Here’s why the Kansas City Royals could be much less aggressive this offseason
Very likely the moves with the biggest impact on the Kansas City Royals’ everyday lineup came before the offseason began.
The World Series concluded Tuesday night, and Wednesday 160 MLB players automatically became free agents, including Royals pitchers Wade Davis, Jesse Hahn, Greg Holland and Ervin Santana. But it doesn’t appear the Royals will come out of the gates nearly as aggressively in free agency as last winter.
Compared to a year ago when they moved quickly to sign center fielder Michael A. Taylor, starting pitcher Mike Minor and first baseman Carlos Santana by Dec. 8 — the Andrew Benintendi trade took place in February — the Royals seem more willing to head into this winter with a projected lineup composed of their existing players.
“We know what our plan is,” Royals president of baseball operations Dayton Moore said. “We’re going to be very disciplined with continuing to give our young players opportunity and transition our young players to the major leagues.”
General manager JJ Picollo and Moore believe they answered the biggest potential question mark in the daily lineup when they signed Taylor to a two-year extension with five days remaining in the regular season.
The Royals will have plenty of decisions to make as far as how to utilize the talent currently on their roster and in their farm system.
The organization’s top prospect and Baseball America’s Minor League Player of the Year Bobby Witt Jr. still hasn’t debuted in the majors. The case could be made he’s the shortstop of the future, if the Royals don’t shift him to third base.
The depth of pitching prospects in the farm system could help fill the major-league rotation and bullpen, or some could continue their development and serve as options when needed in various roles in the majors.
The Royals farm system undoubtedly sits in a much better position to feed the major-league club than it did in recent years. Both Moore and Picollo have taken that as reinforcement of their approach to both scouting and player development.
Baseball America ranked the Royals farm system third-best in the majors in its August organizational talent rankings. The Royals ranked 14th heading into the season, 16th in August 2020, 18th prior to the start of the 2020 season and 19th in August 2019.
“One thing we’re proud of is we’ve made very little changes to our staff,” Picollo said. “There’s been very little turnover in our players. When you look at who is in our system in ‘19 and who is in our system in ‘21, it’s basically the same people aside from some of the department heads.”
Picollo, who oversaw player development prior to his promotion to GM, lauded the “continuity” built up in the last two years between scouting and player development as well as the adaptability of their coaches.
“We didn’t change our coaches. We stuck with them and a year later their contracts are renewed and they’re with us,” Picollo said.
Prior to the 2020 season, the Royals added to their staff and reorganized their player development system in an effort to become more holistic and nimble enough to address individual players’ needs.
“I feel like we have the coaching and scouting staffs who have a traditional baseball sense and understanding and appreciate the evolution of the game, the evolution of the player and are able to utilize the technology and the data and the instruments, all the different technology that we have available to us,” Moore said.
The early returns as evident by the incredibly-successful bounce back seasons of their top-tier position players like catcher MJ Melendez and first baseman Nick Pratto.
Melendez and Pratto scuffled offensively in 2019, but both were named to MLBPipeline.com’s Prospect Team of the Year as the lone selection at their respective positions this season.
Moore took particular pride in the minimal turnover, which will likely extend all the way up to the major-league coaching staff when it’s finalized in the next week to 10 days.
“That’s a very important, necessary, core philosophy of ours,” Moore said. “That’s something that we’re really proud of because the proper role, the important role and the necessary role of leadership is to try to help people get better. It’s not to just get the next person in line.”
It should be no shock if the Royals double down on the players currently in their system and on their roster and their ability to foster improvement in the individuals in their organization.
This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 1:29 PM.
