2023 – A new beginning for the Royals. Matt Quatraro era begins. A year to see which of our young players will make up the core going forward. Can Bobby Witt Jr become a superstar SS or will go to the hot corner? Will Brady Singer take the next step forward? Will Salvy be Salvy? Will Big Vin or Pratto take first base? Will they find a position for MJ? Who else emerges from the youth movement? Not to mention the development of the new downtown stadium.
Free Agents/Trades Acquisitions
Jordan Lyles, RHP
Ryan Yarbrough, LHP
Josh Taylor, LHP
Aroldis Chapman, LHP
Top 10 Prospects from Baseball America
1. Gavin Cross, OF
2. Cayden Wallace, 3B
3. Drew Waters, OF
4. Ben Kudrna, RHP
5. Frank Mozzicato, LHP
6. Maikel Garcia, SS
7. Tyler Gentry, OF
8. Nick Loftin, OF/3B
9. Angel Zerpa, LHP
10. Carter Jensen, C [Reply]
Middle relief lost the Royals a ton of games last year. Taylor was healthy he gave the Red Sox about 1.0 per year in WAR. That is pretty solid for a relief pitcher. [Reply]
Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry:
Middle relief lost the Royals a ton of games last year. Taylor was healthy he gave the Red Sox about 1.0 per year in WAR. That is pretty solid for a relief pitcher.
Now, if you're the *Rangers* and you're on the edge of contending and you have Seager and Semien and your bullpen is OK and you have Mondesi, yeah, trade him for Taylor.
But Taylor will basically help the Royals hold leads they mostly won't have.
The two things about this is 1) they pretty clearly think their new pitching regime can fix guys up and 2) if this trade blows up in our face it's going to really blow up and look horrible. Mondesi has the tools to be a superstar. We're about to find out if he's truly glass or if there's something a training staff can do to reduce his injury risk. [Reply]
Salvy (-37) and Dozier (-17) have negative 54m in value. Vinnie and Singer each have about that in surplus value. Don’t be surprised if skinflint staples one of them to the epic salary dump. A 3 player deal where nothing comes back :-)
Maybe we can get another middle reliever. To pacify the thread’s Royals ball washers [Reply]
Welp, I'll admit I don't like the Mondesi trade. I would have tried him in OF, prayed he was healthy and if he produces at all you 3x his value. The best 3 options would have been:
1) Try in OF, hope stays healthy
2) Do not sign to arb deal
3) Do what they did [Reply]
Originally Posted by lewdog:
Seems this regime’s plan is worse than the last one’s plan.
I haven’t been less excited about a season in a long time.
Yeah. Really sucks. It was looking up when they'd hired some decent baseball people from good organizations but there's nothing you can do if the owner wants to operate like this. [Reply]
I'd also be a little more convinced by "but Mondesi is a huge injury risk!" argument if the guy coming in return for Mondesi wasn't a pitcher who missed the entire year with a back injury except during intermittent rehab periods consisting of minor leaguers hitting 370/404/611.
Originally Posted by Superturtle:
Yeah. Really sucks. It was looking up when they'd hired some decent baseball people from good organizations but there's nothing you can do if the owner wants to operate like this.
It's very smart to cut costs and look like the Pirates while asking for a new stadium..brilliance there. [Reply]
Originally Posted by lewdog:
Seems this regime’s plan is worse than the last one’s plan.
I haven’t been less excited about a season in a long time.
I'm not in love with the Mondesi trade but this is where we are now I think. Dayton always said KC was a different market and that affected his decision making and judging by the blowback you see on Twitter and such he was absolutely right. It hasn't even been one full offseason and a lot of people already hate the Tampa Bay model of trying to build a team.
Sherman flat out said they need to be more transactional and take emotion out of decisions and so far that's what they're doing just like Tampa. That means trading good players, not overpaying free agents and being ruthlessly efficient with both money and production. We'll see how it pays off but he definitely told the truth, I'll give him that. It's pretty clear they're trying hard to create a pitching staff with no holes so they can play matchups all day long. Openers, different closers based on the matchups, starters only going 3-4 innings if the numbers dictate it. At least that's what it looks like. [Reply]
