Royals Review holiday mailbag

You give the gift of questions about the Royals!

December can be the most wonderful time of the year for baseball fans. Michael Wacha realized there’s no place like home for the holidays, and the Royals acquired Jonathan India as a present without a bow. But since then, baby, it’s cold outside. It has been a silent night for Royals fans, but there is still time for J.J. Picollo to make it a Royals blue Christmas.

I asked fans for their questions about the off-season and they asked some of my favorite things. So enjoy this mailbag column and have a wonderful Christmastime.

And from all of us at Royals Review, have a happy holiday season because all we want for Christmas is you!

I don’t know that I would feel irritated, but I would feel like they might be missing an opportunity to improve a good team. Their outfield offensive production was the third-worst in baseball this year and I’m not holding out hope that MJ Melendez, Kyle Isbel, and Hunter Renfroe will hit. There seems to be another move out there - I don’t really believe that the plan is for one or several of Jonathan India, Michael Massey, or Maikel Garcia to play the outfield.

But like J.J., I would plead some patience. The market has been a bit slow to materialize, and there is a lot of posturing going on there. We saw a flurry of moves in the last few days, that could get things going as free agents become more eager to sign and teams frustrated with high free agent prices will begin to move on to Plan B, which could include trades.

As far as your point about taking advantage of the division, I would note that last off-season the division was pretty quiet other than the Royals. People expected it to be mediocre, and it ended up producing three playoff teams. That’s even more reason the Royals need to get better, because the Tigers, Guardians, and Twins all still have a lot of talent.

You know when you’re a kid and you ask for a big Christmas present, and your parents say no, or deflect, and you think, “aw, I’m not getting it” and then you wake up on Christmas and get the Nintendo you asked for? I think that’s a bit what’s going on here with J.J. Picollo. I know he didn’t mention a slugger on his wish-list in his appearance on 96.5 last week, but the more transparent he is on that front, the more it undermines his position. Making moves in baseball is like making moves in romance - you don’t want to seem needy!

The free agent market for sluggers is pretty unimpressive in my book. The fact that Joc Pederson, a 32-year-old DH who can’t hit lefties, got $37 million shows you where the market is at. I think Anthony Santander and Teoscar Hernandez are asking for astronomical prices, and teams aren’t willing to pay that for one-dimensional sluggers. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see them unsigned around the start of spring training - perhaps the Royals swoop in then?

But I think a more likely outcome is they make a trade. They have some assets that don’t really fit their current roster - Massey and maybe Garcia, for example, and maybe someone like Kris Bubic or Alec Marsh could be had in the right deal. Kyle Tucker went for a pretty big haul, but non-elite bats like Nathaniel Lowe, Jake Burger, and Josh Naylor were acquired without giving up major pieces. I think there’s a deal out there like that for the Royals that could prove to be an upgrade in their lineup.

Verdugo’s stock has dropped significantly since he received MVP votes in 2020, and I don’t even think it would take a multi-year deal at this point to get him. His offensive numbers cratered this year, but he was very BABIP-unlucky and adjusting to New York may have just been hard for him. He’s just 28 years old and I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable to think he won’t bounce back to being a .270/.335/.420 hitter that's worth 1.5-2.0 WAR.

That being said, a lot of Yankees fans HATED him this year and wanted him benched. And he just seems like a very unlikable player (not even accounting for his alleged involvement with a sexual assault). The Royals will have to determine if his brash style fits into their clubhouse. But as a baseball matter, he would make some sense.

I mentioned Santander and Herrnandez having a light market, but Jurickson Profar could probably be grouped in with them as well. I don’t think teams know what to make of Profar’s outlier 2024 season. He’s probably not the 4 WAR player he was in 2024, but is he going to regress back to being a -1.6 WAR player that he was in 2023? Are you willing to commit to three years and $45-60 million to find out?

Even if his offensive numbers drop, he has always had solid walk rates that the Royals could use in their lineup. And if he stinks defensively as he did in 2023, they have an open DH spot they could hide him in. Profar could be another one of those players that finds himself unsigned come March. There’s a pretty good case that Profar would be a good fit for the Royals if they want to risk the money.

I think in a vacuum, that is probably an overpay for the Royals for two years of Bohm. But the Phillies are reportedly asking for a ton for Bohm, so your offer probably keeps them on the line. The Phillies just acquired Jesus Luzardo, so I don’t know that they want another starter, and they already have three lefties in their pen, so I don’t know that Bubic is what they’re looking for. In fact, I don’t really know what they’re looking for at this point, but Garcia would fit well as a defensive upgrade at third.

Quisenberry4ever: Should KC have singed Paul Goldschmidt to 1/$12.5 given that:

1) considering they want a middle of the order bat, and

2) there are no bad 1 year contracts.

There are a whole lot of down arrows on Paul Goldschmidt’s Baseball Savant page and his 100 wRC+ was the worst of his career this year. But his 22 home runs would have been third-best on the team .245/.302/.414 and if he can get back to anything close to his 12.7 career walk rate, that would be tops on the Royals by a large margin.

I think ideally, if the Royals add another bat, it would be someone capable of playing outfield, to leave first base and DH open to Vinnie and Salvy. But as you say, a one-year gamble on a seven-time All-Star former MVP isn’t a terrible idea.

kenny_powers_the_return: I think a good topic would be Cole Ragans..

Extension...or if we sink and suck this year, do we consider putting his 3 years remaining on the market next winter.

I want to say that I absolutely love Cole Ragans (and that I have never been more wrong about a trade). He has electric stuff and he has that dawg in him, something a young team sorely needs. He’s also undergone Tommy John surgery twice and will be 32 years old by the time he begins his first free agent contract.

So all signs point to the Royals eventually trading him. I think dealing him after a poor season in 2025 would be premature - you can still get excellent value for him with two years of club control remaining, although there is the injury risk to consider. But I do think that is something the front office will consider at that time.

I think the ship has sailed on MJ catching again and I’m not sure why. He was pretty awful defensively but young enough that he could have improved, and it’s not like he’s Alex Gordon in left field. Fermin is an interesting trade idea with the depth they have in the minors, but the trade value for a guy like him isn’t that high. The Yankees traded Jose Trevino for high-strikeout but high ERA reliever Fernando Cruz. The year before, the Yankees dealt Ben Rortvedt to the Rays in a deal that netted them utility player Jon Berti. That’s likely Fermin’s value - you can get a decent reliever or role player for him. But with Carter Jensen not quite ready yet, my guess is the Royals will hang onto Fermin. They value him more than other teams do.