Seven takeaways about the upcoming season from Royals Rally 2025

Some interesting things

On Saturday, the Kansas City Royals held their third annual Royals Rally event at Kauffman Stadium. The successor to the previous Royals Fanfest, which used to be held downtown at the convention center until the pandemic, Royals Rally featured a variety of activities and opportunities to get memorabilia signed by Royals players. Additionally, the team hosted roundtable discussions in the Diamond Club where attendees could listen to Royals players and leadership discuss the team.

The Royals also had media availability for a variety of players, including Jonathan India, Matt Quatraro, Cole Ragans, JJ Picollo, John Sherman, Bobby Witt Jr., and Lucas Erceg. I was there during the media availability to hear what they had to say and to ask a few questions of my own. Excitement for this upcoming season is palpable, and there are a few key themes that kept coming up in the media sessions and in the public roundtables. Here are seven takeaways about the 2025 Royals season.

Expect some fluid bullpen roles for a bit

Just a few days ago, sort of out of the blue, the Royals signed reliever Carlos Estévez to a two-year deal worth $20 million guaranteed. This naturally brought up the question of who the closer would be for the team. Would it be Estévez, an All-Star with 57 saves over the last two seasons? Or would it be Erceg, who confidently stepped into the closer role after coming over from Oakland?

The answer is that, well, we don’t know, but it seems like neither Estévez or Erceg care much about where they are put; in response to a question about what his job might be after the Estévez signing, Erceg said point blank “I don’t care about the roles” and that he just wanted to help the team regardless what inning he pitched in.

Erceg also said that Quatraro and Picollo called him before the team officially signed Estévez to get Erceg’s take on it. Erceg was surprised by the courtesy, as he thought it was above and beyond for a GM and manager to get a singular player’s blessing on a move.

Another aspect here is Hunter Harvey, who pitched just a few games for Kansas City before injury knocked him out for the year. Harvey is healthy and ready to go for Spring Training.

The outfield is going to be an adventure

“I’ve never played outfield before,” India said in response to a question about him potentially spending some time there this season. “I’m athletic, I know I can do it. I’m gonna get some work in, see how it goes.”

That quote stood out to me as sort of representative of the Royals’ biggest position player problem. Their infield is stacked, with Witt, India, Maikel Garcia, Vinnie Pasquantino, and Michael Massey all poised to be productive next year. Their outfield, eh, not so much. So, to be flexible and maximize their current talent, some infielders might spend some time in the outfield this year.

India isn’t the only one in this conversation. Quatraro talked about Garcia getting time in the outfield—specifically, center field, which is the best fit for his speed. The topic of Massey getting outfield reps didn’t come up much, but that is another possibility.

The Royals tried to get a bat but pivoted to the bullpen

There are a lot of fans out there who wonder every year why their team didn’t do the obvious thing, like just going out and spending money on a free agent bat to alleviate part of the aforementioned outfield problem.

But reality just isn’t that simple, in part because those same fans who complain that teams aren’t doing enough in the offseason are usually the same ones who criticize the team for spending too much for a free agent. Teams have to weigh whether or not signing a player is worth the deal that is developing in the current market and in the context of all the other deals that are happening in the offseason.

This year has been a really interesting insight into the difficulty of trying to thread the offseason needle. Last week, it was reported that Kansas City had offers out on Anthony Santander and Jurickson Profar, but weren’t willing to go three years on Profar and didn’t want to spend $90 million+ on Santander.

Picollo said that after missing out on some of those bats, they pivoted, which is why Estévez is wearing Royals blue. Props to the team for making use of the budget even after the chips didn’t fall how they wanted.

Kansas City’s best players are trying to get better

The Royals’ two best players, the ones that are irreplaceable, are Witt and Ragans. One is the best player in the American League (yes, including Aaron Judge, and I stand by that) and the other is the type of ace pitcher that anchors even the best rotations. Both are trying to get better.

Ragans mentioned that his main goal for 2025 was to reduce his walk rate—a really solid and objective goal. I asked him to elaborate on how he was going to accomplish said goal, whether it was a different pitch mix or something else. Ragans’ response was that he wanted to do less nibbling and more challenging of batters. He mentioned that the guys who don’t walk a lot of players are aggressive and aren’t afraid to throw their best stuff by batters rather than dancing around the edges of the plate.

Witt, as you might expect, mentioned his sole weakness: base stealing. Last year, Witt was the fastest player in baseball but was still thrown out a dozen times on 43 attempts. He’s working with coaches on technique and on making better decisions. So for those of us who have thought that base stealing might not be an area of focus for him, well, we might need to pump the brakes there.

Kris Bubic and Alec Marsh are favorites for the rotation

With Ragans, Michael Wacha, and Seth Lugo, the Royals rotation is pretty well stocked at the front end. The last two spots are a little bit of a question mark, though, but we learned a little bit about the back end of the rotation.

One: it’s going to be an open tryout. The Royals said that Noah Cameron will be competing for a job this Spring Training, and just like Alec Marsh last year he just might get a spot. Speaking of Marsh—he and Bubic have an inside track on the rotation, Picollo said.

I asked Picollo about Bubic’s return from Tommy John and a potential innings limit. Picollo said that while they didn’t have a specific innings limit for him, they knew his workload was going to be a consideration. But Picollo and Quatraro seem to be moving forward with the idea that they prefer Bubic to win a rotation spot rather than putting him in the bullpen, which answers one big question about the team’s construction.

We won’t have substantive stadium news for a while

Sherman was asked a lot of questions about the stadium situation. After initially not giving much of an answer, he was coaxed into providing some additional information, though most if it was what you would expect. The team is looking at both sides of the state line, they’ve been closely working with Missouri officials, they took lessons from the April vote last year.

Sherman did say that the next time we’re going to probably hear about the new stadium is in the middle of the year, so keep your eyes peeled starting in June, I suppose.

Unrelatedly: Sherman did say that the team was trying to get television rights available for, say, 10 to 12 games on local channels to try to reach more folks. This I thought was interesting, and would certainly help those who haven’t been able to watch Royals baseball.

Jac Caglianone is the Royals’ X-Factor this year

Picollo was asked about Caglianone’s development and his two-way status. While Picollo didn’t rule out Caglianone ever pitching again, it’s clear that they think very highly of his bat. Picollo said that Caglianone is the first Royals player since Aaron Crow to be invited to big league camp the very next season after being drafted (with Brandon Finnegan technically also in that boat as well).

No, the Royals did not say directly that they expected Caglianone to make his big league debut. However, read between the lines and listen to the team talk about him and you get the sense that they think he will be ready pretty soon. They put him in High-A immediately last year, they invited him to the Arizona Fall League, he’s going to be in big league camp this month, they had him stop pitching because his bat is more big league ready, they’re gonna have him play some outfield because of Vinnie Pasquantino—now it’s up to Cags to perform.