We are just one day away from real, live exhibition baseball. Now that the dust has mostly settled around the free agent market, it seems like a good time to list the top free agent contracts handed out this winter by each AL Central team. The numbers below are confirmed via Fangraphs:

Detroit: Framber Valdez - 3yrs/$115M
Chicago: Munetaka Murakami - 2yrs/$34M
Minnesota: Victor Caratini - 2yrs/$14M
Cleveland: Shawn Armstrong - 1yr/$5.5M
Kansas City: Lane Thomas - 1yr/$5.25M

Gotta say, the optics of this aren't swell. Although we can caveat most of the names on this list as never being on the radar for the Royals, and with reason. You can never have too much pitching depth, but the Royals do have enough that they eschewed the starting pitching market after being active there the last couple of seasons. Caratini is a catcher and we know the Royals aren’t shopping there.

Murakami is a corner infielder who has appeared in the outfield just once for the Yakult Swallows. Although after learning that he negotiated having a bidet in the clubhouse, I’m wondering why the Royals weren’t more involved in this.

“Did the toilet situation actually come up during negotiations?” Murakami was asked by a reporter.

“Yeah, it did,” Murakami replied. “I mean, I use the bathroom a lot. I don’t want to deal with a stomachache and not feel like playing, so I’d rather get that taken care of and feel good. In Japan, I used one all the time, so I figured it’d be better to have the washlet function here, too. I told my agent that was something I wanted.”

I may have a new favorite player.

The individual signings matter because it foreshadows the total team spending during this past offseason. Witness:

Detroit: $187.03M
Chicago: $78M
Minnesota: $23M
Cleveland: $11.9M
Kansas City: $6.15M

Again, the optics here are less than pleasant. Getting outspent in free agency by the Minnesota Twins three times over? Yet for all my kvetching to this point, we all know money spent in December and January does not correlate to postseason appearances. The New York Mets are dysfunctional proof of this. Still, I cannot help when looking at the list above to be disappointed that the Royals didn’t do more on the open market this winter.

Is that feeling justified?

Coming into the winter, the Royals had holes in the outfield, second base, and a bit of work to do in shoring up the bullpen. Everyone needs to shore up their bullpen. None of this qualifies as breaking news.

The Royals addressed their second base situation early when they offered contracts to Jonathan India and Michael Massey. Please note I did not say they solved their second base situation. They merely addressed it. For the bullpen, the team picked up Nick Mears and Matt Strahm via trades.

So let’s focus on the outfield.

This winter, 21 free agent outfielders signed a major league contract. There was quite an imbalance between the top tier of free agents and the guys in the middle.

I’m loathe to include Ryan O’Hearn on this list because to me he’s more a 1B/DH type, but he has played around 150 innings in the corners in each of the last three seasons and FanGraphs says he belongs. Fine. He can stay. If only because it boggles the mind that he signed the third-richest contract among free agent outfielder.

Then again, seeing Mike Yastrzemski as number four on this list really throws me for a loop. I do not understand how he got a two-year deal but good for him.

Trent Grisham took the qualifying offer from the Yankees.

So from this list, I’m left to wonder how the Royals missed out on Harrison Bader? When the offseason started, I didn’t rate Bader as a good free agent bet. The industry consensus projected something like a two year contract at close to $30 million. I just kind of saw that as an overpay if that was the deal he was truly able to sign. He inked with the San Francisco Giants for two years at $20.5 million. That seems more than fair. Again, I did not see Yaz getting a bigger contract than Bader.

We can mark it down as a miss, but it’s not a huge whiff. The larger point is, there just weren’t many good options that fit the Royals needs on the free agent market. We see where the Royals spent the majority of their money: signing Lane Thomas. Maybe he will have that bounce-back season and impress.

Despite the less than appealing optics on how much they spent in the free agent market, their roster and the players available always made a Royals-sized splash something of a long shot. Doesn't make it any less disappointing, though.

When the first ZiPS team projections dropped a couple of weeks ago, the Detroit Tigers had yet to sign Framber Valdez. In that snapshot, the Royals and Tigers were joint-favorites to win the Central with 83 wins.

This was what I wrote while assessing the projections:

At this moment in time, the difference in the AL Central looks to be down to the margin of error. A good move—say, the Royals acquiring another bat to improve their outfield—or a negative type of move—say, removing Tarik Skubal from the Tigers rotation in a trade—would tip the scales in favor of Kansas City. Of course, there could be movement in the other direction as well.

The Valdez signing qualifies as “movement in the other direction.” Here are the projected ZiPS standings now:

Tigers - 85 wins
Royals - 81 wins
Twins - 79 wins
Guardians - 76 wins
White Sox - 69 wins

The Tigers banked two wins in the aftermath of the Valdez move. The Royals lost two. Hmmmm. Safe to say ZiPS has not fully digested the news that Pablo Lopez will miss the season in Minnesota. Nor have they considered the impact of the bidet in the White Sox clubhouse.

Of course, these are just projections. They don’t play baseball on a spreadsheet, nerd. But projections are odds and we all love to talk about the odds. They’re either in your favor or they’re against you. There are 162 games to go. Who the hell knows how everything will shake out come September. But, today, I think I like the odds of the Detroit Tigers better than those of the Kansas City Royals.

One of my favorite things about the spring training media scrums is just how random players are brought up. Manager Matt Quatraro was asked about Tyler Tolbert and Nick Loftin.

He did mention that he was “99 percent certain” that Steven Kolek would start the Cactus League opener on Friday. That was later confirmed by Anne Rogers on the ground in Surprise. Ryan Bergert will follow Kolek in the spring rotation on Saturday.

On player he was asked about who I am intrigued by is lefty Bailey Falter. After coming over from Pittsburgh in a deadline trade, Falter had an awful introduction to the Royals. After allowing nine runs in eight innings over his first two starts, he was sent to the bullpen where he didn’t fare much better. His season pretty much ended after taking a comebacker off his throwing arm in a game against the Tigers on August 22. He hit the 15-day IL with a left biceps contusion.

I write that I’m intrigued because I feel like we didn’t see the real Bailey Falter. Plus, he’s out of options so, unless the Royals want to completely give up on him, barring injury, he has to be on the roster when the team breaks camp. Here’s what Quatraro had to say about the southpaw:

“He looks great physically. His demeanor’s been tremendous. He’s healthy. He’s throwing the ball with great extension, great carry. In fairness to Bailey, he came over, he was in a tough spot, he was banged up a little bit. We probably saw him at his worst. I think to his credit the way’s he’s put that behind him and moved forward throughout the offseason has been tremendous."

Difficult to read much into the above as everyone is still in the best shape of their life after reporting to camp. But he remains very much on the radar. As he should be.

Something else Quatraro was asked about that I'm surprised hasn't come up more is the possibility, with the Royals having so many starting pitchers who look like they're big league contributors, of running out a six-man rotation.

“It’s certainly something we’ve talked about throughout the offseason. It’s a tough thing to manage, especially when you don’t have a ton of optionable relievers. But it is something we’ve talked about especially maybe in the longer stretches of games."

A six-man rotation means one fewer reliever in the bullpen, hence the need for optional relievers to keep a relatively fresh relief corps. Daniel Lynch IV and Alex Lange along with Steven Cruz and James McArthur are the relievers in camp with major league experience and options remaining. Same goes for Lucas Erceg, but if he's getting optioned the Royals have larger issues than needing to rotate relievers in and out of the bullpen for freshness. Something to watch going forward, though.