Winter Event Day Two: Stating the obvious

We’re just two days in to the annual gathering of baseball glitterati, and somehow it all feels like February 2nd. The rumors, the buzz, the juice…everything surrounding the Royals is exactly the same. All day. Every day. I Got You, Babe, indeed.

Did you hear that the Royals are interested in outfielders so much that they want to acquire not just one, but two? My sources tell me this is true. True, I tell ya! Who would’ve thought the Royals would be seeking to corner the corner outfield market?

Maybe we should reverse-engineer some rumors. How about, the Royals are not talking to the Mets about acquiring Juan Soto. Picollo has not expressed interest in signing Kyle Tucker. I’ll continue to workshop this.

Really, though, I gotta ease up. Rumors can be fun. They give us something to talk about. Besides, the offseason is a marathon, not a sprint, or something like that. But as we discussed in the comments yesterday, the rumors around the Royals at this point are a bit obvious, where the Royals are connected to every single player who isn’t going to be on a nine-digit contract, which means they’re veering into tedium.

The latest as of this writing is that the Royals are among the teams interested in Houston center fielder Jake Meyers. Meyers has two seasons of club control remaining and is due around $3.5 million this year according to MLB Trade Rumors arbitration projections. He’s a plus defender who probably had his best season offensively in 2025 when he hit .292/.354/.373, good for a 107 wRC+. That OBP was a career high rate as his total career OBP is just .307.

In other words, the Astros would be selling high, should they be willing to move Meyers in a trade. Not a bad strategy on their part.

I think I’m at risk of overvaluing Royals players in a trade for a player like Meyers. Even though Bubic has just a year before he hits free agency and has battled injury in each of the last three seasons, his upside as a staff ace means I wouldn’t want to part with him for Meyers. While I believe Noah Cameron is set to take a step back, his years of team control remaining carry some value. More than a straight swap for a historically defense-first center fielder.

The Royals already have a defense-first center fielder in Kyle Isbel. In fact, while Meyers is a year older than Isbel, both have followed the same path offensively-speaking for the most part throughout their careers.

That’s kind of wild. Until 2025 when Meyers cut his strikeout rate and bumped his walk rate a bit, they’ve been basically the same player. Although I would probably rate Isbel as a better overall defender.

I wonder how sticky Meyers’ improvement in OBP will be in the next couple of seasons. The decrease in strikeout rate he experienced last season was large—he went from 22.8 percent in 2024 to 17.6 percent last year—and he really cut down on his chase rate. Meyers finished with a 31.2 percent chase rate in ’24, which was in the 29th percentile according to Baseball Savant. This year, he posted a 23.7 percent chase rate, good for the 79th percentile. That 7.5 percentage point drop was the second-largest decrease in the majors in 2025.

Meanwhile, his contact rate on pitches in the zone jumped up to just over 90 percent, an elite rate.

Should Meyers be able to replicate his approach in 2026 and 2027, he would absolutely bring value—more value that I see the Royals getting from Isbel.

But is he worth someone from the Royals rotation?

Jon Heyman (I know, I know) linked the Royals to just about every outfielder available on Monday. Maybe not every outfielder. But he did name Harrison Bader and Austin Hays as potential free agent targets. Meanwhile, Ken Rosenthal said the Royals would not be going after Kyle Tucker or Cody Bellinger. Thanks for nothing, Ken.

Like just about every name floated here, I’m not sold on Hays as a free agent candidate. He saw a bit of a power spike in his move from Baltimore to Cincinnati, but it feels like it should’ve been a bit more given where the left field wall was positioned in Baltimore up until recently compared to the home run bandbox that is found in Cincinnati. He’s also not that great of a defensive player, which as we know, is something the Royals covet for their expansive outfield.

But the money (and contract length) for Hays is probably right. That’s troubling. A free agent of convenience.

Manager Matt Quatraro was on MLB Radio Network early Monday. As you would expect, there were questions on getting more offense and potentially dealing from the starting rotation. Quatraro, though, never fails to keep things interesting. Complimentary, as the kids say these days. For instance, here’s Q on the Royals struggles last summer and how they can find some improvements internally:

When you look at ’24 and the second half of ’25, there are a tremendous amount of similarities and that’s winning baseball. Baseball is extremely random and you’re going to have to withstand some of those ups and downs. But at the same time, I think it’s been a positive for us as a coaching staff as to, what can we do better as a coaching staff to get that little incremental improvement out of these guys.

And for myself, like the decision-making of when to deploy certain guys, is it, did this guy need one extra day off here so that he was a little fresher for a better match up the next day? And how did I use the bench and certain pinch hit opportunities and those kinds of things. So trying to find those really, really small upgrades to win that one game here and there. So I think it’s been a positive to go through those struggles for us as a coaching staff and as a team, because now they know how to deal with that stuff a little bit better.

This continues the theme Quatraro struck in his end of the season press conference where he stated that he and his staff have to improve along the margins. They are looking to steal wins here and there, and put themselves in the position where, if the game can break in either direction, they have a great chance at coming out on top.

For those of you reading this who are Quatraro skeptics, I can hear your response…”Shouldn’t all managers be doing this?” and “How long does it take him to figure this stuff out?” I get it. I do. But I also appreciate Quatraro pulling back the managerial curtain a bit and going a bit deeper than managers have in the past.

The skipper was also asked about the Royals trading from their supposed starting pitching depth. Let’s just say he doesn’t sound like a fan:

I mean, look at what happened last year. We thought we had good depth last year and not only did we sustain injuries in the major leagues, but the depth got hurt.

Kyle Wright couldn’t get going and Alec Marsh was out and Luinder Avila got hurt when he was going to come up. So you’re looking at all of a sudden, you lose six to seven guys in a month period. That’s tough to withstand. Now, everybody goes through that. So that’s our job to continue to create better depth and more depth.

So it is scary to think about trading any starting pitching.

What happened last year shouldn’t stop them from dealing away from their rotation. They should, as always, be looking to maximize their return. Obvious, right? Now who sounds like Heyman and Rosenthal?)

The draft lottery will take place Tuesday afternoon. Of the 15 teams qualified for the lottery, the Royals have the 12th-best odds to land the top selection. They have a 0.84 percent chance. Fun!

The lottery will be used to fill the top six spots in the draft. After that, teams will slot into their original position based on record. At 82-80 last year, the Royals were firmly in the middle of the pack. If their name is not called in the lottery—and assuming the Mets and Astros don’t move ahead of them in the draft order—they will be picking 16th in the first round next summer.