- Even though they’re coming off their second straight 100-loss season, the Royals may be content to stay in-house to find retired manager Ned Yost’s replacement. Their “very short list” of candidates includes special advisor Mike Matheny and quality control/catching coach Pedro Grifol, according to Pedro Gomez of ESPN. Matheny comes with vast experience as a manager at the sport’s highest level, having led the Cardinals from 2012-18. The Redbirds went a more-than-respectable 591-474 with four playoff berths in that span, but they missed the postseason in each of Matheny’s final three campaigns. While St. Louis put up nice overall results under Matheny, he was a frequent target of criticism throughout his tenure with the franchise. Grifol, who managed in the Seattle farm system from 2003-05 and again in 2012, has been a coach in the KC organization for seven years.
Royals Rumors
Dayton Moore To Alex Gordon: "We Want You Back"
Once again, Royals general manager Dayton Moore has made it clear that the club wants left fielder Alex Gordon to return in 2020. According to Randy Covitz of the Kansas City Star, Moore informed a group of season ticket holders that he told Gordon, “We want you back.” Moore added, “We’re a better ball club with Alex Gordon.” Set to turn 36 in February, Gordon indicated earlier this month he’s likely to wait until the winter to decide if he’ll continue playing next season. The career-long Royal has said he’ll only play for them if he does keep going. Gordon has a $23MM mutual option (or a $4MM buyout) for 2020, but the two sides figure to work out a much cheaper arrangement in the event he doesn’t retire.
Examining A Potential Jorge Soler Extension
While it’s been a tough season for the Royals as a team, Jorge Soler has emerged as a bright spot in the heart of the lineup, hitting .262/.352/.555 with 45 home runs in a career-high 668 plate appearances. Long one of the game’s top hitting prospects, the now-27-year-old Soler (28 in February) has finally displayed the enormous raw power that garnered so much praise as a minor leaguer. Kansas City still controls Soler through 2021, but MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan writes in his latest Royals inbox column that he’s “convinced” the team will offer Soler an extension this winter.
Soler’s current contractual status is a bit unique, as he signed a nine-year, $30MM contract with the Cubs back in 2012 when he was just 20 years old. International free agency wasn’t nearly as restricted then as it is now — under current rules, he’d have been limited to a minor league deal and likely garnered a signing bonus worth less than a quarter of that guarantee — and the Cubs committed both a lengthy term and sizable guarantee despite knowing he’d need to log time in the minors.
Soler is “signed” for the 2020 season at just $4MM, but he can opt out of that guaranteed salary and into MLB’s arbitration process this winter, as is the case with many Cuban defectors who signed Major League deals under the previous international free agency infrastructure. Based on his 45-homer campaign, he’s a lock to do just that. Arbitration raises for international players who opt out of this type of arrangement haven’t always been as steep as one might expect, but Soler will clearly top a $4MM salary. And since he’d be arb-eligible again in 2021, his salary for that season would be dependent on the size of the raise he gets in arbitration this winter.
All of that would be rendered moot in the event of a new long-term arrangement, though. Soler and the Royals will surely be talking contract when arbitration figures are exchanged in January, and that seems like a reasonable point at which the two sides could avoid a particularly tricky arbitration case with a multi-year arrangement. If not then, Spring Training extensions are commonplace.
There’s good reason for both parties to be amenable to a deal. Soler has banked a substantial sum in his career already but has yet to lock in a multi-year deal that pays him anywhere near open-market prices. The Royals, meanwhile, are aiming for a return to contention in 2021, and losing their top slugger at the end of that season would be a step backward. Soler is currently on track to become a free agent in advance of his age-30 season, so the Royals would be acquiring some additional prime years in a theoretical long-term deal.
The price of Soler’s would-be free-agent seasons is up for debate. Nelson Cruz has played each of the past five seasons (2019 included) for an annual rate around $14.25MM. He was considerably older than Soler when he signed a four-year, $57MM deal with the Mariners and his most recent one year, $14.3MM deal with the Twins. Edwin Encarnacion secured a $20MM annual rate in his three-year deal with the Indians — a contract that began with his age-33 season. Both right-handed sluggers had considerably longer track records of productivity than does Soler when they signed their contracts, though, and both had the benefit of an open-market setting. Soler didn’t even log a full big league season with Kansas City in either 2017 or 2018, posting a combined .228/.322/.403 batting line through 367 plate appearances across those two years.
Any power hitter’s production in 2019 is also going to be met with some skepticism as a result of this year’s explosive ball. That’s not to say the Royals should expect Soler to turn into a pumpkin when the clock strikes midnight on the 2019 season, but they’d be justified in pondering to what extent his power might scale back if the 2020 ball is more in line with previous seasons.
The length of an extension, of course, will be the other key part of the debate. Recent extensions for players with between four and five years of service time include Randal Grichuk and Jean Segura, both of whom signed away three free-agent seasons in addition to their remaining two arbitration years. Segura’s deal included an option for another year. In the case of Soler, who has a limited track record and notable injury history, a contract that exceeds five seasons in length seems like a reach. A total of five guaranteed years seems attainable.
Perhaps the biggest wild card in forecasting a possible extension value for Soler lies in the how his arbitration seasons are valued. As we saw with Jose Abreu, Yasiel Puig and others, this type of contract is handled atypically in arbitration. Abreu hit .293/.353/.468 with 25 home runs the year before he opted into arbitration, and his salary only rose from $10MM to $10.825MM. A year later, he received a raise barely north of $2MM after posting an outstanding .304/.354/.552 slash with 33 homers. Puig, meanwhile, opted into arbitration last winter when he reached five-plus years of service time and, working from a smaller 2018 base salary of $6.5MM, jumped up to $9.7MM. He’d have earned $7.5MM had he stuck with his initial contract.
Depending on how Soler’s arbitration seasons are valued, Grichuk’s five-year, $52MM contract could be a particularly relevant comparison. They’re different types of players, of course, but their final two arb seasons could fall within the same ballpark. The roughly $13MM annual rate at which Grichuk’s free-agent seasons were valued in his extension could also be a point of reference Soler’s camp seeks to top; doing so would put him in Cruz territory for the average annual value of his free-agent seasons. I’d imagine Soler would do a bit better than Grichuk in terms of overall guarantee, but something in that general vicinity seems like a plausible landing point for the burgeoning slugger.
Vance Wilson Expected To Receive Attention For Manager Openings
- Royals bullpen coach Vance Wilson is expected to be a managerial candidate this offseason, MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand tweets. “Some executives believe he absolutely has a future as a manager,” Feinsand writes about the 46-year-old, who may be best known for an eight-year playing career with the Mets and Tigers from 1999-2006. Wilson worked as a manager at three different levels of Kansas City’s farm system for seven seasons before moving into his current role as bullpen coach in November 2017. It stands to reason that the Royals themselves would have interest in speaking to Wilson about their own managerial vacancy, potentially replacing the retiring Ned Yost.
Three Needs: Kansas City Royals
We’re continuing with our “Three Needs” series, in which we take a look at the chief issues to be addressed for clubs that have fallen out of contention. We’ve already focused on the Mariners, Tigers, White Sox, Marlins, Rangers, Pirates, and Angels. Now we’re going to Kansas City to check in on a Royals team that just cracked 100 losses for the second-consecutive season — an ignominious feat they last accomplished in 2005-2006.
[Kansas City Royals Depth Chart]
1. Auction Off Whit Merrifield
You never want to move a guy like this. But he’s closing in on his 31st birthday and showed a slight but noticeable downtick in the speed department last year, dropping from his 95th percentile highpoint to the 85.6th percentile in sprint speed. That’s still quite good, but the difference showed up in the results: Merrifield was successful on just 19 of 29 stolen base attempts a year after swiping 45 and generated 1.2 runs on the bases after tabbing 7.4 in 2018.
We’re not pulling the fire alarm on Merrifield. Even if he’s merely a really good but sub-elite baserunner, he’s one of the game’s steadiest high-average hitters and continues to show solid pop. And while the metrics waffled a bit on the glovework, Merrifield still carries a track record of quality defensive play along with immense versatility.
Add it all up, and … did we mention the Royals just lost 100 games for the second time in a row? Merrifield is a heck of a useful player on a nice contract. He’d basically fit on any team in baseball and might be a real difference-maker in the right situation. Everything about Merrifield’s profile screams for him to be sent to a contender. Keeping him is a luxury the Royals can’t afford.
2. Pursue Extensions, But Don’t Over-Extend
The core reason the Royals ought to move Merrifield is that a low-revenue team only has so many opportunities to achieve value and swing above its spending weight. Those must be maximized, particularly when the team is in a rebuilding phase. The same reasoning supports the pursuit of offseason extension negotiations — with some players, and to a point.
Why the cautionary references? Because a team in this situation must maintain some serious future-looking spending discipline and focus primarily on improving its asset base rather than on avoiding the eventual departure of guys it likes.
Convincing slugger Jorge Soler to commit into his thirties seems unnecessarily risky, even if he just enjoyed a nice campaign. Righty Brad Keller might be worth inking at the right price after another good season in terms of results, but the landmine detectors (5.24 SIERA, for example) are flashing red. A long-term arrangement with Adalberto Mondesi or even Hunter Dozier could deliver huge upside, and certainly ought to be considered, but the organization should pull hard on its leverage given the ongoing uncertainty with those players.
3. Chase Some Upside In A Free Agent Signing
There are lots of problems on the Royals roster. How could there not be? It doesn’t matter so much where the team decides to add — first base, middle infield, outfield, pitching of all varieties — as that it does so boldly. At least, it’s worth a serious attempt. Having already endured the bulk of the payroll hangover from the team’s recent run of success, there’s some payroll space to play with.
Last year, the organization inked one-year deals with Billy Hamilton, Chris Owings, Jake Diekman, Brad Boxberger, Terrance Gore, and Kyle Zimmer. Those signings more or less flopped completely, though such is life when it comes to this kind of dealmaking. It was generally a defensible group of signings, including some younger players who had shown real talent in the past along with easily flippable veteran relievers.
Continuing to make those kinds of signings is sensible, when the opportunities are there. But why not also ramp up the risk factor just a bit on a multi-year deal? Yasiel Puig, Avisail Garcia, and Corey Dickerson are interesting corner outfield targets; Alex Wood and Michael Wacha might like pitching in Kauffman. If any of those players struggle to find adequate arrangements elsewhere, they could be bailed out with a deal that spans multiple campaigns at a low-ish AAV — thus increasing the future trade value in the event that the anticipated bounceback comes to pass. With most of the market preferring to spend more for less years, there could be opportunities to swim against the tide and acquire somewhat higher-ceiling talent.
Adalberto Mondesi To Undergo Shoulder Surgery
Royals shortstop Adalberto Mondesi will undergo surgery next week to repair a tear near the joint of his left shoulder, the team announced to reporters Wednesday (Twitter link via Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com). Mondesi will recover five to six months to recover from the operation, per team trainer Nick Kenney, which could obviously impact his ability for the start of the 2020 season.
It’s a discouraging development for the ultra-talented Mondesi, who has displayed a tantalizing combination of extra-base pop, blistering speed and strong defensive ratings at shortstop over the past two seasons. Mondesi only just turned 24 but has already amassed 26 home runs and 89 stolen bases in just 943 plate appearances at the MLB level. His questionable plate discipline and penchant for punching out will likely lead to persistent on-base issues, but the blend of speed, power and glovework makes him a clear foundational piece for the rebuilding Royals.
The tear and subsequent shoulder surgery may call into question the Royals’ decision to bring Mondesi back into the fold at all. Mondesi missed two months with a subluxation of his left shoulder this summer but returned to the lineup on Sept. 1. At the time of his activation, manager Ned Yost suggested that Mondesi had been instructed not to dive for balls in the field or dive headfirst into bases for the remainder of the season (Twitter link via Flanagan). Mondesi, however, reinjured his shoulder doing precisely that: diving to his right for a hard grounder off the bat of Twins slugger Nelson Cruz (video link).
Dating back to Opening Day 2018, Mondesi has hit at a .268/.297/.454 clip while generating 5.6 rWAR and 5.2 fWAR in a total of 177 games. He won’t be eligible for arbitration until next winter and is under club control through the 2023 season.
Moore: Royals Won't Hire Manager Until Ownership Change
- The retiring Ned Yost is in his final few days as the Royals’ manager, but it appears it’s going to be several weeks before the club finds his replacement. The Royals don’t expect to hire Yost’s successor until their forthcoming sale from David Glass to John Sherman goes through, according to general manager Dayton Moore (via the Associated Press). The franchise might not change hands until November, the AP notes. “I would never hire a manager … without complete 100 percent support of my boss,” Moore said.
Latest On Royals’ Managerial Opening
A managerial job somewhat surprisingly opened Monday when Ned Yost announced he’s retiring from his post in Kansas City after a decade at the helm. The Royals will spend the coming weeks attempting to fill the position for the first time since before the 2010 season. Although ex-Cardinals skipper and current Royals special advisor Mike Matheny looks like a candidate for the opening, he’s not the only member of the organization who will garner consideration for the role. Two of Yost’s assistants, bench coach Dale Sveum and quality control and catching coach Pedro Grifol, “are definitely in the running,” per Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com.
The 55-year-old Sveum is about to wrap up his sixth season on Yost’s staff and his second in his current role. He also has two full seasons of managerial experience at the major league level, having overseen the Cubs from 2012-13. The Cubs put up an unsightly 127-197 record during Sveum’s tenure, though those rosters weren’t exactly loaded with talent. He’d face the same non-contending problem in KC, at least initially, as the club has sewn up its second straight 100-loss season.
Grifol, who will turn 50 in November, has spent seven years with the Royals – including the past in the job he has now. While Grifol has only managed in the low minors (with the Seattle organization from 2003-05 and in ’12), he was among those who interviewed for the Baltimore job that ultimately went to Brandon Hyde last offseason.
Ned Yost Announces Retirement
Royals manager Ned Yost will officially retire following the completion of the 2019 season, the team announced today in a press release. He’ll finish his career with the most victories in Royals franchise history and is the only Royals manager to ever make consecutive World Series appearances. Yost issued the following statement in today’s release:
“With the development of our young players and our returning veterans, I feel and hope the worst is behind us in this rebuilding phase of our organization. My plan all along was to get us through the rough times then turn it over to a new manager to bring us the rest of the way. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time here as your manager and will never forget the good and the hard times we had together as an organization and a fan base.
I will never forget the fact that you fans supported us through it all. Kansas City will always have a special place in my heart, and I look forward to rooting for the Royals on to their next World Championship very soon.”
Yost, 65, has managed the Royals since the 2010 season, logging a collective 744-836 record in that time. Prior to that, he’d spent parts of six seasons skippering the Brewers, with whom he won 457 games. Overall, Yost will complete his managerial career with a 1201-1338 record, two American League pennants and one World Series title. He’s 32nd all-time in total games managed at the MLB level, and his current total of 1201 wins ranks 45th — though he’ll have the opportunity to tack on a few more victories and six more games managed between now and Sunday’s farewell game.
Yost’s retirement has been widely expected, as the skipper himself has hinted in the past that he isn’t likely to see a rebuild all the way through. There’s no firm word yet on a successor to Yost, of course, but it was speculated last November when the Royals hired former Cardinals skipper Mike Matheny as a special advisor that he was a strong candidate to take the reins following Yost’s retirement. The Royals won’t make any formal announcement on the matter for now. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets that Matheny is indeed “expected” to be the team’s next manager, but MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan reports that the Royals have yet to commit to Matheny as the new manager (Twitter link).
Of course, even if that was the plan last November, much has changed in the Royals organization since Matheny’s hire. Owner David Glass has agreed to sell the team to Kansas City entrepreneur John Sherman, and while it’s been reported that general manager Dayton Moore will receive a contract extension once the new ownership regime formally takes over, it’s not as clear that the new owners will have the same vision for the manager and his coaching staff.
Adalberto Mondesi Injures Shoulder, Done For Year
Amidst a 100-loss season, Royals fans are likely ready to pack things in with an eye toward Spring Training 2020–unfortunately, their season won’t end with a bit more bad news, as it appears promising young shortstop Adalberto Mondesi reinjured his left shoulder in today’s loss to the Twins. While the severity of the injury isn’t yet known, Manager Ned Yost told MLB.com’s Jeff Flanagan that Mondesi’s season is over with only five games left to play (link).
Mondesi’s left shoulder already forced him to miss nearly two months of action in 2019, as a subluxation suffered on July 17 truncated his second season as a full-time starter. The 24-year-old was reintegrated into the lineup when rosters expanded on Sept. 1, but he will apparently be headed for a little more rest and recovery.
Although the smooth-fielding Angeleno logged just an 81 wRC+ across 442 plate appearances this year, his campaign wasn’t without its highlights. For one, he tied with Arizona’s Eduardo Escobar for the MLB lead in triples with 10 and logged 43 stolen bases in just 101 games. Defensively, Mondesi logged a nice +9 DRS figure in 800-plus innings at short this season. 2020 will mark Kansas City’s last year of team control over Mondesi before arbitration proceedings begin in 2021.
