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Newest Royal Looking To Play Beyond 2022

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Zack Greinke is headed back to the Royals on a one-year deal worth $13MM, but Kansas City faced some competition from a division rival in securing his services. The Twins made a “strong push” to sign Greinke before he landed back in K.C., tweets Darren Wolfson of SKOR North radio. Wolfson speculates that in the end, the allure of returning to his original organization may have simply proven too strong for Minnesota or another organization to overcome once the Royals jumped into the bidding.

  • Speaking of Greinke, the new Royals right-hander told reporters that he is not planning for the 2022 season to be his last, per Josh Vernier of 610 Sports Radio’s. It’s a welcome piece of news for fans of the enigmatic pitcher, who will gear up for his twentieth year in the Majors if he lands on an active roster in 2023. The longtime ace isn’t just looking to pad his Hall of Fame credentials either, as he’s coming off a season where he posted a useful 4.16 ERA in 171 innings. Though Greinke’s strikeout and home run rates trended in the wrong direction last year his ability to pound the strike zone and eat innings make up a skillset that will surely appeal to teams.

Royals Interested In Frankie Montas

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March 17: Even after signing Zack Greinke yesterday, the Royals are still discussing Montas trade scenarios with the A’s, tweets Alec Lewis of The Athletic.

March 16: The Royals, who just trimmed more than $7MM in payroll in their surprising Mike Minor trade, are among the teams pursuing Athletics right-hander Frankie Montas, tweets Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. If Montas goes elsewhere, Rosenthal adds that the Royals still hope to add a veteran right-handed starter with some of their newfound payroll space.

Montas is among the most popular players remaining on the trade market, having been linked in recent days to the Twins, White Sox, Yankees and now the Royals. Other clubs are surely working diligently to pry the soon-to-be 29-year-old righty away from Oakland.

That’s hardly a surprise, given the Athletics’ clear willingness to trade veterans and the strong year Montas put together in 2021. Last year, the hard-throwing righty tossed 187 innings of 3.37 ERA ball while notching a strong 26.6% strikeout rate against a 7.3% walk rate. Projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to earn $5.2MM this coming season, Montas is controlled via arbitration through the 2023 campaign.

The Royals, as currently constructed, would be heavily reliant on a collection of talented but largely unproven young starters in a season where they hope to return to competitive status within a relatively weak AL Central division. Brad Keller is the team’s most veteran starter now that Minor has been moved, but he’s in need of a rebound after a career-worst performance in 2021. Brady Singer, Daniel Lynch, Carlos Hernandez, Kris Bubic, Jackson Kowar and Jonathan Heasley will all be in the mix for rotation opportunities, but of that group, only Singer has had much in the way of sustained MLB success — and even he is looking to rebound after something of a sophomore slump.

Kansas City, heartened by the looming debuts of ballyhooed prospects like Bobby Witt Jr., Nick Pratto, MJ Melendez and others, hope that the strength of their young core can help lift them in the standings. Acquiring Montas would substantially boost their chances of doing so, although the mere fact that they’re in pursuit of him serves as further indication that in spite of a mostly quiet offseason, the organization believes the window to compete is opening.

Royals Sign Zack Greinke

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5:44pm: To make room for Greinke on the 40-man roster, the club has placed Tyler Zuber on the 60-day IL, per various reports, including Anne Rogers of MLB.com. Zuber has right shoulder impingement syndrome and will miss the start of the season.

4:42pm: The Royals have formally announced the signing.

2:48pm: Zack Greinke is going back to his roots. The free-agent righty has agreed to a one-year deal with the Royals, pending the completion of a physical, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports (via Twitter). Greinke, a client of Excel Sports Management, will be guaranteed $13MM and can earn another $2MM via innings-based incentives, tweets Joel Sherman of the New York Post.

The 38-year-old Greinke isn’t the fireballing ace that he was toward the end of his first run with the Royals, but he remains an effective innings eater. He’ll return to his old stomping ground as the elder statesman on what figures to be an extremely young staff who’ll no doubt want to soak up as much pitching knowledge as possible from the 18-yeasr big league veteran.

Zack Greinke | Stan Szeto-USA TODAY SportsGreinke spent the past two-plus seasons with the Astros after being traded from Arizona to Houston in a buzzer-beating deal at the 2019 trade deadline. Greinke’s once blazing fastball averaged just 89 mph in 2021 and his strikeout rate dipped, but he’s maintained pristine command of the strike zone (5.2% walk rate). Since 2020, Greinke has a 4.12 ERA in 238 innings for Houston, although his 2021 season would’ve looked considerably better were it not for a late September swoon.

Through his first 26 starts in 2021, Greinke pitched to a strong 3.41 ERA. Fielding-independent metrics were still a bit down on him because of the lack of punchouts (17.5% in that stretch), but Greinke yielded a paltry 87.7 mph average exit velocity in that time and had a 33% opponents’ hard-hit rate. Greinke tested positive for Covid-19 at the end of August and went back on the IL in late September due to neck soreness. It’s not clear that either had a direct impact on his results, although it’s certainly possible that he wasn’t pitching at 100% down the stretch. The results seem to suggest as much, as Greinke was tattooed for 21 runs in his final 15 1/3 innings of work.

Even if Greinke should be projected for more of a low-4.00s ERA than the mid-3.00 range he sat for much of the 2021 season, he’ll still be a valuable and reliable source of innings for the Royals. He’s made at least 28 appearances in 11 of the past 14 seasons, with the exceptions being the shortened 2020 season (when he made all 12 of his starts) and the 2016 season (when he missed a month with an oblique injury but still started 26 games).

For a Royals club that expects to give the bulk of its innings to young and/or unproven starters — Brady Singer, Daniel Lynch, Jackson Kowar, Kris Bubic, Carlos Hernandez, Jonathan Heasley — the ability to confidently pencil Greinke in for around 30 starts and 170-plus frames is especially important. Brad Keller is currently the only starter on the staff with more than two years of Major League service time, but he’s in search of a rebound from a career-worst performance this past season.

The deal for Greinke ostensibly came together in fairly quick fashion. Kansas City traded Mike Minor to the Royals just this afternoon, and reports immediately following the deal suggested that they were in the hunt for rotation upgrades. Although they’re said to have checked in with the A’s about a potential Frankie Montas deal, it’ll be Greinke who joins the staff to help stabilize the group and, ideally, help guide the Royals back to a winning record

Subtracting Minor and adding Greinke’s larger salary brings the Royals up to a projected payroll of a bit more than $93MM, per Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. That’s nowhere near the franchise record $143MM from 2017, but that payroll was buoyed by a pair of consecutive World Series appearances achieved by the Royals’ former core. The fact that they felt compelled to move Minor and save some money on his salary before adding Greinke suggests that new owner John Sherman, who purchased the team in 2019, isn’t comfortable pushing payroll back to those 2017 levels at this time.

It’s possible that further additions will follow for the Royals. They’ve reportedly sought ways to trade Carlos Santana, both as a means of clearing playing time for top prospect Nick Pratto and also in order to shed the veteran’s $10.5MM salary. If president of baseball operations Dayton Moore manages to find a Santana deal similar to this afternoon’s Minor trade, additional veteran reinforcements could be on the way to help supplement a young Royals team that’ll see the debuts of Pratto and top prospect Bobby Witt Jr. early in the 2022 season.

Royals, Reds Swap Mike Minor For Amir Garrett

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The Royals have traded left-handed starter Mike Minor and cash to the Reds in exchange for left-handed reliever Amir Garrett, per announcements from both teams.

Minor, 34, is headed into the second season of a two-year, $18MM contract originally signed with Kansas City. He’s due $10MM this season, plus a $1MM buyout on a mutual option for the 2023 season. MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand tweets that the Royals are covering that $1MM buyout. Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer adds that Kansas City is also covering $500K of Minor’s salary. That leaves the Reds on the hook for about $7.3MM in additional salary commitments, when factoring in the projected $2.2MM (via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz) that would’ve gone to the arbitration-eligible Garrett.

It’s frankly bizarre to see Cincinnati take on cash to acquire a struggling veteran starter, considering they commenced their offseason by placing a highly productive veteran starter, Wade Miley, on outright waivers — content to just give him away in order to save the same $10MM salary that is owed to Minor. The move to add Minor, who has an ERA north of 5.00 in each of his past two seasons, is a clear downgrade over simply keeping Miley. One can also imagine that if the goal was to add a veteran to the staff after trading Sonny Gray, there were options in free agency at a similar or even lesser price point.

Minor has been a durable source of innings over the past four years, starting at least 28 games in each full season and another 11 during the shortened 2020 campaign. However, he posted a 5.05 ERA in Kansas City through last year’s 158 1/3 innings, punching out 22.3% of his opponents against a strong 6.1% walk rate. Metrics like FIP (4.29) and SIERA (4.20) feel Minor’s strikeout and walk rates ought to have yielded a better ERA, but it’s quite a bet for him to bounce back when factoring in how the change of scenery could adversely impact Minor. As a fly-ball pitcher whose biggest Achilles heel during that time has been a susceptibility to home runs (1.43 HR/9 since 2018), the move to Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park seems like a poor fit (particularly at a time when the National League is adding the designated hitter).

Perhaps the Reds plan to explore additional trade scenarios surrounding Minor. Perhaps they believe pitching coach Derek Johnson, who coached Minor at Vanderbilt more than a decade ago, can help Minor return to form. Whatever the motivation behind the trade, it’s strange to see Cincinnati going out of its way to add salary after so aggressively finding ways to cut payroll over the past 18 months. In a vacuum, the trade for Minor is a sensible enough bet on a rebound for a prominent veteran — but in the context of the Reds’ recent string of transactions, it’s just rather puzzling.

As for the Royals, they’ll add a hard-throwing lefty with big bat-missing ability who has never quite put things together for a prolonged run of success. The 29-year-old Garrett averages 95 mph on his heater and has fanned just under 30% of his opponents dating back to 2018, but he’s also susceptible to walks (12.1%) and home runs (1.36 HR/9). Home runs have been a particular issue for Garrett over the past two seasons, although a move out of Cincinnati and into the spacious Kauffman Stadium could help him cut back on those long balls.

Garrett is controlled through the 2023 season via arbitration, so if the new environs can finally coax some consistency from him, he could be a vital piece of the Royals’ relief corps. Beyond the strikeouts and velocity, Garrett ranks 14th among all qualified relievers with a 15.7% swinging-strike rate since 2019, so the potential for a breakout is there. He’ll join a Kansas City bullpen that is increasingly deep in hard-throwing arms who can miss bats, pairing with righties like Josh Staumont and Scott Barlow as well as southpaw Jake Brentz.

Odalis Perez Passes Away

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Former big league lefty Odalis Perez has tragically passed away, reports Hector Gomez of Z101 Digital. (On Twitter) Gomez relays that the former member of the Braves, Dodgers, Royals and Nationals “suffered a blow to the head after falling from a ladder.” He was 44 years old.

A native of the Dominican Republic, Perez began his MLB career with the Braves in September of 1998, just a few months after his 21st birthday. He appeared in ten games out of the bullpen, throwing 10 2/3 innings with an ERA of 4.22. He followed that up with a 1999 season that saw him make 18 appearances, 17 of those being starts, throwing 93 innings with an even 6.00 ERA. After missing the entirety of the 2000 campaign due to injury, he bounced back in 2001 and logged 95 1/3 innings with an ERA of 4.91.

Prior to the 2002 campaign, Perez and two other Braves were part of a huge trade, going to the Dodgers in the deal that sent Gary Sheffield to Atlanta. That year, Perez had the best season of his career, throwing 222 1/3 innings over 32 starts with an ERA of 3.00. He racked up 155 strikeouts and finished the season with a record of 15-10. He was selected to the National League All-Star team that year.

Perez went on to be a mainstay of the Dodgers’ rotation for another three and a half seasons before being dealt to the Royals in July of 2006. He and two other Dodgers were traded to Kansas City for Elmer Dessens. He pitched out of the Royals’ rotation for the remainder of that season as well as the 2007 campaign.

In 2008, he signed a minor league deal with the Nationals, eventually having his contract selected and making the Opening Day start for the club. He allowed a fourth-inning home run to Chipper Jones, which was the first long ball in the history of Nationals Park. That season would ultimately prove to be his last MLB action. All told, he finished his career having played in 252 games, making 221 starts, throwing 1,335 innings with an ERA of 4.46. He racked up 920 strikeouts, four complete games and two shutouts.

We at MLB Trade Rumors offer condolences to the Perez family, as well as his many friends, fans and loved ones.

Royals Sign Daniel Mengden To Minor League Deal

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The Royals announced this afternoon they’ve signed right-hander Daniel Mengden to a minor league contract. He’s the second veteran hurler to join the organization on a non-roster deal in as many days, as they also added former Astros and Red Sox righty Brad Peacock.

Mengden has spent parts of five seasons in the majors, with the entirety of that time coming in an A’s uniform. The Texas A&M product broke into the big leagues in 2016, starting fourteen games down the stretch. He was tagged for a 6.50 ERA as a rookie, but Mengden found more success keeping runs off the board over the following seasons. He combined for 218 1/3 innings of 4.08 ERA ball over 42 outings (including 33 starts) from 2017-19.

Despite that run of decent results, Mengden annually posted below-average strikeout and ground-ball rates. He excelled at avoiding walks between 2017-18 but saw the free passes spike to a 10.4% mark over 59 2/3 frames in 2019. Mengden’s ERA sat at 4.83 that season, which has marked his last real look at the big league level. He worked just 12 1/3 innings over four outings in the shortened 2020 campaign before Oakland outrighted him off their 40-man roster that September.

Mengden elected minor league free agency and signed with the Kia Tigers of the Korea Baseball Organization last offseason. He proved a solid pickup, tossing 120 frames of 3.60 ERA ball with a 20.7% strikeout rate and a 7% walk percentage for the Gwangju-based club. The 29-year-old returns to affiliated ball in hopes of pitching his way back to the bigs with a Kansas City team that has a fair amount of talented young starters but not a whole lot of rotation certainty.

A .350 opponents’ batting average on balls in play was a big culprit behind Brady Singer posting a 4.91 ERA last season, but estimators (4.04 FIP, 4.30 SIERA) were more favorable. Daniel Lynch and Kris Bubic are former top prospects, but both struggled in 2021. That was also the case for veterans Brad Keller and (to a lesser extent) Mike Minor, although both seem likely to get season-opening rotation roles based on their career resumes. Hard-throwing righty Carlos Hernández and another former top prospect, Jackson Kowar, also started games last season, while Angel Zerpa made his big league debut during the final week of the year. Kansas City no doubt plans to get most of those hurlers continued work, although the lack of big league track record for the majority of those arms could give Mengden a chance to pitch his way onto the big league roster with a solid Spring Training and/or start at Triple-A Omaha.

Royals Sign Brad Peacock

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12:00pm: The Royals have now formally announced the signing.

11:39am: The Royals have signed right-hander Brad Peacock to a minor league contract, per their transactions log at MLB.com. The former Astros hurler was eligible to sign during the lockout because he wasn’t on a 40-man roster at season’s end, though he did briefly pitch with the Red Sox in 2021.

Now 34 years old, Peacock has spent the bulk of his career in Houston, appearing in parts of eight seasons as an Astro. He was a particularly versatile and vital member of the pitching staff from 2016-19, when he amassed 320 1/3 innings of 3.48 ERA ball and split his time between the rotation and bullpen — pitching quite well in both roles. Unfortunately for both Peacock and the Astros, shoulder and neck injuries derailed his 2019-20 seasons. Peacock ultimately underwent shoulder surgery in October 2020 after he’d been limited to just 2 1/3 innings that season.

Peacock signed on with Cleveland last offseason and was traded to Boston in late August (a post-deadline deal made possible by the fact that he’d been on a minor league contract and had not been on the 40-man roster at any point prior). He made two appearances as a replacement player following a Covid-19 outbreak on the Red Sox and was tagged for nine runs in 5 1/3 innings before being returned to Triple-A (and removed from the 40-man roster). Things didn’t go much better for Peacock in Triple-A, as he combined for an 8.00 ERA in 36 innings between his two stops.

There’s obviously a good bit of work to do for Peacock to reestablish himself, but it’s easy to see why a team would take a flier on an arm of his caliber. At his peak, in 2018, Peacock punched out a dominant 35.3% of his opponents against just a 7.4% walk rate. He’s absolutely overwhelmed right-handed opponents throughout his career, yielding an awful .199/.280/.338 batting line in those situations. Lefties have generally been a problem for Peacock (career .265/.349/.480), as has turning a lineup over for a third time. That said, if his shoulder and neck are healed up from his 2019-20 woes, he could prove a similarly successful minor league reclamation project to Trevor Rosenthal and Greg Holland from the 2020 Royals.

As things stand, there are already a few spots spoken for in the K.C. bullpen. Scott Barlow, Josh Staumont, Jake Brentz and Domingo Tapia all likely have spots locked down. Well-traveled righty Joel Payamps had a solid showing in 2021 and is also out of minor league options, which could give him the inside track on a fifth spot. Gabe Speier and Dylan Coleman were strong in small showings but will likely have to earn a spot in Spring Training (whatever form that takes). At the very least, there appears to be an opening for a veteran swingman — a role with which Peacock is quite familiar.

Read The Transcript Of Our Live Chat With Former MLB Outfielder Jonny Gomes

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Drafted in the 18th round by the Devil Rays out of Santa Rosa Junior College back in 2001, Jonny Gomes established himself as a Major Leaguer four years later with a third-place Rookie of the Year finish.  In his 13-year career, Gomes played for the Rays, Reds, Nationals, Athletics, Red Sox, Braves, and Royals.  He also played for Japan’s Rakuten Golden Eagles.

Gomes was perhaps best known for his hard-nosed style of play.  As Gary Shelton of the Tampa Bay Times put it, “There is nothing laid-back, nothing calm about Gomes. He lives his life as if there are two outs in the ninth and the bases are loaded and the bars are closing and the fuse is burning and the air is running out.”  From 2005-15, Gomes was hit by a pitch roughly once every 49 plate appearances, the 12th most-often in MLB.

Serving primarily as a left fielder and designated hitter, Gomes hit 162 home runs in his career.  He hit at least 17 home runs in a season six different times, usually in fewer than 120 games.  A right-handed hitter, Gomes terrorized southpaws throughout his time in the Majors.  The list of pitchers he’s taken deep includes CC Sabathia, Andy Pettitte, Zack Greinke, Madison Bumgarner, Mike Mussina, Curt Schilling, Chris Sale, and Randy Johnson.

The biggest home run of Gomes’ career came in Game 4 of the 2013 World Series for the Red Sox against Seth Maness and the Cardinals in St. Louis.  Despite not being in the original starting lineup that day, Gomes crushed a three-run shot that led to Boston’s win.  The Red Sox won it in six games, and Gomes’ patriotism was on full display at the White House.  Gomes would go on to pick up the second ring of his career in 2015 with the Royals before retiring in 2016.

Earlier this month, Gomes joined BaseballCloud as its Director of Strategic Partnerships.  Part of his role involves the expansion of the company’s optical tracking system, Yakkertech.  You can follow Gomes on Instagram here and connect with him on Cameo here.

Today, we were proud to host Jonny for a live chat with MLBTR readers.  Click here to read the transcript of today’s chat!

If you’re a current or former MLB player, come do a chat with us!  It only takes one hour, and you get to choose which questions you publish and answer.  Click here to contact us.

Moore: Witt Jr. Will Have Chance To Make Opening Day Roster

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We don’t know when Opening Day will be for Major League clubs, but Royals president of baseball operations Dayton Moore told reporters this week that when it does, top prospect Bobby Witt Jr. will have the opportunity to break camp with the team (link via Pete Grahoff of the Kansas City Star).

“He’s very talented and we’re going to give him that opportunity,” Moore said of his organization’s top prospect. Because Witt has not yet been required to be added to the 40-man roster, Moore is able to freely discuss him and Witt is able to interact with club personnel and make use of club facilities.

By now, most fans are quite familiar with Witt Jr. — the son of 16-year MLB veteran pitcher Bobby Witt. Selected with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2019 draft, the now-21-year-old Witt Jr. is regarded as one of the game’s top three overall prospects. He’s played primarily shortstop in the minors and figures to, before long, be given the chance to settle in as the Royals’ long-term option either at short or at the hot corner.

The 2021 season was Witt’s first full year of professional games, thanks to the canceled minor league season in 2020, but you’d hardly know it based on the numbers. Splitting the season between Double-A (61 games, 279 plate appearances) and Triple-A (62 games, 285 plate appearances), Witt batted a combined .290/.361/.576 with 33 home runs, 35 doubles, four triples and 29 stolen bases (in 40 attempts). That production came not only in spite of extremely limited pro experience but also in spite of the fact that Witt was three years younger than his average opponent in Double-A and five years younger than the average Triple-A player.

Even in 2021, there was some talk that Witt could be considered for an Opening Day roster spot, although that always felt like an extreme long shot, given that he’d yet to play above Rookie ball. Now, with a dominant season in the upper minors under his belt, Witt would seem to have a legitimate chance at making the roster, so long as he performs well in whatever iteration of Spring Training is put together.

Just where Witt will line up on the diamond remains to be seen, as the Kansas City infield is rather crowded. Nicky Lopez solidified himself as an elite defender at shortstop this past season, and while he’s no lock to repeat his .300/.365/.378 batting line, the glove should continue to play no matter what. Two-time All-Star and 2021 stolen base champion Whit Merrifield can handle either second base or any of the three outfield spots. The ultra-talented but oft-injured Adalberto Mondesi remains in the mix for playing time, be it at shortstop, third base or in right field. Corner infielder/outfielder Hunter Dozier is entering the second season of a four-year, $28MM contract and will be looking to rebound from a dismal 2021 effort.

If the Royals prefer to leave Lopez, a Gold Glove finalist at shortstop, at the position where he broke out this past season, the natural move might be to slide Witt over to third base. The organization prepared for this to some extent last year, giving Witt 17 starts (and 18 total appearances) at the hot corner throughout the season.

The frequency (or lack thereof) of prospects of Witt’s caliber making their respective teams’ Opening Day rosters has been a key talking point in ongoing labor negotiations. The Royals, however, generally haven’t shied away from promoting top prospects out of the gate, rather than keeping them in the minors for a few weeks early in the season to secure a seventh year of club control. As recently as the 2020 season, the Royals gave Brady Singer a full year of service time, when keeping him at their alternate site for even a week would’ve delayed his path to free agency.

None of that is presented to spur debate on the merits of service-time practices that have become increasingly commonplace throughout the league. However, it’s notable context that Kansas City has generally taken up the stance that when the front office feels a player is ready, he’ll be added to the big league roster. Whether that means a full year of service in 2022 remains to be seen, as MLB and the Players Association will need to haggle over just how the canceled games will impact service time and pay.

Setting that aside, though, Moore’s confirmation of what was already widely assumed now gives Royals fans an additional reason to be excited for big league camp … whenever that may be. If Witt does indeed crack the Royals’ Opening Day roster and accrue a full year of service time in 2022, he’d be controllable via arbitration through the 2027 season before reaching free agency in advance of his age-28 season.

Royals Pleased By Young Pitching Depth

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  • The Royals used a bumper crop of homegrown talent to capture the 2015 World Series, and are now trying to reload with a new wave of minor leaguers.  General manager J.J. Picollo tells The Kansas City Star’s Lynn Worthy that “I feel like this group is just a tad more deep” than the core of the 2014-15 pennant-winning rosters, and in particular more depth when it comes to starting pitching.  Former first-round picks Brady Singer, Kris Bubic, Jackson Kowar, and Daniel Lynch have already cracked the majors, and Picollo cited even two more waves of younger arms that could be coming next.  All of this depth could manifest itself as cornerstone pieces of the next K.C. rotation, or perhaps as trade chips — as Worthy notes, the Royals dealt several notable pitching prospects while building their last championship team.
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