GM: Royals hope to deepen bullpen, add versatile hitter
Kansas City Royals general manager J.J. Picollo.
The Royals have been one of baseball’s best turnaround stories in 2024, currently sitting nine games over .500 and in possession of the second Wild Card spot in the American League. At five games back of the division-leading Guardians and a half-game up on the third-place Twins, they’re in a tightly contested race for their division as well.
Royals general manager J.J. Picollo joined Jayson Stark and Doug Glanville on "The Windup" podcast Monday to discuss an aggressive offseason that saw Kansas City sign nine free agents for more than $100M in total guarantees before signing franchise shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. to an 11-year, $288.7M extension. Royals fans, in particular, will want to listen to the excellent, roughly 45-minute interview in full to hear about the work to establish a new identity for the team, some inner-workings on that Witt extension and plenty of anecdotes stemming from Picollo’s lengthy career in the industry.
But Stark noted late in the conversation that given the Royals’ performance and the timing of the chat, he’d be remiss not to inquire about the Royals’ deadline needs. Picollo, naturally, didn’t tip his hand in too much detail but did speak about his desire to deepen the bullpen and add a bat capable of playing both the outfield and the infield in an effort to lengthen the lineup.
“Some of our relief corps is starting to pitch to the capabilities and abilities we’ve seen in the past,” Picollo said of his relief corps. “That’s going to be helpful, which will help put pieces of the puzzle together, but getting deeper in our bullpen to come alongside of those guys, I think, would be great. Whether or not it’s a closer — that’s going to be very difficult for anybody — there’s only going to be so many of them, and the competition will be steep. But if we can get deeper and be more reliable in our bullpen, that would be great. I’ve talked in the past about strikeouts. We’re more of a matchup bullpen without necessarily the big power. Now, we do have a couple guys we think might fit the bill internally but haven’t done it quite yet.”
The Royals indeed lack the type of power arms that proliferate the late innings of modern MLB games. The Kansas City bullpen’s 93.6 mph average fastball (per Statcast) is tied for fourth-slowest in MLB. The only entrenched Royals relievers who’ve averaged 95 mph or better on their heater this season are James McArthur and Angel Zerpa. Righties Carlos Hernandez, Dan Altavilla and Will Klein have each averaged 96.7 mph or better, but none has thrown even six innings with the big league club.
McArthur, Klein and Hernandez are likely among the names to which Picollo alluded when suggesting that the organization has power arms in house that could eventually fit that bill but haven’t done so at a consistent level. Hernandez had a big first half in 2023 and averages nearly 99 mph on his blazing heater, but has struggled with subpar command and troubles keeping the ball in the park. McArthur had a dominant finish in 2023 and a big first month in 2024, but he’s sitting on a 7.20 ERA in 15 frames since the calendar flipped to May. Klein is one of the organization’s top bullpen prospects but has walked nearly 16% of his opponents in Triple-A Omaha this year.
Kansas City has gotten particularly shaky results from its two free-agent additions to the bullpen. Left-hander Will Smith and righty Chris Stratton both have pitched to ERAs north of 5.00. Stratton’s 29 1/3 innings are tops in the Royals’ bullpen, but he’s walking a career-worst 15.2% of his opponents and sitting at 92.2 mph with his heater — his lowest mark since moving from a starting role to a bullpen gig back in 2018. Smith’s 91.4 mph fastball velocity is also a career-low, as is this year’s 17.4% strikeout rate.
It’s feasible that the Royals could look to upgrade over either of those veteran additions to the pitching staff. However, Stratton signed a two-year, $8M deal with a surprising player option standing as the second season of that contract. That could afford him a longer leash, as the Royals know they’re on the hook for $4M to him next season unless he can turn things around and put himself in position to turn down that second-year option. Smith is on a one-year, $5M deal but has pitched better of late, with just two earned runs allowed over his past 14 2/3 innings.
With regard to the offense, it seems the Royals are open-minded as to where a new bat could slot into the defensive alignment. Picollo mentioned at multiple points throughout the interview that the Royals need more production from the outfield — as we recently detailed at length for MLBTR Front Office subscribers — but targeting a pure outfielder isn’t necessarily set in stone.
“Offensively, you always want to add a bat somewhere — lengthen your lineup,” the GM explained. “…We have three or four guys that are in the lineup every day, and we mix and match a lot, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be an outfielder, but somebody who could play outfield and infield would be ideal. Just another bat that we could lengthen our lineup out and get a little more production in the back half of our lineup.”
No team in Major League Baseball has received less production from its outfield in 2024 than the Royals, whose collective has turned in a .210/.271/.345 batting line. The resulting 72 wRC+ (indicating they’ve been 28% worse than league-average at the plate) is the lowest in the game. Hunter Renfroe, Kyle Isbel and MJ Melendez lead the Royals in outfield appearances, but of the 262 MLB hitters with at least 150 plate appearances this season, that trio ranks 218th (Renfroe), 238th (Isbel) and 250th (Melendez) in terms of wRC+.
The Kansas City infield has been far more productive, led by the aforementioned Witt, their recently extended superstar shortstop. Witt is a bona fide MVP candidate, while second baseman Michael Massey was quietly strong (.294/.306/.529) in 110 plate appearances before landing on the IL with a back injury late last month. First baseman Vinnie Pasquantino has been slightly better than average, and while third baseman Maikel Garcia hasn’t hit much (.247/.299/.365), he’s played plus defense and provided outstanding value on the basepaths (17-for-17 in steals).
One common theme among the Royals’ top hitters is handedness. Pasquantino is the only healthy left-handed bat who’s provided even close to league-average offense. Melendez, Isbel, Adam Frazier and switch-hitting Drew Waters (who was optioned to Omaha as I wrote this) have all floundered at the plate. Massey, who just went on a minor league rehab assignment this week, will add another interesting left-handed bat when he returns. Even then, Kansas City will still have a predominantly right-handed lineup. Picollo didn’t specify, but adding a left-handed bat — or at least a switch-hitter who provides more from the left side of the dish — would seem particularly prudent.
However things shake out, Picollo’s comments clearly underscored a strong desire to continue the active offseason mindset into this year’s deadline. He noted that the fans in Kansas City deserve to see that level of aggression but said the motivation is about more than that.
“I also think about the players who committed to coming to Kansas City and bought into a vision that we had, which included winning and potentially getting to the playoffs,” Picollo said. “So you do feel a need to help supplement what we already have and the motivation that ownership had this offseason in signing those players.”
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