In 2023, the Kansas City Royals had the worst season in franchise history, with only 56 wins and 106 losses, putting them at the bottom of the lowly American League Central Division.
In the offseason, general manager J.J. Piccolo made significant moves to ensure 2024 looks nothing like the previous season.
“I think they’ve had about as good an offseason as a team can have,” Royals TV broadcaster Joel Goldberg said. “They went out there and they spent over $100 million on new free agents.”
During the 2024 offseason, the Royals were able to sign veteran pitchers Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo and Will Smith. They were also able to secure a couple of strong bats in Adam Frazier and Hunter Renfroe.
Goldberg is happy with all of the Royals’ signings but he is very excited for the combination of Wacha and Lugo in the pitching rotation.
“Both had good seasons — both have lots of experience,” Goldberg said. “To add two guys with significant experience and talent to the rotation is something that we really needed.” That being said, the move that turned the most heads was extending 23-year-old superstar Bobby Witt Jr. to an 11-year $288.8 million contract with an additional 3-year team option. Goldberg only had positive things to say about the young superstar.
“If you’re going to sign a player like that in a smaller market like Kansas City, it really has to be the right player, and to me he is the right player,” he said. “In his second year in the big league, he finished 8th in MVP voting on a 106-loss team — so this guy has already done some things that most players don’t do — period.”
Goldberg really emphasized that baseball is a game of “ifs” and it’s impossible to know the kind of season a team is going to have until it is all said and done.
“Everyone goes into the season expecting to be good — but the teams that maybe don’t have as much talent are going to say ‘What if this works?’ and ‘if this works’ and ‘if this guy stays healthy’ or ‘if this guy figures it out’” he said. “What the Royals did is they eliminated a lot of those ‘if’s’ by bringing in [veteran] players like Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha, Will Smith [and] Hunter Renfroe.”
Goldberg thinks the Royals’ young talent could have a significant impact this season.
“MJ Melendez, Michael Massey, Kyle Isbel and Drew Waters are guys that haven’t quite figured it out yet,” he said. “They’ve gone through the failing and they’ve got talent and they’re going to be better for it this year.”
Goldberg thinks the Royals might have a chance at winning the division this year — all of the teams do.
“There is no dominant team,” Goldberg said. “They can finish anywhere between first and fifth, which I know is as vanilla as it comes, but I think they can legitimately win the division.”
