Ranking Replacements Within Kansas City Royals Organization

The Kansas City Royals are staring at an uncertain offseason. What is certain, though, is that the team will need some in-house options to step up in 2018. Here’s what we think of those options.

As you might have heard, the Kansas City Royals have several core players up for free agency this offseason in the form of Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar. General manager Dayton Moore and his staff will surely do everything in their power to retain as much of this group as possible, but there is a real chance that none of them will return for the 2018 campaign.

The last thing that any Kansas City Royals fan wants is for all four players to don new uniforms next season. So just for fun, let’s imagine a world where that happens!

In an article by the Kansas City Star‘s Rustin Dodd, it seems at the moment that if the Royals strike out on trying to retain Hosmer, they may opt for the more painful form of a rebuild, according to Moore. That would likely mean that the core four wouldn’t be replaced by external free agents but by cheaper guys already in the system.

In this article, we will look at the four players most likely to take over for the core and rank them from least to most ready to step in next year and make their mark. Regardless of how ready they may be, the time is now for these Kansas City Royals in this (hopefully) alternate dystopian baseball universe.