Winter Meetings Day One: Fear and loathing in Orlando

It seems as though the Winter Meetings always take awhile to get going. On the first official day, executives and media filter in throughout the day and things just sort of pause for a moment as everyone takes a moment to get a read on the room. This year could be different. With a couple of marquee players already off the free agents big board, and with a couple of minor deals already going down, the wheels have been greased for an eventful week,

Then, if Sunday night was any indication, the 2025 edition of baseball’s Winter Meetings are going to be a wild time. The rumors were already off the rails, with the Pittsburgh Pirates reportedly making a four-year offer to Kyle Schwarber. Yes, the Pirates, whose record free agent signing was $39 million for starter Francisco Liriano…in 2014. Oh, and those same Pirates are supposedly talking to the Diamondbacks about second baseman Ketel Marte.

If that news wasn’t already unsettling enough, meanwhile, the veterans committee met for a Hall of Fame election and, from a slate of eight candidates that included Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens and Gary Sheffield and Dale Murphy and they opted for…Jeff Kent.

Let the crazy commence.

The hot Royals rumor on Sunday evening—at least as far as a hot rumor for the Royals goes on the first night of the Winter Meetings—was that the Royals have interest in reuniting with outfielder Mike Yastrzemski and utilityman Adam Frazier. That’s according to a story from Jaylon Thompson at The Star. Consider me underwhelmed.

Yaz is a nice enough player, but I think his contributions to the Royals over the last couple of months have been a bit overstated. Granted, not especially difficult to achieve given the dreck that was the Royals outfield the last couple of seasons. The chart below was Yastrzemski’s rolling wOBA over the 2025 season.

I don’t use wOBA here all that often, but it’s a terrific stat. Yaz joined the Royals after posting 374 plate appearances for the Giants and we see that that particular moment came at one of his low points of the season. The change of scenery clearly suited Yastrzemski as he went on a tear over the next month or so. Indeed, in his first 25 games (covering 92 PAs) with the Royals, he hit .282/.370/.654 with seven home runs and eight doubles. That’s a helluva way to introduce yourself to your new team. And apparently, that makes you fodder for a rumored return to said team.

As you can see above though, Yaz couldn’t maintain that lofty standard he set over his first month in Royal blue. In his final 94 PAs of the 2025 season, he hit just .192/.309/.346. In fact, after his home run binge in August, Yastrzemski didn’t leave the yard again until his final two at bats of the 2025 season. Hence, that massive wOBA spike on the season’s last day.

All that to say, Yastrzemski is a decent enough player, but not one that you target at this stage of the winter. He’s more a filler type of guy that you go after once your first, second, third, and probably fourth choices are all off the board. Steamer projects the left-handed hitter for a .229/.319/.409 performance for 2026, good for a 102 wRC+. That’s really who he is at this stage of his career: A league-average type of hitter. The Royals need a bigger bat.

As for Frazier…meh. The Royals front office clearly likes the guy. The dudes in the clubhouse seem to love him. Still, Frazier has never been a guy who wows with the bat and the Royals are already inexplicably operating beyond capacity at second base after signing Jonathan India and tendering a contract to Michael Massey.

Ken Rosenthal checks in and confirms the Yaz rumor, with a couple other names to ponder:

Among free agents, a reunion with Mike Yastrzemski is one avenue the Royals are exploring. Adolis García, Max Kepler and Mike Tauchman are among the other free agents they could pursue, along with bounceback candidates Lane Thomas and JJ Bleday.

My god. Suddenly Yastrzemski seems truly ideal.

We are going to hear the Royals come up quite a bit at the Winter Meetings when teams are shopping for starting pitching. And who isn’t shopping for starting pitching? Here’s the thing, though…I’m not sold that the Royals have a great deal of starting pitching depth from which to spin a deal.

I mostly agree with Petriello (and Ferrin). Mostly. Lugo’s extension kicks in next season and he’s owed $46 million over the next two years. After last summer’s crash landing, there isn’t a team in the major willing to take contract. Besides, the Royals aren’t going to deal a guy who just signed an extension. That would be a bad look on their part.

As for Wacha, he has two years remaining that will net him $33 million. At 34, that’s a difficult contract to move.

If I had a say (and be very thankful that I do not), I would be looking to spin Noah Cameron. The rookie had a solid debut campaign, but his expected ERA was 4.08, a full run over Cameron’s 2.99 ERA. He had an 84 percent strand rate, which was an insanely inflated number. And his strikeout rate of 7.4 SO/9 and 20.5 percent was underwhelming. As Petriello notes, Cameron is a candidate to regress.

As we’ve already seen this offseason, teams have clearly moved beyond ERA when evaluating results and are focusing on metrics like expected ERA. When numbers like xERA and FIP are used to evaluate Cameron, there’s no way teams would surrender a solid-regular position player that the Royals would be looking for in a trade. I just don’t think they are going to be “wowed” enough to move Cameron.

That leaves Kris Bubic and Cole Ragans. Both those guys would be premium targets…if they hadn’t missed large chunks of the 2025 season to the IL. Bubic, a year away from free agency, is probably in that Cameron category where he would garner an offer that the Royals would consider to be underwhelming. He’s thrown just 162 major league innings in the last three seasons. We know what kind of pitcher Bubic can be when healthy. We just don’t know that he can stay healthy for an entire season.

Ragans? I could see plenty of demand building up there, given his track record and how he finished the season once he came back from his rotator cuff strain. Ragans had an xERA of 2.68 versus a 4.67 ERA and finished with an eye-popping 14.3 SO/9 while walking just 2.9 BB/9. Again, it’s the injuries that would be hovering around any kind of deal. This is why a team and a player work to get back on the mound, even when the games don’t seem to matter late in September. Ragans’ final three starts of the year served notice of what he can do when healthy. If the Royals are going to go for a bigger name than Yastrzemski to shore up their outfield, Ragans is the only guy on this staff that they can deal to get that kind of return.

With the emergence of Carter Jensen as a force behind the dish, another name that will circulate on the rumor mill figures to be prospect Blake Mitchell. That’s why I was intrigued to learn that the Mariners dealt their top catching prospect, 2021 first rounder Harry Ford, to the Washington Nationals. Their return? Left-handed reliever Jose A. Ferrer.

Ferrer is one of those guys who underscores what I wrote above: Teams are shopping for xERA. The southpaw posted a 4.48 ERA, but finished with a 3.60 xERA and 3.04 FIP. He also doesn’t walk anyone, rolling with a 1.9 BB/9. He’s a quality arm to be sure, but is he worth a consensus top 100 prospect? Man, that seems like a heavy price to pay. Sure, Ford is blocked in Seattle by everyone’s favorite Big Dumper, Cal Raleigh, but still…don’t you have to net a better return than a bullpen guy?

It’s a bit of a concerning deal to keep in the back of mind as the Royals explore ways to make their club better this winter.