Why The Royals Ought to Be Primed For One other Huge Offseason

The Royals had been the shock spender of the 2023-24 offseason, placing down a mixed $110.5MM on eight free brokers: Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha, Hunter Renfroe, Chris Stratton, Will Smith, Adam Frazier, Garrett Hampson and Austin Nola. A number of of the strikes did not pan out, however the ones that did paid of in spades. Lugo and Wacha helped anchor a robust rotation, which the Royals rode to a Wild Card berth within the American League. They rapidly swept the Orioles out of mentioned Wild Card spherical earlier than falling 3-1 to the eventual AL Champion Yankees within the Division Sequence.

Not each offseason spending spree produces such favorable outcomes. As a rule, it appears to go the opposite course. “Profitable the offseason” has develop into one thing of an oft-cited punchline, given the frequency with which the workforce that grabbed essentially the most headlines over a given winter in the end nonetheless falls shy of expectation.

That does not imply the Royals needs to be reluctant to take a equally aggressive strategy to the free agent market this winter, nonetheless. On the contrary, there are a number of the reason why they need to give severe thought to an much more aggressive winter — even perhaps breaking their prior free agent precedents — particularly with an early strike to retain Wacha on a three-year contract already full.

It isn’t precisely a novel idea to counsel {that a} workforce that simply accomplished a shocking playoff berth due to large contributions from some on-the-rise stars ought to spend in free company, after all. However the Royals are higher positioned than many would possibly notice, and if you happen to’re on the lookout for dark-horse candidates to make a big splash in free company, they’re amongst my favourite picks to take action. Let’s break down the explanations.