Splash Hits: Settling January business

The front office has been busy in the new year.

If December was about overhauling a pitching staff that desperately needed improvement, January is about taking care of the details. From signings to the front office to assembling the roster for Spring Training to taking care of contract business, this isn’t exactly a sexy baseball time, but it’s one that is still vitally important.

With the temperatures and wind chills dropping, why don’t we collectively warm up with some Royals news?

The Royals have been on a bit of a hiring spree of late. First up, they poached Johnny DiPuglia from the Washington Nationals. DiPuglia was with the Nats since 2009 and was most recently their Vice President and Assistant General Manager, International Operations, a position he held since 2019. I’ll let his bio from the Nationals media guide tell you more, because it’s pretty damned impressive.

During his time with the Nationals, DiPuglia has had a hand in the signing and development of Juan Soto, Victor Robles, Luis García, Israel Pineda, Joan Adon, Wander Suero, Jefry Rodriguez, Reynaldo López, Wilmer Difo, Pedro Severino, Rafael Bautista, Raudy Read, Rafael Martin and Yunesky Maya, all of whom reached the Major Leagues with the Nationals. DiPuglia was also instrumental in signing top Latin American prospects, Yasel Antuna, Armando Cruz, Andry Arias, Jeremy De La Rosa, Andry Lara, Daniel Marte, Roismar Quintana and Cristhian Vaquero, among others.

At the 2019 Winter Meetings, DiPuglia was awarded the Professional Scouts International Scout of the Year Award. Following the 2020 season, he was inducted into the South Florida Baseball Hall of Fame for over 30 years of service and dedication to the South Florida baseball community.

In addition to the impact he’s had with Washington, over the course of his career, DiPuglia was involved in the signings of José Iglesias, Xander Bogaerts, Hanley Ramírez, Aníbal Sánchez, Placido Polanco, Felix Díaz, Ángel Chavez, Jorge De La Rosa, Rick Ankiel, Eli Marrero, and René Arocha, among many others. In 1997 he received the Danny Monzon Scout of the Year South Florida Award for his work with the Red Sox and in 2005 he received the Red Sox International Scout of the Year Award.

DiPuglia’s role with the Royals will officially be Special Assistant of International Scouting. From the names listed above, this feels like a coup for the Royals’ international operations, an area where they sorely need help, and with some breaks, could become an organizational strength.

The Royals also hired Fred Guerrero from the Minnesota Twins where he served as Director, Latin America Scouting and US Integration. He doesn’t have a Juan Soto on his scouting resume (although if that’s how we’re measuring scouts, we’ll just be over here spinning our wheels), nevertheless, he’s been instrumental in finding some talent for the Twins.

Fred Guerrero began his career with the Twins in 2004 as Dominican Scout Supervisor, signing players like Luis Arraez, Yennier Cano, Danny Santana, Jorge Polanco and Miguel Sanó.

Guerrero’s responsibilities include traveling around Latin America to scout and sign young talent to be developed in the Twins Dominican Republic Academy.

He was promoted to his current role in 2014 and has since signed Brusdar Graterol, Edwar Colina and Yunior Severino, while helping in the acquisition of Adalberto Mejía, Steven Moya, Jorge Alcala, Gilberto Celestino and Jhoan Duran.

Guerrero joins the Royals as Coordinator of Player Evaluation.

A couple of other hires were made and while the Royals didn’t send out any kind of press release for those, their potential impact could be huge.

These are pitching lab guys. Pitching lab guys! I’m going to go ahead and give credit to General Manager JJ Picollo and his existing staff for making these hires as they continue to overhaul the staff that works behind the scenes.

I cannot tell you how enthused I am for the Royals to be making these kinds of moves in the scouting, development and coaching avenues of the game. With the resumes all four bring, I doubt they would be coming to Kansas City if the Royals weren’t entirely serious about improving and building upon the infrastructure put into place since Picollo’s hiring as the GM at the end of the 2022 season.

While the free agent splash is everyone’s focal point this winter, it’s worthwhile to remember that there’s a lot of work to do behind the scenes if the Royals are ever to return to contention in the Central and beyond. These moves are reason to crank the optimism meter up another notch.

The Royals released their list of non-roster invitees to spring training which mercifully starts in just over a month from now.

Pitchers: Dan Altavilla, Mason Barnett, Luis Cessa, Christian Chamberlain, Chandler Champlain, Austin Cox, Tyler Duffey, Sam Long, Walter Pennington, Beck Way

Catchers: Tyler Cropley, Rodolfo Duran, Carter Jensen, Logan Porter, Luca Tresh

Infielders: CJ Alexander, Mike Brosseau, Cam Devanney, Devin Mann, Tyler Tolbert

Outfielders: Nate Eaton, Diego Hernandez, John Rave

Pitchers Altavilla and Duffey along with third baseman Brosseau have major league experience and could all act as depth pieces down the road. They all penned minor league contracts this year.

Barnett is the Royals’ six-best prospect on the Royals Baseball America Top 10 list while Champlain checks seventh. Jensen (7) is in MLB Pipeline’s top 10.

I’m not sure I see a path for any of these players to break camp with the major league squad. That seems like a good thing. Picollo and staff have done a strong job upgrading the 40-man that unless there’s an outbreak of injuries in Surprise, figures to be where the Royals get their players for Opening Day.

The Royals reached an agreement with all their arbitration-eligible players ahead of yesterday’s deadline, meaning they won’t be going to a hearing with any of their players. The numbers:

Brady Singer - $4.85 million
Kyle Wright - $1.8 million
Nick Anderson - $1.575 million
Carlos Hernández - $1.0125 million

You’ll recall that Singer went to a hearing last year as he and the Royals differed on valuation. Singer wanted $3.325 million while the Royals countered at $2.95 million. The Royals won that hearing.

The Royals had already agreed to contracts with arbitration-eligible Josh Taylor ($1.1 million) and Kris Bubic ($2.35 million). They now have 15 players under contract for 2024 which means—barring yet another free agent signing—the remainder of the roster will be made up of players with less than three years of major league experience, all of whom will make close to the minimum salary of $740,000. Unless, you know, the Royals come up with an extension for Bobby Witt Jr.

The Royals projected Opening Day payroll now comes in at around $107 million.

Speaking of a potential Witt extension, I remain optimistic that there will be some movement on that front in the coming weeks. Can you imagine if they announced it at FanFest (or whatever the Royals are calling it these days)? It would be amazing, but I’m not sure that’s on the cards. It’s more likely the details get ironed out early in spring training. Focus on late February, before Cactus League play starts.

The Royals have had an outstanding winter to this point. The front office is making all the right baseball moves. It would be a shame if they couldn’t get a Witt extension done.

In stadium news, it looks like Jackson County will have an extension of the 3/8 cent sales tax on the ballot in April. The money would go to the Royals to help them build a new stadium somewhere in the county and the Chiefs for a renovation of Arrowhead (or whatever they call where they play their football games). The move to put the measure on the ballot won by an 8-1 vote. County commissioner and Royals Hall of Famer Frank White has 10 days to veto. He’s playing coy and won’t tip his hand, but you and I both know what he’s going to do. It takes a six-member super-majority to overturn White’s inevitable veto and while it certainly looks like they have to votes to do it based on the initial measure, I take nothing in city or county politics for granted.

The key takeaway from all of this is there still aren’t any plans with what the teams will do with the money. Seriously. There isn’t a site for a new ballpark, nor have the Chiefs said what “improvements” they’ll make to their stadium. This is very much a “give us money now and we’ll work the details later” kind of a shakedown.

Beyond that, there are a ton of moving parts to this drama, many of which will come to a head sometime this month I would imagine. Stay tuned.