The Royals on Monday announced that they’ve requested unconditional release waivers on first baseman/outfielder Ryan McBroom. The move, according to the Royals, was made in order to allow McBroom to sign with a professional club in Asia. Kansas City did not divulge whether McBroom will be signing with a team in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, the Korea Baseball Organization or the Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan. Wherever McBroom lands, the Royals will likely receive some minor financial compensation for facilitating the move.
McBroom, 29, has been up and down between Triple-A and the big leagues for the past three seasons, posting a .268/.322/.427 slash with six home runs and eight doubles through 177 Major League plate appearances. He’s punched out at an alarming 34.5% clip during that time and walked in 6.8% of his plate appearances.
With top prospect Nick Pratto looming and likely to debut early next season, plus the likes of Carlos Santana, Hunter Dozier and several outfielders ahead of him on the depth chart, McBroom wasn’t likely to see an uptick in playing time moving forward. A jump to an Asian club, whether it’s NPB, the KBO or the CPBL, will afford him more regular playing time and quite likely a notable increase in pay over what he’d have made splitting his time between Triple-A Omaha and the occasional big league promotion.
While McBroom has yet to piece things together in limited big league experience, he’ll head overseas with a strong track record in the upper minors. McBroom has appeared in parts of three Triple-A seasons and turned in a much heartier .290/.361/.517 batting line through 1363 plate appearances with the Triple-A affiliates for both the Yankees and the Royals. He’ll turn 30 next April, but with a good few seasons of play in a foreign professional league, he could eventually follow a Darin Ruf-esque path to the big leagues if that’s his eventual goal.
The Royals’ 40-man roster was already at 38 players, and McBroom’s departure will drop that total to 37 players.
Would be cool if a couple of the leagues got together and did a tournament for division or league winners
No doubt McBroom will hit clean up
Unrated comment
Seems like the perfect Asia player. Not quite prime time in MLB, but a player who will hit 35-40 HRs in Japan or Korea.
Not all player assimilate well to the different cultures
Deep
… nor handle the “popularity.” In Japan, I hear the groupies are very persistent. It was joked that they’re probably hired by the opponents.
Wherever he lands, hopefully he can help his team sweep the competition.
What a disappointment. He went from being traded for a future hall of famer to out of the big leagues just like that.
Just like the kid from Vegas who was traded to the Red Sox Org. for Theo Epstein and never made it to the show….came close in the A’s org., but he’s now out of baseball
All Refsnyder references are appreciated and applauded.
Royals, freakin tell us, why be that type of kid in high school
He had okay numbers in the big league, not terrible . Definitely a bench player in the Majors so going overseas to be a starter might be the best thing for him.
McBroom must have been swept off his feet by the offer.
I don’t get it
McBroom most likely signed with an NPB or KBO team as CPBL teams rarely sign a hitter for one of their foreign player spots.
Is there an end in sight to the Royals rebuild/restructuring? They’ve not had a winning season for 7 years now. Most of that time seems to have been spent rebuilding in some fashion.
It just seems like everyone in the AL Central is passing them by. Now I am not overly familiar with them. Looking at their records & watching them play a couple series/year is about all I know of them.
Is there a chance they can be a .500 club in the next year or two & start moving towards competitive baseball? Are their fans still cutting Moore a break or is impatience setting in? Just seems they’ve been at it a loooooong time, with not much to show for it.
They have a very good farm system. I don’t think their top guys have the sky high ceiling that the Tigers prospects have, but I’d argue they actually have a deeper all around system than them. It won’t be long until those two teams pass Cleveland and make the AL central an actual battle at the top with Chicago.
@Ducky. Whatever the Royals are doing you are right it’s confusing. They trade Duffy (who had to agree with 10/5 rights) but kept Whit who probably would’ve got a nice haul. I do have a soft spot for the Royals who I still am closest too by mileage here in Nebraska. I will say I never in my life seen as many Royals hats being worn till 2014-2015 here. Haven’t seen anything like it in years. Seems to be a big bandwagon following. I remember listening to Royals games on the radio as a kid when George Brett was still playing.
Dude they won two pennants in the last 7 years.
Also, I’m not sure how trading Danny Duffy who was injured and never threw a pitch for the Dodgers is evidence that they don’t know they’re doing.
Chicago started their rebuild after KC & they’ve been competing for a couple years now. & you can see the Tigers have something going on. The Twins have gotten mileage out of just trying to reload as opposed to a full on teardown.
The Royals however appear to be destined for another 90 loss season. Just wondering if their fans are still giving Moore a pass on results.
I’ve hunted the Sandhills in Nebraska.
Pretty interesting area. Good people too, man. Man, I can remember when the Royals were more of a rival then the red sox were.
FYI…..Dayton Moore is no longer the Royals GM. JJ Picollo is.
You talk about how terrible the Royals have been compared to the rest of the Central. Since the Royals back to back appearances in the WS in 2014 & 2015, only one other Central team has even appeared in the WS…..the Indians in 2016.
If you’re going to pick out a team to complain about….there are plenty of others more deserving.
Last WS Championship:
KC Royals = 2015
White Sox = 2005
Minnesota = 1991
Detroit = 1984
Cleveland = 1948
I actually moved out to the Sandhills area a few years ago. I’m not a hunter at all but I am a second amendment supporter and have a small arsenal, and a concealed carry permit.
Chicago also had Chris Sale, Jose Quintana and Adam Eaton to trade away to kick off their rebuild.
@TLB. Those trades did bring some nice returns back. Cease/Eloy/Kopech/Yoan/Gioloto/Reynaldo who’s been ok, and Dunning who they flipped for a nice year of Lance Lynn in 2021.
Royals rebuild taking longer because they didn’t trade hosmer, Cain, moose, Gordon and other hold overs from the championship core. They held onto the players which the fans applaud at the time. Royals best not be complaining about the length of time of rebuild because they didn’t want a Cubs like sell off.
Been there twice, @McGriffHOF.
Everyone I met was really friendly & helpful. & the Sandhills are one of the best examples of the prairie’s beauty I can name.
Well, if you ever take up wingshooting, you live in the world’s greatest prairie grouse setting, man (quite a few pheasants too). Huge crappies if you fish. Same. 10 guns total. 9 of which are clearly sporting guns (I favor Browning & Sako) & my old 1911 Officers Model.
Ya know, I’ve met a surprisingly high number of Braves fans in Iowa & the Dakota’s. Turns out they typically grew up watching Atlanta games on TBS in the 80’s (“America’s team”, uh?) & became lifelong fans.
@Ducky. Yep. I got hooked in 1994 watching the Braves on TBS. Pretty good people for the most part in Nebraska especially in the rural areas (like I’m in). Spent 99% of my life in this state. If I had it to do over again I would probably have settled in Texas. I’m not enjoying the winter so much anymore. I got stuck in the most of my family is here thing.
Well, I got that one right.
Bet you’re a Huskers fan too, uh? & if you aren’t from the Sandhills originally, you probably don’t follow PRCA.
Great people all over the rural Midwest in my experience.
My partner handles the day to day/office stuff. I basically deal with the tradesman & sales guys during the building season. So Oct-April I coast, man. Get myself & the dog out 100+ times during that stretch for upland shooting or waterfowling here in the upper Midwest. Temp varies from pleasantly cool to brutally cold. I didn’t grow up out here (NYC) but I have thoroughly made peace with the elements, man.
“While McBroom has yet to piece things together in limited big league experience…”
His MLB slash is .268/.322/.427 in a pretty small sample size. Seems weird to suggest he’s been lost at the plate at the MLB level.
Actually the sentence suggests he has a future with the limited success he has had.
Man id rather have mcbroom then ohearn he better be next
O Hearn is a lefty and has much more power. . Not saying they should keep him , but he is a better option than McBroom. Although I think O Hearn goes through arbitration this year which could spell the end of him in KC.
Definitely a famous person. He was actually the compensation going back to the Yankees when Shapiro and Atkins made one of their shrewder trades, for Rob Refsnyder. Go BlueJays.
For the KBO: Kiwoom would be seeking an improvement over Will Craig, LG wants someone who is healthy and can hit as Roberto Ramos and Justin Bour didn’t do that last year, Kia is moving on from Preston Tucker, KT is probably going to want a better foreign hitter than Jared Hoying, Hanuwa might move on from Hernan Perez, SSG has to replace the now retired Jamie Romak.
NPB: Tokyo Yakult Swallows are probably looking for an improvement over Jose Osuna, Scott Heineman and Eric Thames have been an injury nightmare for Yomiuri, Neftali Soto may be gone after a poor year with the Yokohama Dena Baystars, Kevin Cron suddenly forgot how to draw walks for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, Mike Gerber has been atrocious for Chunichi, Orix Buffaloes foreign hitters have either been injured, hit badly or both, Hokkaido is going to try and upgrade over Ronny Rodriguez, Rakuten is going to want a foreign hitter on their active roster, Softbank is probably going to get a hitter to replace the released Wladimir Balentien.
@peart. What I’ve never understood is most of the Asia leagues limit the number of foreign players on teams. MLB doesn’t do that. What is the reasoning behind limiting foreign players?
There are many reasons: foreign players tend to cost more money than homegrown players, incentivises teams to develop their own talent, it helps those countries better market homegrown talent and to give younger players more reason to play in their country’s league instead of signing with another league.
There’s the opening for pratto
will he change his name in asia to, IBroom? at least he wasn’t released on halloween. get headline would have been, mcbroom, released on halloween
Twitter is saying he signed with the Carp
Makes sense, Cron wasn’t hitting enough (not drawing walks mainly)