#kansas-city-royals

#kansas-city-royals

The Royals won 40 of the 69 games they were listed as the moneyline favorite last season, achieving a 58% success rate. Their pitching staff ranked sixth in MLB with a 3.74 team ERA.

The Royals have signed catcher Elias Díaz to a minor league contract, per a club announcement.

Maile has never been a huge standing next to the plate, with a career .209/.277/.320 line and 63 wRC+. However, he has received strong reviews for his work crouching behind the plate over the years. FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus consider him to be an above average framer. Statcast ranks him just a smidge below average at framing but gives him strong marks for his blocking.

The Royals announced they've signed reliever Eli Morgan to a minor league deal. The CAA client receives a non-roster invite to big league Spring Training. Morgan had been non-tendered by the Cubs in November. Morgan returns to the AL Central, where he has spent the majority of his career with Cleveland. He pitched parts of four seasons there, starting 18 games as a rookie before moving to the bullpen.

Leaning toward the trade market rather than free agency is due to a desire to create some roster flexibility that the current group lacks. None of Carlos Estevez, Matt Strahm, John Schreiber, or Bailey Falter can be optioned to Triple-A. Lucas Erceg has a full slate of options but isn't going to be sent down, given his status as one of the team's top bullpen arms. Daniel Lynch IV and offseason signee are the only relievers who could plausibly be optioned right now.

The Royals and veteran catcher Jorge Alfaro are in agreement on a minor league contract, reports Aram Leighton of Just Baseball. Presumably, there's an invitation to major league camp included in the CAA client's deal. Now 32 years old, Alfaro was one of the top catching prospects in the game when the Phillies sent him to Miami alongside right-hander Sixto Sanchez in the trade that sent star backstop J.T. Realmuto to Philadelphia.

The Royals picked up both arms in a trade sending backup catcher Freddy Fermin to the Padres. It was a nice bit of business for Picollo and his staff. Bergert combined for a 3.66 earned run average with a solid 22.6% strikeout rate over his first 19 MLB appearances. He sits in the 93-94 MPH range and has an above-average slider. If he can develop a better changeup or add a cutter against left-handed hitters, he could be a mid-rotation arm.

The Royals have hired Mike McFerran as an assistant pitching coach, the club announced. The 32-year-old comes over from the Athletics organization, where he'd spent the past two seasons working with minor league pitchers. McFerran has never previously worked on an MLB staff. His two-year stint with the A's was his first in a professional organization. McFerran had previously worked in the college ranks.

Kansas City Royals All-Star Bobby Witt Jr. was named the overall winner of the 2025 Heart & Hustle Award, which is presented annually by the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association (MLBPAA) to one player on each team who "best embodies the values, spirits and traditions of baseball," along with factoring in on-field performance. Witt is just the second player to ever receive the award in back-to-back seasons, joining Craig Biggio (2006-2007).

It's a logical target for the club. The outfield in Kansas City has been a weak spot for years. 2025 was no exception. The team's outfielders had a collective .225/.285/.348 batting line this year. That resulted in a 73 wRC+, indicating the club's outfield group was 27% worse than league average. That was easily the worst mark in the majors, with the Guardians' jardineros second-last with a wRC+ of 77.

The Royals announced that they have acquired right-hander Mason Black from the Giants. Minor league righty Logan Martin heads in the other direction. The Giants designated Black for assignment last week. The Royals' 40-man roster count climbs from 36 to 37. Black, 26 next month, joins a new organization for the first time in his career. The Giants took him with a third-round pick in 2021. As he climbed the minor league ladder, he was generally regarded as one of the club's top ten prospects.

Wright will depart from the organization without making a big-league appearance. Kansas City acquired him in a November 2023 trade that sent Jackson Kowar to the Braves. Wright was recovering from shoulder surgery at the time. He did not throw a pitch in 2024. Wright made eight appearances at two minor-league levels in 2025, but an oblique injury ended his season in July.

It was a disappointing season, though Kansas City really performed rather admirably considering that they got just 13 starts out of staff ace Cole Ragans while found himself sidelined for the second half by an injury of his own. While health in the rotation helped to sink the team this year, it's possible that the team's deep arsenal of starters could help them reinvent the team on the trade market as they look ahead to 2026.

Ragans, 28 this offseason, has been out more than three months due to a strained rotator cuff in his left shoulder. His absence has been a major reason for Kansas City's slide in the standings and the team's all but certain elimination from playoff contention, although Ragans certainly hasn't been the only rotation member to run into health woes this year.

14-year Royals veteran catcher Salvador Perez remains on record-watch in a number of different statistical categories. Tonight, Salvy passed Amos Otis for the third-most RBI's in Royals history with 993. Another player fans likely had their eyes on was right-handed rookie pitcher Ryan Bergert. Coming into the series finale, he was yet to make it through innings at the big-league level, and yet to tally his first win as a Royal. He did both in Chicago tonight.