested it would have taken $8 million or more and they didn’t seem to want to go that high for a player who would be on the short side of a platoon, which I get. We also know from comments from Picollo that they’ve attempted to get something done on the trade market, but the asking price is crazy. I wrote last week about them being responsible or logical or smart or whatever word you want to use. I still wonder if they needed (or still need) to cut loose a bit and do something that makes them uncomfortable.
This organization, with many of the same people in place, did do that once before. They didn’t want to trade Wil Myers and Mike Montgomery and Jake Odorizzi, but they did and they got James Shields and Wade Davis. One difference I can see there is that they were trying to shift the culture to a winning organization. I don’t know that you can call them a winning organization just yet, but they’ve already had the winning season that they were trying so hard to capture when they made the trade 12+ years ago. So maybe they feel that they don’t need to make that sort of move.
But I believe they are one legitimate bat away from being the division favorite. There’s a huge argument that signing Alex Bregman is that move. In a world where there are no budgets, that’s a no-brainer. Give him six years and $162 million or whatever and call it good.