Five Things the Royals Have To Do To Remain Postseason Contenders

The Kansas City Royals just enjoyed one of the best improvements from one season to the next in recent memory.

After posting MLB’s second-worst record at 56-106 in 2023, the Royals pulled off a 30-win turnaround to finish the 2024 regular season with an 86-76 record and earn a spot in the postseason for the first time since they won it all in 2015.

They accelerated the timeline of their rebuild thanks to an MVP-caliber season from their freshly extended superstar shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., All-Star seasons from both their captain Salvador Perez and their ace Cole Ragans, a surprise career year from veteran Seth Lugo, and overall solid contributions across the board from the majority of their active roster.

But if Kansas City wants to continue to build upon this rapid ascension up the American League standings and remain in the postseason mix in 2025, there are definitely improvements that need to be made.

Here are five tangible things the Kansas City Royals can do this offseason and next year to remain in the postseason mix in 2025.

1. Embrace the Strength of the Starting Rotation

A great deal of Kansas City’s success in 2024 can be attributed to how great their starting rotation was in the regular season.

Their starters ranked second in MLB in FanGraphs WAR at 16.7. This was in large part due to their standing in several major statistical categories.

Royals starters ranked second in ERA at 3.55 and fourth in both WHIP (1.20) and FIP (3.68).

And it was the impressive performances of the top four arms in their rotation that led to this outcome:

With Ragans, Lugo and Brady Singer all still under contract or team control in 2025, the Royals are on the right track.

But when it comes to who will claim the other two spots in the rotation, there are several ways the front office could address the holes.

One way to fill one of these roles should be with an additional strikeout-oriented arm to join Ragans, whose 223 strikeouts this past season placed him fifth all of baseball.

While Lugo had a Cy Young caliber season and Singer’s bounce back had him looking more and more like the pitcher he was thought to be after he was selected in the first round in 2018, neither really blew anyone away with their K-rates like Ragans did.

If you include Michael Wacha‘s 34th percentile K-rate (21.2%), it’s easy to see why Kansas City ranked lower in team strikeouts than they did in most other statistical categories. Their team strikeout rate only managed to scratch the top 10 at 23.1%.

Strikeout pitchers are more reliable year in and year out, as they have more control over their destiny, whereas batted ball-oriented arms must rely on a bit of luck from their opponent standing 60 feet and six inches away and the defense standing behind them.

Considering Lugo only just had his career-best season at age 34 and Singer is only a year removed from a 5.52 ERA season in 2023, a little consistency in the form of strikeouts could mediate some regression from those two while simultaneously continuing to elevate the Royals’ game.

The solution for the other spot in the rotation might be an easier fix, as it’s currently right under their noses.

2. Bring Back Michael Wacha

When Wacha agreed to a one-year deal plus a player option with Kansas City last offseason, I don’t think either party expected the season that the Royals were about to have.

And Wacha was a huge part of that success, pitching to a sub-3.50 ERA and a sub-1.20 WHIP across 29 starts.

While other arms like Lugo and Singer were a bit more of a surprise in 2024, Wacha has been a bill of consistency in recent years.

His 2024 campaign marked the third consecutive season in which he’s thrown to an ERA in the mid-to-low 3.00s and WHIP in the low 1.00s

Wacha not only provided the Royals with a solid season statistically but also brought a valuable veteran presence, one that can only serve as a plus for the pre-arbitration level Ragans and the arb-eligible Singer.

With how well he performed this past year, it’s safe to assume Wacha will decline his $16 million player option for 2025, as well as the qualifying offer should the Royals extend it to him.

But Wacha has shown he is worth a multi-year deal. As the 33-year-old continues to age like a fine wine, it seems like all but a no-brainer to bring him back into the starting mix next season and beyond, especially considering how well he fared at Kauffman Stadium this season.

3. Bring in Another Back-End Arm for the Bullpen

Sticking with the hurlers, the Royals bullpen came into the spotlight after the trade deadline in 2024 when Lucas Erceg and Hunter Harvey were brought into the fold for stability in the back end.

With both Erceg and Harvey back next season, the Royals have a much clearer plan for their bullpen than they did in March.

Looking at 2024 in two halves, it was really a case of two polar opposite stories for the Royals’ bullpen.

Before the trade deadline, Kansas City’s relief corps sat near the bottom of the league across the board.

But after the July 30 deadline, once Erceg and Harvey were through the door, the Royals suddenly sported one of MLB’s better bullpens, showing the benefits that a solidified anchor (or two) can bring to the back end of a ‘pen.

With relief pitching being so volatile from year to year, the Royals could stand to add another established arm to that ‘pen to join the likes of Erceg and Harvey and build upon their second-half success.

And while names like John Schreiber, Kris Bubic and Sam Long, who all played key roles for the Royals in 2024, are expected to be a part of this bullpen in 2025, they don’t exactly scream “proven relief options.”

If 2024 has taught us anything, it’s the value of a good bullpen. Just look at how the New York Yankees, the Los Angeles Dodgers and, of course, the Cleveland Guardians utilized/continue to utilize theirs during the postseason.

With a plethora of back-end talent on the free agent market this offseason, the Royals have a chance to really get aggressive and possibly attempt to create a “super ‘pen” of their own.

4. Add a Solidified Everyday Bat-First Outfielder

If you had to point to one aspect that could be a glaring hole on the Royals roster, it would have to be the outfield.

From a defensive standpoint, Kansas City’s outfielders fared decently in 2024, ranking in the top half of MLB in FanGraphs’ defensive metric (DEF) at 10th, defensive runs saved (DRS) at 11th and outs above average (OAA) at 12th.

But from an offensive standpoint, they certainly underwhelmed, to say the least.

As a team, Royals outfielders ranked 25th or lower in baseball across most offensive categories.

Yet, after a month or so of Tommy Pham, capped off by his 3-for-3 performance against Gerrit Cole and the New York Yankees in Game 4 of the ALDS, the Royals saw, in glimpses, the impact a consistently solid outfielder can have on a competitive roster.

But even Pham in his brief cameo didn’t offer the type of production the Royals would need to improve their outfield on a nightly basis.

As the stats show, this team could certainly stand to do better than the 36-year-old Pham. They should explore free agency accordingly.

An affordable name that comes to mind for a small-market organization like Kansas City is Tyler O’Neill, who is fresh off a bounce-back campaign with the Boston Red Sox.

In 113 games and 473 plate appearances for Boston in 2024, O’Neill hit 31 HR and 61 RBI while slashing .241/.336/.511, which culminated in a well-above league average 131 wRC+.

O’Neill would offer a clear upgrade to Renfroe and would make a decent power pairing with MJ Melendez in the corners.

While O’Neill is just one name the Royals could target, the idea for J.J. Picollo and the front office would be to find a better everyday bat for the outfield in order to limit the amount of platooning and lineup creativity needed on a game-by-game basis.

A player like this would offer some overall offensive stability for Matt Quatraro when filling out the lineup card and would mix in well with the solidified trio of Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez in the heart of the order.

5. Establish a Permanent Leadoff Hitter

One of the key things we saw from the Royals’ appearance in the 2024 postseason was how well whoever was in the leadoff spot could set the table for the stars (Witt, Pasquantino and Perez) behind him.

Both Michael Massey and Maikel Garcia played their parts well when called upon in October.

Before going 0-for-4 in the Royals’ Game 4 ALDS loss to New York, Massey went 6-for-17 with a run scored and an RBI in his first four postseason games in the leadoff spot.

And when Garcia got the call to bat first in Kansas City’s lone ALDS victory in Game 2, he went 4-for-5 and drove in a key run.

The ability to set the table for the heart of the order, when your team’s heart of the order is as strong as Kansas City’s is, can make all the difference in the world.

Massey and Garcia certainly put their best feet forward in their auditions for the full-time leadoff role, but their 2024 regular season numbers do pose a bit of doubt as to whether either of them has what it takes to put it together for a full 162-game season in 2025.

If the Royals opt to look externally for help in the leadoff role, they may not have to look too much further than a recent familiar foe for assistance.

Gleyber Torres will hit the open market after the World Series concludes. And the current Yankees second baseman put together a solid regular season when batting leadoff.

In 266 plate appearances in the leadoff role, Torres hit .283 with a .755 OPS. And in the postseason, he’s been instrumental in the Yankees’ run to the World Series, including an ALCS in which he hit .364 with an .809 OPS.

Like O’Neill, Torres is just one example of a more cost-effective name on the market that could make a real difference for the Royals in their quest to repeat their success.

Whether they resolve this matter internally or externally remains to be seen, but the Royals have witnessed the impact that a good leadoff man can have on their lineup. It’s time to solidify the leadoff spot to round out what could be a very complete top half of the batting order in 2025.

It’s in the Royals’ Hands To Repeat Their 2024 Success

If you had told me at the start of the 2024 season that I would be sitting here writing about how the Royals can get back to the postseason in 2025, I’d probably say that would be a fabulous dream, but a dream nonetheless.

But here we are, as the 2024-25 offseason is about to begin, and the Royals are coming off an 86-win season with a strong core of players at their disposal for the 2025 season.

As nice as it is to be in this spot, there’s no time to dwell on yesterday’s success when tomorrow’s success isn’t guaranteed.

But just because it’s not guaranteed, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It’s far from impossible actually. With some additional playoff revenue to work with this offseason, the Royals are in a great position to address the needs in front of them and field a team that can compete again in 2025.

If we learned anything from the 2024 Royals, it’s that the unlikely can become reality.

So let the offseason begin.