What’s next for the Royals?

The Royals’ playoff dreams died Thursday night. We could Sitting and moping about the team. And believe me, you will find it many of analyzes and retrospectives in torturous Detail during low season. I’m known for my off-topic posts in the offseason, but I’m hoping I don’t have too much time for that this year as the Royals’ 2025 expectations have skyrocketed Away high.

As I said, there will be a lot of in-depth and detailed analysis. But for today, I wanted to give a quick overview of the position the Royals are heading into the offseason with. There’s been a lot of talk about how lucky this year has been, and I want to try to figure out what can reasonably be carried over to next season. The funny thing is, as I write these words, I don’t know the answer. I’m going to use a trick I learned from my former colleague David Lesky (who edits the fantastic Inside the Crown newsletter) and I’m going to write down my process little by little so we can all find the answers together.

How lucky were the royals?

I’ve already written about how the Royals have been pretty lucky when it comes to injuries, so there’s no need to expand on that point. The Royals’ run differential this season, usually viewed as a statistic that says more about a team’s quality than its winning record, ranked second in the AL and sixth in the MLB. They had the misfortune of playing the only team in the AL that had a better run differential than they had in the ALDS. Pythagorean Record, according to Baseball-Reference and also based on run differential, has the Royals rated pretty unlucky with five fewer wins than expected, tied for the second-worst misfortune of any team in the MLB. The Pythagorean record of 91-71 is second best in the AL and sixth best in MLB. Baseball-Reference’s Simple Rating System (SRS) statistic, which takes opponent strength and run differential into account, once again ranks second in the AL but eighth in MLB.

A 0-WAR team is expected to win about 52 games. The Royals won 86. If we add up the FanGraphs WAR contributions of each player who appeared for the Royals this year, we get 20 WAR from hitters and 20.2 from pitchers, for a total of 40.4 WAR. That would have meant 92 wins. Using Baseball-Reference’s version, you get 20.3 and 21 WAR, which would have resulted in 93 wins. One-run games are another indicator of good or bad luck as they can often be something like a coin toss. The Royals had a 17-21 record in such games this year.

So while they were a little lucky health-wise, they were pretty unlucky in terms of their actual production leading to wins. As I wrote in the injury article, the Royals have a long-term goal of adding a lot more depth to this team if they want to become consistent contenders, but they haven’t been a fluke in the sense that they’ve won a ton of games, that they shouldn’t have. With the depth largely coming from AAA players who can at least step up in short bursts, the Royals probably still won’t have much of it next year (barring a few trades, which will be a topic for another day), but they At least I have a core to work with.

Status of the roster

Speaking of the core, the roster situation changes immediately as the team enters the offseason. Here is a list of the players they are losing to free agency:

• Michael Lorenzen
• Will Smith
• Tommy Pham
• Garrett Hampson
• Tommy Pham
• Yuli Gurriel
• Robbie Grossman
• Paul DeJong

Additionally, Adam Frazier has a mutual option that the Royals will likely decline. Michael Wacha, Chris Stratton and Hunter Renfroe all have player options. Wacha may reject his*, but Renfroe and Stratton will almost certainly take theirs. This will add at least nine free spots to their 40-man roster. Josh Taylor and Kyle Wright will take two of those spots, giving the Royals plenty of room to make plays.

*Wacha’s case is an interesting one that probably deserves a whole article. In summary, though, the Royals can probably keep him if they want, and I think they should.

The total fWAR of the departing players is 0.2, with positive contributions from Lorenzen, Hampson and DeJong. None of these players made significant contributions, and while it might make sense to try to bring back the final three for the right price, the Royals should also be able to move forward without any insomnia from them.

So looking at who’s left, the Royals have most of a starting rotation, the back end of a bullpen (don’t forget Hunter Harvey should be back next year too) and a few guys to build a lineup around can build. Here are the position players who I think should have a guaranteed starting spot for safety reasons as the offseason begins.

• Bobby Witt Jr.
• Salvador Perez
• Vinnie Pasquantino
• Kyle Isbel
• Michael Massey

Everyone else suffered from serious consistency problems. Massey’s injury history suggests you might want a platoon partner for him, but that could be Maikel Garcia, who may not be a first-generation infielder but brings enough speed and defense to be an excellent utility guy. However, there are still four spots left in your lineup.

And here’s the honest truth: If the Royals want to really take off in the division and push deeper into the playoffs next year, at least two bats have to be their top priority. A man on the base leading the team and a thug in the middle of the command. If they can fill the remaining spots in the order with guys who have speed and/or good gloves, it can work. We can (and will) discuss exactly who these guys could/should be later, but that’s the big takeaway. In order for the team to have less bad luck next year, they need a more consistent offense. There are no internal options ready for this, so they have to find it externally.

Of course, more pitching depth is also needed — especially the kind of swing depth that someone like Lorenzen provides — but the Royals should be prepared to spend the majority of their free agent budget on hitters. And if they’re serious, they’ll probably have to spend at least as much annual salary as they did on Lugo and Wacha. Will John Sherman be able to add $30 million or more to the salaries of two hitters, not to mention what they need to man the bench and the weak side of the bullpen? Only time will tell.