The Kansas City Royals are good for baseball, and not just because they’re a small market team vying for a postseason spot or because Bobby Witt Jr. is one of the game’s brightest young stars.
No, the Royals are good for baseball because they’re a shining example of what every organization in professional baseball should be doing: trying.
The Royals, you may recall, spent nearly $110 million on free agents this winter. The moves were well-received, but didn’t exactly make national headlines. They didn’t spend a half-billion dollars on two players like the Texas Rangers did before 2022. They didn’t win the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes.
The Royals, who lost 106 games last year, wanted to get better quickly. They recognized that player development and amateur scouting weren’t going to be enough, so they supplemented the roster in free agency, aggressively adding more than a half-dozen players. Now, with a winning season already in hand, they’re on the precipice of clinching a postseason berth, perhaps as early as this week.
Revolutionary? Hardly. Rare? In today’s game, very.
“Sometimes you need that slap upside the head, right?” Royals owner John Sherman, who greenlit the expenditures, asked reporters this spring. “We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we cannot tolerate something like that again for our fans.”
Every owner can afford an offseason like the Royals had. They were aggressive without being foolish, and added again at the trade deadline and during the past month via the waiver wire. And yet, few have done it.
While MLB has added measures to try to help combat the sport’s tanking epidemic, getting teams to consistently try, front offices to assume risk and owners to open their wallets has been another problem altogether.
J.J. Picollo, the Royals’ executive vice president and general manager, has made his operation stand out from that of other teams. (Mark J. Rebilas / Imagn Images)
Witt’s otherworldly season (he will easily clear 10 fWAR) would make him a shoo-in for American League MVP if not for the New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge. It also comes after a spring in which Sherman OK’ed an 11-year, $288.8 million contract extension for the Royals young star, which could be worth as much as $377 million over 14 years when it’s all done. It’s the most lucrative deal in franchise history.
Again, if Kansas City — one of the smallest markets in baseball — can do it, why can’t everyone else?
As other teams downsize departments and chop personnel — last week alone, a half-dozen teams made cuts to scouting and player development, according to league sources, or “restructured” in the nonstop efficiency-speak of front offices — the Royals have added infrastructure. In the two years since executive vice president of baseball operations J.J. Picollo took the reins, Kansas City reimagined all three scouting departments with new leaders, modernized the organization and changed the culture. The Royals have emphasized data, adding six new people to the research and development team, including a new director. They’ve folded that in by hiring people with traditional baseball resumes, but open minds.
Picollo, who was internally promoted when Dayton Moore was fired, hasn’t hesitated to hire outsiders, even those he has no previous relationship with, like manager Matt Quatraro. Quatraro, like Picollo, has been widely credited for steering the turnaround, and for bringing a curious mind and willingness to innovate. These aren’t two hotshot young Ivy League grads leading the charge; both men played minor league baseball and are in their 50s.
Perhaps the new market efficiency is doing things just a little differently, for zigging when others are zagging, even if it’s not always new territory. These Royals, for all their successful efforts to modernize, are also masters of the basics.
Only the San Diego Padres lineup has a lower strikeout rate, and Kansas City also ranks among the league’s best defenses, further elevating a solid pitching staff.
From Day 1 of last offseason, the Royals targeted pitchers Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha, not because they were the best players available (they weren’t) or because either guy had wipeout stuff (neither pitcher has had a 200-strikeout season to date) but because they fit certain tenets. Lugo was an All-Star this year who could get some Cy Young Award consideration, despite a rare rough outing on Monday, while Wacha has gone 9-1 with a 2.67 ERA and 71-to-20 strikeout-to-walk ratio since the beginning of July.
At 52-45 at the start of the second half, Picollo and company didn’t wait to see which route the team would take, like so many other clubs who weren’t leading their division did. Instead, they again moved quickly, unafraid to double down after some of their offseason relief options didn’t pan out. Kansas City acquired Hunter Harvey from Washington two weeks ahead of the deadline, and also added Oakland’s Lucas Erceg along with swingman Michael Lorenzen and infielder Paul DeJong.
When first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino went down, Picollo added three players on waivers to fill the void: Yuli Gurriel, Tommy Pham and Robbie Grossman. The cost was cash. The payoff was immediate. The Royals had targeted Pham and Grossman at the deadline but weren’t able to secure either. The group could have helped several clubs ahead of Kansas City in the waiver order. No one else jumped.
Not every move the Royals made has worked out. But, like their lineup, the Royals front office has a pretty low whiff rate. And as they attempt to chase down the Baltimore Orioles for the top wild-card spot, Kansas City’s model has proven to be a good one.
It’s good for the city, which hasn’t had a playoff team since the 2015 World Series champions. It’s even better for baseball.
(Top photo of Bobby Witt Jr. celebrating a win with teammates: Jay Biggerstaff / Imagn Images)