The Royals sweep while ownership stumbles

Zack Greinke strikes out five what could be his final appearane at The K, the Royals reshuffle their scouting department and ownership can't decide where to build their boondoggle of a new stadium.

The Cleveland Guardians season was on life support when they opened their three-game set in Kansas City on Monday. The Royals had the honor of pulling the plug.

Wednesday afternoon’s 6-2 victory over the Guardians closed out the three-game sweep. Zack Greinke struck out five in 3.2 innings and passed Bret Saberhagen for fourth on the franchise strikeout list. He walked off to a standing ovation in the fourth. Good for the 12,000+ present to recognize the moment. God, I hope that’s not the last we see of Greinke in a Royals uniform at The K. Matt Quatraro clearly has him on a shorter leash, but you have to believe that Greinke is okay with that. He can still be effective in these short bursts. Bring him back for another year where he’s used for one turn through the order or something. We can afford the sentimentality. I selfishly want him to pitch forever.

Angel Zerpa closed out the win with 5.1 scoreless out of the bullpen. Nelson Velázquez clubbed a three-run bomb to give the Royals a lead they would never relinquish in the first. They went just 2-18 with runners in scoring position, but the offensive production was balanced enough to plate a handful of runs after Velázquez’s blast.

The Royals have now won 10 games this month, matching their highest monthly victory total this season. They went 10-17 back in May. September warriors, indeed.

I wrote on Wednesday that the Royals would need to go 7-3 to avoid the franchise record for losses in a season. One down. Six to go.

With the season winding down, teams that crashed and burned by the All-Star break are getting the jump on restructuring their front offices. Of course, major changes have already been afoot on the South Side of Chicago where Chris Getz was recently named vice president and general manager of the White Sox. He made his first hires earlier this week by bringing San Francisco Giants pitching director Brian Bannister on board, along with Royals assistant general manager Gene Watson. Also included in the hiring binge was Arizona Diamondbacks director of player development Josh Barfield.

Bannister, of course, was one of the early proponents of the PitchF/X system that was the rage during his pitching days with the Royals. Since leaving baseball, he’s become quite the pitching guru, working in Boston during a couple of their World Championship runs and is currently toiling in the Giants organization. With the success he’s had as a coach at both his major league stops, it’s probably not a good thing for Bannister to be employed within the AL Central. He is reportedly becoming the Director of Pitching for the White Sox.

Watson has been with the Royals since 2006, despite a brief sojourn to California to work with the Angels for the 2021 season. His current title with the Royals is Vice President of Major League Scouting/Assistant GM. It’s safe to say that Watson was one of Dayton Moore’s close advisors, working with the Royals’ former GM almost since day one. While I’ve gone on the record that I firmly believe JJ Picollo to be his own man and bring different philosophies to his role as general manager than his predecessor, I will also maintain that it’s a good thing when members of Moore’s old staff depart. They need a thorough reimagining of their processes in the front office in general, and the scouting department in particular.

If you’d like a Chicago perspective on Getz’s hires (spoiler: people aren’t happy), Jim Margolis at the wonderful Sox Machine has the breakdown.

While Watson exits, the Royals have already made a key addition to their scouting department. Keith Law broke the news on Wednesday that the Royals had hired Brian Bridges from the Atlanta Braves to be their scouting director. RJ Anderson of CBS Sports said on Tuesday on Bluesky that changes were coming to Kansas City’s scouting department.

Bridges joined the Braves as a scout in 2007 and was the scouting director in Atlanta from 2015 to 2018 He oversaw the drafts where the Braves selected Mike Soroka, Austin Riley, Kyle Wright and Ian Anderson, among others. Bridges receives a lion's share of credit for building the foundation of the Atlanta farm system both as a scout and scouting director. He is currently working for the Giants as a cross checker.

Bridges was surprisingly dismissed by the Braves in January of 2019, along with senior advisor to amateur scouting Roy Clark, just three months after both signed one-year contracts. Clark, a massively respected talent evaluator, joined the Royals last year as a Senior Advisor to Baseball Operations. Clark, it has been said, was Bridges’s mentor.

I’ll go on the record and say this is a very good hire for the Royals. A great one, even. The Royals’ amateur scouting track record has been poor for quite some time. An injection of new ideas, especially new ideas from Atlanta, is necessary and welcome. To bring Bridges on board is quite a hiring coup for the Royals.

However, if you’re like me and hoping for a more complete scouting overhaul, that’s not happening. From Anne Rogers:

The new hire comes as part of a couple of reshuffling moves in the Royals' front office ahead of this offseason. Per sources, general manager J.J. Picollo and the Royals are expected to promote current scouting director Danny Ontiveros, who is in his 17th season with Kansas City and has run the past two MLB Drafts, to vice president of scouting. Ontiveros is still expected to help with the Draft.

Royals vice president of player personnel Lonnie Goldberg, who oversaw Draft efforts from 2011-22 and continued to help in ‘23, will remain in the front office and help with scouting, per source.

I would be happier if Ontiveros stepped completely aside and let Bridges handle the draft on his own, with an assist from Clark. For now, I’ll just be pleased that Bridges is going to be an influential voice in that draft room.

If you’re going to emulate an organization, why not the Braves? It looks like they’re slowly picking up some of their front office talent and have frequently mentioned The Battery area and their new ballpark in suburban Atlanta as an inspiration for their new ballpark village. Now they just have to get some young players who are worthy of long-term contracts. (Hello, Bobby Witt, Jr.!) They certainly have some sort of winning formula down south.

Oh, speaking of the stadium project, in a press release that should surprise absolutely no one, the Royals still can’t decide where it should be located. Of course, this runs counter to John Sherman’s open letter back in July where he said they would announce a site “in late September.”

This is just a glorious disaster. Here’s the full release:

Our site evaluation process is moving thoughtfully and directly, including a regular cadence of focused meetings with respected and designated negotiators with both counties in discussions on our next lease.

We’ve been encouraged by the engagement of leaders in Jackson County and Clay County, with recent meetings furthering our progress in a meaningful way. Leaders in both counties know a critical piece of the evaluation process will be negotiated lease terms so that the Royals, our future partner, and most importantly the voters can know what to expect. With the framework of our current lease and willing partners on all sides, we are optimistic that the process will result in a win-win for the Royals and our next home.

Although we will not have a site selected by the end of this month, we are more confident than ever that a world-class ballpark and surrounding district for entertainment, retail and housing will build on our region’s momentum, serve our citizens well, and further establish Kansas City as a top tier destination for tourists.

Leaders in both Jackson County and Clay County know that we and the Chiefs need clarity on our stadium plans in time for the public to be fully informed for a vote in April 2024. We take our responsibilities very seriously to act in the best interests of both the Royals and our region, and we will continue our work to make sure this project is done right.

There are three mentions of “leases” in the first two paragraphs. This is a problem. The Royals need to get an agreement in place with whichever entity would control the new stadium while negotiating the exit from their current lease which runs through the 2031 season. Jackson County won’t put the issue on the ballot (if the East Village is the destination) until the lease questions are settled. I’m reading between the lines here: Any potential leases aren’t close to being finalized.

If the Royals were to move downtown, I would assume the negotiation with Jackson County would go relatively smoothly as far as breaking the current lease at the Truman Sports Complex. Things would be quite tricky should the Royals decide to leave Jackson County for Clay County. Why would Jackson County agree to an early termination so the Royals can leave? Hmmmm…sounds like money. The Royals have created a rather complex situation for themselves. That it’s entirely self-inflicted is amazing.

Then there’s the Chiefs. The two teams are tied together in their leases with Jackson County. The presence of two professional sports teams with their hands out looking for government assistance only complicates things. As Dave Helling points out on Twitter, both teams have around 120 days to renegotiate two leases before the Royals stadium issue goes on a ballot. But the ballot in which county? Ah, no one quite knows.

This continues to be an embarrassing episode for the Royals. The entire process so far has been an absolute shambles. Let’s take a moment to recap: They have no details and no site. All they have is a lame press conference with some generic renderings and false promises. Other than that, things are great. I’m thinking I’d like to play poker with John Sherman. He seems like a guy who goes all-in on a mediocre hand not because he’s bluffing, but because he believes his hand is the winning one.

Did Sherman really believe that all it took was him saying that “it is time to leave Kauffman Stadium,” and like magic, the community would gift him and his partners a new ballpark complete with an entertainment district? That’s not how this works. Especially when you have a stadium as beloved as Kauffman, where the most recent round of renovations funded by the taxpayers of Jackson County are still being paid down.

What a disaster this has been.