After an overall solid Royals Rally event on Saturday, the Royals made sure to continue to be in the news on Monday, even with the Chiefs settling in Las Vegas for the Super Bowl week festivities.
Around noon on Monday, Jeff Passan of ESPN dropped an enormous bomb that captured the attention of not just Royals fans, but baseball fans everywhere.
Over the weekend, Jon Heyman of the New York Post and MLB.com mentioned that the Royals were “making progress” on a potential extension. Furthermore, at the Rally, owner John Sherman addressed the Witt extension talks and he seemed to be encouraged by the discussions between the club and Witt’s team.
However, for the club to get something done on Monday, less than 48 hours later as the 810 Tweet mentioned? That caught all of us, even the more optimistic Royals fans, off guard.
Shortly after Passan’s news broke, Bobby himself confirmed the news himself, albeit in a subtle “Scorsese-movie reference” way (which is always the best way).
Furthermore, the Royals social media team went out in full force to not just announce the Witt signing, but showcase the club and community’s excitement for what has now become the largest contract in Kansas City Royals club history.
If one peruses the Royals’ X account, there is not just a statement from owner John Sherman about the importance of this deal, but also words of encouragement about Witt’s signing from Royals legends George Brett and Alex Gordon as well as the captain Salvador Perez.
The fact of the matter is that this move is historic not just for Royals baseball, but for Kansas City and Kansas City sports.
This move is up there with the Patrick Mahomes mega-deal back in 2020. Honestly, it may be bigger considering the financial challenges of Major League Baseball in comparison to the National Football League.
Former Royals Review writer Shaun Newkirk put up an incredible stat today as he listed the biggest deals in Royals’ history and showed how much Witt’s deal blew the others out of the water.
To be frank, baseball fans are seeing an era where extensions are being handed out earlier and earlier to the game’s brightest stars.
San Diego (Fernando Tatis, Jr.), Seattle (Julio Rodriguez), Arizona (Corbin Carroll), and Tampa Bay (Wander Franco) all locked down their homegrown stars early in their careers (though Franco likely won’t play again due to his legal troubles in the Dominican Republic). So at the surface level, it doesn’t feel like, especially to baseball fans outside of Kansas City, that the Royals are doing anything special or against the grain. (Heck, the Tigers gave top prospect Colt Keith an extension this offseason before he played an MLB game).
Then again, this is the Royals.
The same Royals that went 30 years between playoff appearances. The same Royals that hasn’t had a winning season since their World Series title in 2015. The same Royals that couldn’t hold onto possible franchise players like Johnny Damon, Carlos Beltran, Eric Hosmer, and Zack Greinke.
It’s not just that the Witt extension keeps one of the Royals’ most dynamic players in club history in Kansas City for a long time.
Rather, it shows that the Royals, for the first time since Ewing Kauffman was the owner, are ready to do and spend what it takes to compete.
Witt Shows His Appreciation (And Loyalty) to KC
After the initial news of the extension broke, details about the annual breakdown were shared by MLB insider Mark Feisand via X. While many expected Witt’s extension to be a backloaded deal, the amounts per year were still surprising, especially for the upcoming 2024 and 2025 season.
This year, Witt will be making the same amount as Adam Frazier and Garrett Hampson. Over two years, he possibly could be making less than Hunter Renfroe.
On one end, kudos to GM JJ Picollo and owner John Sherman for convincing Witt to agree to some team-friendly terms in the first few years. That gives the Royals some flexibility this year to perhaps get another reliever, which could help solidify this club to be competitive with the Twins, Tigers, and Guardians in the AL Central in 2024 (Ryne Stanek is still available folks).
That said, a lot of the praise has to go to Witt.
Witt wouldn’t have agreed to those terms if he didn’t care about winning. He would have asked for the money right away in 2024 if he was all about the bottom line. After all, he earned it last year, especially after posting a 5.7 fWAR in his age-23 season.
Witt is built differently though. Everything Royals fans see and hear about him always revolves around him being both a team-first guy and a player who cares about competing and winning. He also genuinely loves the city and has embraced not just the Royals fanbase, but the KC Metro as well. That was especially evident in his talk with the media at the Royals Rally.
He is determined to put this Royals team on the map like Patrick Mahomes has done with the Chiefs.
Early on in the “possible extension” talks, it was common to hear a lot of the naysaying from those online about why it wouldn’t happen.
To them, Witt didn’t need the money right now due to his family’s background (i.e. being the son of a Major Leaguer) and could afford to wait. They also claimed that he was from Texas and would hold out for a deal with the hometown Rangers who could give him the money he wanted (fun fact: Witt’s actually an OU Sooners fan so I think he has less attachment to the Rangers than people think).
And yet, we saw Witt constantly be the face of the franchise at so many events, including the Royals Rally last year. We saw him sign autograph after autograph before games, even with the team losing 106 games. We saw him bang the drum at Chiefs games and get behind other pro sports teams in Kansas City like Sporting KC and the KC Current.
Witt may have not grown up in this area. However, in just a couple of years, this guy oozes the Kansas City spirit through and through.
Thankfully for Kansas City and Royals fans, we have a lot more years of this to come from Witt.
Sherman Setting His Own Path to Build a Winner
When Sherman took over as the Royals’ owner from David Glass and family in 2019, he seemed to portray to the fanbase that he wanted to build a “long-term” winner. He saw successful small-market franchises like the Guardians (whom he used to have an ownership stake in) and the Rays and wanted to model the Royals in that fashion.
In the first few years, it seemed like he was following that mold verbatim.
The Royals weren’t spending a whole lot on payroll, but they were investing in research and development, player development, and scouting. Sherman also parted ways with Dayton Moore, who led the Royals to a World Series and two pennants but didn’t adapt quick enough to modern player development and scouting.
Sherman brought in not only Picollo, who advocated and installed more advanced strategies and research in player development under Moore, but Sherman also brought in Matt Quatraro from the Rays to manage the club (Sherman was able to pull Quatraro away from the Marlins where he was apparently a finalist at as well). If that wasn’t enough, the Royals have continued to invest in scouting, R&D, and player development, as they shuffled around their scouting team and added more analysts to their front office staff this offseason.
Again, that’s not a lot different from what the Guardians and Rays do on an annual basis (only the Guardians and Rays have a considerable head start).
Unlike Cleveland and Tampa though, the Royals spent in free agency this offseason.
They spent on improving their pitching. They brought in Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo to lead the rotation and Will Smith, Chris Stratton, Nick Anderson, and Rule 5 pick Matt Sauer to boost the bullpen.
In addition, the Royals raised the floor of this lineup by adding Hampson, Frazier, and Renfroe on reasonable short-term deals. They didn’t trade any prospects of note away, and they still seem committed to their young guys for 2024, especially Cole Ragans, Brady Singer, MJ Melendez, Vinnie Pasquantino, Maikel Garcia, and Michael Massey. Lastly, after flirting with the idea of trading Salvador Perez at the deadline last year, they have fully committed to Salvy this offseason and likewise, he has committed to the Royals.
This isn’t what Tampa does. Nor Cleveland. Nor Oakland. Nor the White Sox or even Pittsburgh or Milwaukee (the Brewers traded away a franchise player in Corbin Burnes this offseason and seem apt to trade Willy Adames soon as well).
Sherman is not letting “market size” hold this club back. He invested in the short term with the slew of veteran free agents signed. He also is invested in the long-term with the Witt extension.
Is he doing this for a new stadium? Perhaps. Then again though, Glass never made these kinds of personnel moves before Kauffman Stadium’s renovations in 2007.
I think Sherman is motivated to bring a consistent winner to Kansas City.
While he does want to build a sustainable winner in the mold of Cleveland and Tampa and do so in a downtown stadium that’s better “business-wise” for the club as a whole, he’s shown this offseason that he’s not going to be beholden to that “small-market” model.
That’s what makes this offseason and the Witt deal so exciting for Royals fans.
It feels like a new age of Royals baseball is starting this year.
For years, Royals fans have said, “Why can’t we build this club like St. Louis, which has a great history of scouting and development but is also willing to pay the right amount of money to attract and/or keep star players?”
The Royals haven’t closed that gap just yet. The Cardinals have a decades-long headstart.
Safe to say though, the gap just closed a bit after this offseason. This Royals’ offseason has dwarfed the one of our neighbors in Eastern Missouri.
And if the Royals can climb the standings in the AL Central in 2024?
Well, baseball in Missouri will be on the map again, much like in 1985 and 2015.
Photo Credit: Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports
Compared to previous regimes, Mr. Sherman and staff have managed to turn around an aircraft carrier in a bathtub.
Without a doubt. The Royals have, as of today, the highest CB Tax payroll in the AL Central. That is saying something, especially for a club that plays in the 28th smallest market in MLB (only Cincy and Milwaukee are smaller).
Sherman still has work to do, especially with this stadium vote looming. But the John Fisher comparisons should stop today.
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