It's an honor to be nominated

Three Royals make the shortlists for baseball's big awards. The Royals announce game times for 2025. A fun question to ponder.

On Monday, Major League Baseball announced their finalists* for their annual awards and, as expected, Bobby Witt Jr., Seth Lugo and manager Matt Quatraro are all listed in their respective categories.

*I went on a mini rant on Bluesky** about the list of three players for each award as being a “finalist.” That implies another round of voting beyond the original balloting. That does not happen. Maybe it should. But it doesn’t. Instead, I have decided to say that players have made a “shortlist.” As in, Bobby Witt, Jr. is on the shortlist for the AL MVP award.

**If you’re into social media, Bluesky seems to be where it’s at these days. I am about two days from permanently deleting my Twitter account, or figuring out how to lock it down. Not that it matters so much as it’s been dormant for a few months. You can follow me at craigbrownkc.bsky.social.

These shortlists are an acknowledgment of sorts from the BBWAA that the Royals had a helluva season. Not that you needed that kind of validation. Still, it’s nice to be noticed and Witt, Lugo and Quatraro are all very much deserving of that

Here’s the shortlist for AL MVP:

Aaron Judge
Juan Soto
Bobby Witt, Jr.

I listed the three in alphabetical order. Remember that one year where they listed the players in the order they finished, inadvertently spoiling the whole reveal? Anyway, Judge is your odds-on favorite for this award. No, they don’t count the postseason so we really shouldn’t mention that Judge hit .184/.344/.408 with a 31 percent strikeout rate in this past October. Seriously. Don’t mention it.

If I had a crippling gambling addiction and a BetYourLifeSavings.com account, I would figure out how to place a wager on Witt finishing second.

An important aside about Witt making this shortlist. This was Witt’s third and final season with what MLB calls “Prospect Promotion Incentive eligibility.” This is the program where a team can earn a Draft pick after the first round if a player accrues one full year of service as a rookie and then factors into a major award before he finishes his third full season. A player has to either win the Rookie of the Year award in his first season or finish in the top three of the MVP or Cy Young awards in any of his first three. This was Witt’s third and final season as a PPI-eligible player, so a top-three finish in the MVP voting will earn the Royals an extra pick in next year’s Draft, which is a nice bonus. The selection comes following the first round. It should be pick 31 or 32, depending on how the Rookie of the Year votes pan out.

Here’s the shortlist for the AL Cy Young Award:

Emmanuel Clase
Seth Lugo
Tarik Skubal

Again, this award is done and dusted—it’s Skubal all the way. The guy won the Pitching Triple Crown. The same thing I said above for Witt goes for Lugo here. He’s a stone-cold lock to finish second. What a fantastic free agent signing by Picollo.

I have to say, I’m a bit surprised that Clase is on the shortlist (meaning he will have finished third) and not Cole Ragans. If we’ve learned anything as baseball has evolved these last few seasons (and from the entirety of the 2024 Kansas City Royals), it’s that good starting pitchers bring a ton of value to a team. Ragans was seventh in the league with 186.1 innings pitched and finished in the top 10 in ERA, hits allowed per nine, and Adjusted ERA+. He finished behind Skubal in strikeouts (228 to 223) and first in SO/9. I think Ragans was clearly one of the three best pitchers in the AL this year.

Clase led the league with 47 saves, which was 13 more than Josh Hader in second place. He also allowed just five earned runs the entire year. Yes, I’ll grant you that’s crazy impressive. But I cannot get around the fact he pitched 74.1 innings.

I’m going to guess that Ragans finishes fourth.

Here is the shortlist for AL Manager of the Year:

AJ Hinch
Matt Quatraro
Steven Vogt

Safe to say a few teams in the AL Central caught people by surprise? I know there are going to be some fanbases that back their guy…Hinch snapped his also-ran team out of their doldrums to a hellacious charge in August and September to make the playoffs. Vogt took over for an incredible manager in Terry Francona and immediately put his stamp on a team that exceeded expectations to win the division.

But in my mind, I just don’t see how you can overlook the job Quatraro did in turning this team around. From 56 wins to 86 in the span of just one season is incredible. From 106 losses to the postseason is amazing. Sure, JJ Picollo should get a ton of credit for assembling the team, but Quatraro was the man who had to get the most out of these players. I think it’s safe to say that’s what happened.

It’s strange to be so invested in an award for a manager, but here I am.

The awards will be announced next week. The Rookies of the Year will be announced on November 18, followed by the Managers of the Year. The Cy Youngs are distributed on November 20 with the MVPs collecting their hardware the next day.

If you’re the type who likes to really plan ahead, the Royals announced their starting times for games next year. The big news is that all weeknight games (with the exceptions of Fridays starting in June) will begin at 6:40. They had been starting at that time during the months of April, May and September but now that’s the time year-round.

I think I’m a fan of that start time. Pair an earlier start with shorter games with the pitch clock and you can be home by 9:30 on weeknights which seems ideal to me.

I stumbled across something of a fun prompt on the Royals Reddit the other day, that I thought I would share here: What is the greatest Royals historical moment you were in attendance for?

There are a few obvious answers that will immediately spring to mind. Of games and moments of the last 10 years or so, the 2014 Wild Card Game is a huge one, obviously. Or Game Six of the 2014 World Series. Or Game Six of the 2015 ALCS. Then there’s Game One of the 2015 World Series. And those are all exceptional options. But I’m also drawn to maybe the less obvious, something perhaps a little more personal. Greinke Day starts. The August Sunday George Brett topped .400. Bret Saberhagen’s no-hitter. Brett’s final home game. Or maybe if you enjoy a special kind of pain there’s Opening Day 2004 (ignoring what came in the other 161 games that followed) which might have been the most thrilling game I attended up until the Wild Card game. Perhaps a Bo Jackson moment or a Kevin Appier start.

There was, of course, a handful of amazing games in 1985 at Royals Stadium, including the night they clinched the AL West to Game Three of the ALCS and extending to Games Six and Seven of the World Series.

Go back even further and you have the first ever game at Royals Stadium in 1973. The Nolan Ryan no-hitter, also in ‘73. The 1973 All-Star Game (or the one in 2012). The first-ever playoff game in 1976.

That is to say, there have been quite a few epic moments at The K over the last 50-plus seasons. So I’ll pose the question here and you can share in the comments if you like: What is the greatest moment you’ve witnessed at Kauffman Stadium?

I’d rank my moments as follows:

1. Game Seven of the 1985 World Series. Those are my tickets above.

2. The 2014 AL Wild Card.

3. George Brett’s final home game in 1993.

What are yours?