Time to ignite the hot stove

The Royals are making some (minor) moves as baseball offseason gets underway, an awards shortlist and a former Royals hangs it up. Opening Day is 147 days away.

When Josh Sborz slung a curveball in the top of the zone for a called third strike, bringing the curtain down on the 2023 season and the Texas Rangers their first championship in franchise history, I couldn’t help but think of another called third strike to close out a championship. You probably did, too. Wade Davis throwing a dart to Drew Butera exactly eight years prior will forever be an iconic moment in franchise history.

As the Rangers celebrated on the field and the players did the obligatory postgame interviews, I couldn’t help but think that this team was a bunch of mostly really likable dudes. It’s easy to root for a Corey Seager or an Adolis García. In an October short on drama and capital M Moments, those two guys cemented themselves as postseason legends. I don’t know about you, but my favorite of the bunch may be Marcus Semien.

When he arrived in Oakland after the 2014 season, Semien was probably the worst defensive shortstop in the game. The A’s hired Ron Washington to tutor the young infielder. Semien took to the lessons and almost immediately saw his glove game improve. He did this while maintaining around league-average offensive production.

About midway through his tenure in Oakland, with Washington off to work for Atlanta, Semien saw his production explode in all areas. He’s maintained that level of greatness to where, having to take a one-year “show me” deal from Toronto following the COVID 2020 season, he’s established himself as one of the game’s elite players over the last three seasons. When he blasted the home run in the ninth inning of Game 5 to provide the Rangers’ final margin of victory, I couldn’t help but be happy for the guy. It’s a helluva success story and an easy guy to root for.

With the World Series over, it’s time to ignite the hot stove. Teams could start making moves with their rosters on Thursday, and eligible players became free agents. For the Royals that means Matt Duffy, Zack Greinke and Brad Keller are officially off the roster and on the open market. Well, maybe not officially on the open market as free agents can’t sign with new clubs for the next five days. Oh! The qualifying offer for free agents this year is reported to be $20.5 million. Let’s go right ahead and remove that from the list of potential moves from the Royals front office.

I’m on the record as saying as long as Greinke wants to push upper 80 MPH fastballs and upper 60 MPH curveballs up there, I’m good with him as a member of the Royals’ roster. His 2023 season wasn’t great, but he did manage 1.1 fWAR and 142 innings, both numbers trailing only Brady Singer among pitchers who opened the year with the club. Unless the Royals decide to follow the Rangers’ blueprint and corner the market on starting free-agent pitchers this winter, it’s not like Greinke would be in the way. He seems fine with his workload management and could even transition to opener or swingman out of the bullpen.

As for Duffy and Keller, if they return there’s something wrong with the new process in Kansas City.

The aforementioned qualifying offers are due by November 6, the same day teams will have to make decisions on player options for 2024. The Royals don’t have any options to deal with this winter, which is a shame given that contract guru Jin Wong departed the organization a few weeks ago. Wong joined the Royals in 2000 as a scouting coordinator and saw his role grow under Dayton Moore to where he was the point person on just about all contract negotiations and roster and payroll management, including arbitration. Not many people can span multiple general managers in a baseball front office. Wong has been vital to the ins and outs of personnel management. He is going to be missed.

Wong joined us as a guest at a Baseball Prospectus gathering at Kauffman Stadium about 10 years ago. He was an excellent guest who brought some great insight and a touch of humor to the proceedings. My favorite exchange of the night was when someone asked him why the Royals seemed to always include a mutual option on all their multi-year contracts.

Wong’s response: “We do?”

You should’ve been there.

Also needing to be done by November 6, teams have to activate players on the 60-day IL and add them back to the 40-man roster. The Royals were proactive here, activating a plethora of players including Jake Brentz, Kris Bubic, Austin Cox, Freddy Fermin, Daniel Lynch IV, Vinnie Pasquantino, Josh Staumont and Josh Taylor on Thursday.

Whew. That was some kind of injury list.

The Royals obviously had to make room to get those players back to the 40-man. They shuffled some guys around last week, outrighting Tyler Cropley and Taylor Hearn to Omaha while waiving Tucker Davidson and Bubba Thompson. The three departing free agents created a little more space. In the flurry of moves on Thursday, the Royals opened their final spot by designating Nate Eaton for assignment.

Eaton had a miserable time in Kansas City in 2023, hitting just .075/.125/.075 in 56 plate appearances. He fared a little better in Triple-A Omaha (how could you be any worse?), but still hit just .252/.312/.441, good for an 84 wRC+.

While Eaton was never much of a prospect, I think it’s important to note that while he made his major league debut in 2022, he had never played an inning above High-A prior to that season. Plus, he’s going to be 27 next season. Sometimes, the game just moves a little too fast.

Fresh off his snub for at least an honorable Gold Glove mention, Bobby Witt Jr. is a finalist for a Silver Slugger at shortstop. Competition is fierce as recently minted World Series MVP Corey Seager is the prohibitive favorite. Seager finished with a 169 wRC+, hitting a robust .327/.390/.623. Witt finished at .276/.319/.495 and a 115 wRC+.

Yeah, it’s not really much of a contest.

Still, I’ll go all cliché here and say it’s really just an honor for Witt to be nominated. On June 2 he was hitting .228/.265/.427 and showing little improvement from what was a solid, if unspectacular, rookie campaign. From that point though, he was on fire. Over the final four months of the season, Witt hit .303/.348/.533 and broke out in a major way. If he continues making adjustments and improving (it’s crazy that he’s going to be 24 next year) the awards will come in time. He’s certainly on the right track.

Salvador Perez also earned a “finalist” designation for the Silver Slugger at catcher. What’s that saying that life is 90 percent just showing up? Three backstops qualified for the batting title this year. All are finalists for the award.

Adley Rutschman - 127 wRC+
Cal Raleigh - 111 wRC+
Salvador Perez - 86 wRC+

I’d like to recycle that cliché, but I’m not sure it applies.

With Texas winning the World Series, pitcher Ian Kennedy has decided it’s time to retire. He wasn’t on the Rangers’ postseason roster but did throw 16 innings for Texas this year with a 7.16 ERA.

Since leaving the Royals after the 2020 season, Kennedy has made a pair of stops in Texas along with time in Philadelphia and Arizona for a return engagement with the Diamondbacks. It was with those Diamondbacks that Kennedy established himself as a 200-inning-per-year workhorse, at one point winning 21 games and leading the league in starts on one occasion.

His signing in Kansas City was ill-advised, especially given he was tagged with the qualifying offer when he left San Diego as a free agent. He had one good season for the Royals as a starter (2016) and then showed some moxie as a reliever, saving 30 games for the 2019 Royals.

Overall, it was a really fine career, spanning 17 major league seasons with success as both a starter and a reliever. And he caps it off with a World Series ring. Not too shabby.