Year Two of the Matt Quatraro tenure. Time to take a step up this year. Active in free agency and trades this offseason. A new look pitching rotation and bullpen. Will the young players take the leap up offensively? Bobby Witt extension? New stadium? Will Vinny recover from injury? Salvy taking aim at the Royals record book? Will Cole Ragans turn into the best Royals starting pitcher since Greinke 1.0?
Free Agents/Trades Acquisitions
Seth Lugo, SP
Michael Wacha, SP
Kyle Wright, SP
Hunter Renfroe, OF/DH
Will Smith, RP
Chris Stratton, RP
Nick Anderson, RP
Adam Frazier, 2B
Garrett Hampson, INF/OF
Matt Sauer, RP [Reply]
Everyone is going to say it's infeasible, but the Royals should sign Soto this off-season to a deal that mirrors Bobby's player opt-out window structure. Outside of Vinny, who else would merit a significant deal for retention going forward? You can build prospect waves behind those cornerstones for as long as you have them to have a long competitive window. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Nightfyre:
Everyone is going to say it's infeasible, but the Royals should sign Soto this off-season to a deal that mirrors Bobby's player opt-out window structure. Outside of Vinny, who else would merit a significant deal for retention going forward? You can build prospect waves behind those cornerstones for as long as you have them to have a long competitive window.
YES!!!! GIVE SOtO ALLLLLL OF THE MONIES!!!!!!
I’ve said this before!! Could you imagine?! [Reply]
Originally Posted by Nightfyre:
Everyone is going to say it's infeasible, but the Royals should sign Soto this off-season to a deal that mirrors Bobby's player opt-out window structure. Outside of Vinny, who else would merit a significant deal for retention going forward? You can build prospect waves behind those cornerstones for as long as you have them to have a long competitive window.
Soto is going to sign for a lot more than Bobby did. Probably $500+ million if not $600 million if the Yankees and Mets start fighting over him. By all accounts he likes living in New York. He is probably worth it with the way he hits. You might have to pay him Ohtani money to leave NY for KC.
The only Royals guys who may deserve a huge contract are probably Ragans and if he pans out, Caglianone. Especially if they start using Caglianone as a pitcher at all and his power pans out. That would definitely be a guy you'd want get ahead of like Witt or like the Brewers did with Jackson Chourio. The more likely option is they start doing some aggressive things like trading Singer or Vinny or something like that. [Reply]
Originally Posted by tk13:
Soto is going to sign for a lot more than Bobby did. Probably $500+ million if not $600 million if the Yankees and Mets start fighting over him. By all accounts he likes living in New York. He is probably worth it with the way he hits. You might have to pay him Ohtani money to leave NY for KC.
The only Royals guys who may deserve a huge contract are probably Ragans and if he pans out, Caglianone. Especially if they start using Caglianone as a pitcher at all and his power pans out. That would definitely be a guy you'd want get ahead of like Witt or like the Brewers did with Jackson Chourio. The more likely option is they start doing some aggressive things like trading Singer or Vinny or something like that.
The player opt-out is worth a shit ton if he believes in himself. The royals are also shedding about 60-70 million in payroll next year, so it's evidence that they can afford him, to me. Soto preceding Witt in the order is the best way to generate runs, imo. Highest obp followed by most xbh equals runs. He also lengthens the lineup and allows the royals to identify a righty leadoff bat. That's a much tougher lineup than whatever is happening now.
So after the Washington series, it looks like the Royals will be heading into the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Not a great scenario for the last series of the year. Especially if Atlanta gets postponed the next 2 nights. According to radar, it's already raining cats and dogs there, and that's just the normal front moving thru. [Reply]
They just announced it. Braves and Mets are postponed the next two days and they'll play a doubleheader on Monday. Means the Braves are going to be fresh for us this weekend but they've gotta save arms for Monday too because those two games will probably decide a playoff spot. [Reply]
Originally Posted by tk13:
They just announced it. Braves and Mets are postponed the next two days and they'll play a doubleheader on Monday. Means the Braves are going to be fresh for us this weekend but they've gotta save arms for Monday too because those two games will probably decide a playoff spot.
So Sale was scheduled to pitch tonight, and Fried on Thursday. It will be interesting to see when they will resume pitching. On Monday's DH, or the Royals games. [Reply]
Originally Posted by PHOG:
So Sale was scheduled to pitch tonight, and Fried on Thursday. It will be interesting to see when they will resume pitching. On Monday's DH, or the Royals games.
Yeah it turns out they aren't going to play if the games don't matter, the question is does that include seeding. The Braves are team on the outside looking in so they'd need the other teams to lose. We might need the D'backs particularly to win some games. I don't think the Braves can get far enough past the Mets to lock it up before Monday.
The games Monday will only be played if they matter to one or both teams for playoff reasons. https://t.co/Q9ikF2eiEE
The Mets, Arizona, and Atlanta are all within a game of each other for the 2nd and 3rd WC berths, and Atlanta currently leads the season series with the Mets 6-5. I'm not sure how it wouldn't matter, but it will be interesting.
The bigger more important matter at hand IMHO is if Sale pitches Friday night now vs. KC. And Fried on Saturday. We we're going to miss these guys in the normal rotation, but now who knows. [Reply]
Originally Posted by PHOG:
The Mets, Arizona, and Atlanta are all within a game of each other for the 2nd and 3rd WC berths, and Atlanta currently leads the season series with the Mets 6-5. I'm not sure how it wouldn't matter, but it will be interesting.
The bigger more important matter at hand IMHO is if Sale pitches Friday night now vs. KC. And Fried on Saturday. We we're going to miss these guys in the normal rotation, but now who knows.
Joel Sherman just fired off another tweet saying if the DBacks are eliminated it would be commissioner's decision if the doubleheader is played.
Such complicated math. Looks like the Braves have the tiebreaker on the Dbacks so they'd need to be 1 game ahead of Arizona by Sunday to clinch over them. That's doable, we really need Arizona to win tonight and make this more complicated.
Who the heck would have guessed on opening day we'd be sitting here going into the last weekend rooting for Arizona to beat up on the Giants and Padres. What a mess. [Reply]
The other thing is I just saw the National Hurricane Center has upped their forecast for this thing to be a Cat 4 at landfall. Obviously won't be near that in Atlanta but this is going to be a nasty storm. Hopefully we can even play on Friday. [Reply]