KC Royals: The important question of the 26th Royal

Baseball’s new rules allow each major league team to carry 26 players through August. Clubs will spend spring training thinking about how to implement the rule. How should the KC Royals use their new roster spot?

In just a few days, Mike Matheny will manage an American League team in a live game for the first time. Matheny, Need Yost’s successor as manager of the KC Royals, will skipper his new club when it faces Texas Friday afternoon in both teams’ spring training opener.

The game’s outcome will have no real significance on anything but the Cactus League standings, which also have no real significance; for Matheny, however, such games allow him opportunities to evaluate players and become accustomed to the differences between the National League, where he used to manage, and the American League, where he never has.

In some ways, his new job will be easier than his old one with St. Louis. Generally, the designated hitter drastically reduces the need to pinch-hit; specifically, it eliminates the difficult choice between leaving a pitcher in when he’s doing well or pinch-hitting for him with a better hitter to get a shot at a run or two. In the AL, Matheny can save pinch hitters for high leverage, late-game situations.

Matheny will also work on the same new rules wrinkles as the rest of his AL colleagues, including the “26th man.” A new rule effective this season allows clubs to a 26th player to their regular season and postseason rosters (they must carry 28, and no more, throughout September). So Matheny and his staff will be contemplating the “extra spot” throughout spring camp.

There is, of course, more to the 26th man decision than simply identifying who that man will be–clubs must determine what kind of player the want for the job. Because another new rule limits pitching staffs to 13, 13 other spots–including the 26th man–have to be filled. Eight spots go to starting position players, one or two will be extra infielders, and another one or two (at least) will be extra outfielders.

For his 26th man will Matheny want another outfielder? A versatile utility-type player? A third catcher? A pinch-running specialist? “What” and then “who” are the questions Matheny must answer before the KC Royals open the season in Chicago on March 26.

All-Star catcher Salvador Perez returns to the KC Royals this season after missing all of 2019 to a UCL injury and Tommy John Surgery. In case he isn’t at full speed by Opening Day, should the club use their 26th man slot on an extra catcher?

Salvador Perez, the backstop and backbone of the KC Royals who lost last season to Tommy John Surgery, returned last week, catching bullpen sessions and tending to other baseball duties when pitchers and catchers reported for spring training. He talks of readying himself to catch every game this season, but such is how a player of his Gold Glove, All-Star, Silver Slugger stature lets people know he’s confident about taking up precisely where he left off.

He won’t catch every game, of course. He’ll DH at least a few times as he always has, probably take a turn or two at first base, and probably take a few more days off. His body rested after a full year away from the rigors of catching, he’ll still need to cut back a bit, at least while he reacclimates to big-league life. The Royals will carry at least one backup catcher; they may be wise to add another in case things don’t go as planned.

For example, Perez’s primary backup–presumably Meibrys Viloria or Cam Gallagher, who were serviceable defensively in his absence last season, but who simply could not, and cannot, replace his bat–could get injured, forcing Perez back behind the plate on a needed day off. An extra catcher could save that precious day for Perez. Or Perez could injure his rebuilt UCL, or suffer some other malady. Carrying an extra catcher, at least early in the season, is a luxury the new 26th man spot affords the club.

Gallagher is the logical choice if Viloria is Perez’s prime backup, and vice versa. Matheny could turn to Nick Dini, who saw big league action last season when Gallagher was injured; although he didn’t play much, he learned at least some Royal ropes in the 20 games he did appear.

MJ Melendez is also in camp. A second-round Royals draft choice in 2017, Melendez hit 19 homers and drove in 73 runs in 111 A-ball games in ’18, but struggled at High A Wilmington last season with nine homers and a ghastly .163/.260/.311 slash in 110 contests; the fact the club invited him to spring training means he’s still in their plans.

Unless injury sidelines Perez for a significant time, the KC Royals have no need to pursue a trade for a star catcher–opposing clubs would demand the too-steep price of one or more of KC’s prized young pitching prospects, and the team’s chances of contending this season are too low for a trade of such magnitude, one that might solve a need in one area but set the franchise back in another. (If push came to shove, perhaps the Royals could swing a less demanding deal for an old friend and reliable backup Drew Butera, now on a minor league deal with Colorado).

Another backup catcher is an option for the 26th roster spot. Perez’s progression in Spring Training will determine whether it’s a need.

The new 26th man spot gives teams the opportunity to add a “specialist” to their rosters, a player whose superior skill in a single area outweighs shortcomings in others and makes them big league worthy. Is there a need for that in KC?

Inevitably, any discussion about adding a specialist to the KC Royals turns to former Royal Terrance Gore, a speedy talent far more a runner than the outfielder rosters always claim him to be. He is the quintessential base-stealing specialist, a non-pitcher whose value is doing one particular thing very well. The Royals paid him to run, not hit or field and, except for last season, put him on the regular roster only when it really counted.

Gore broke in with KC in 2014 and played in a few games and the World Series; he was back long enough the next season to win a World Series ring. He returned briefly in 2016 and 2017, the last two times the club had the potential to make any kind of run at the playoffs. He returned to KC in 2019 after a season with the Cubs and actually hit .275 in 51 at-bats, an average that may well prove years from now to be an outlier. He was really back to steal bases, and he swiped 13.

The Royals, though, were a bad team without an immediate need for a specialist and, requiring roster room for others, shipped him to the Yankees in July. The proposition of bringing Gore back to Kansas City was a subject addressed and essentially rejected before in this space. If the club had wanted a base-stealing specialist, they had all winter to sign Gore; that they didn’t suggests a specialist isn’t in their plans. (Even if they were considering Gore, the Dodgers beat them to him Monday).

Ultimately, the KC Royals don’t need a base running specialist. Unlikely to contend until next season or even later, KC shouldn’t devote a roster spot to a player whose only job is to steal bases when critical games are on the line. The club’s resources could be better expended on an extra outfielder (more on this later) or a proven left-handed bat off the bench. The time for a one-dimensional speedster may come, but it isn’t now. (And when the time comes, Terrance Gore might be available).

Alex Gordon, Whit Merrifield and Hunter Dozier will start in the outfield for the KC Royals. At least two players will compete for a backup role; the new 26th man spot will allow the club to keep both, and maybe another extra outfielder.

As soon as the 2019 season ended, and Alex Gordon became a retirement-contemplating free agent, outfielders Bubba Starling and Brett Phillips could be confident they both had shots at a starting outfield job in 2020. With the contest between them for center field left unresolved, Gordon’s plans unknown, and speculation rampant that Whit Merrifield would be the everyday right fielder in 2020, there was certain to be at least one job available, if not two.

Two offseason events changed things, however: the Royals signed Maikel Franco to play third base and Gordon decided to return for at least one more campaign. Franco’s signing uprooted Hunter Dozier from third and transplanted him in right, moving Merrifield to center, and Gordon isn’t taking his Gold Gloves anywhere but back to left field. Any hope for a starting outfield assignment thus gone, Starling and Phillips will now compete for a backup spot.

The Starling-Phillips competition intensified when the Royals placed Billy Hamilton on waivers and Atlanta claimed him last August. Unfortunately, neither player performed well enough to win Hamilton’s vacated spot (Phillips fared badly for the second straight season and Starling disappointed in his first trip to the majors). The fact that both ran out of options when last season ended increases the gravity of their competition’s impending renewal.

Major League Baseball’s recent confirmation that the 26th man rule takes effect this season may be a blessing for Starling and Phillips–with the new roster spot the rule creates, both may secure reserve roles. With a 25-man roster, Matheny might have been hard-pressed to keep Starling and Phillips, especially considering Merrifield’s versatility, the probable presence on the roster of outfield-capable Ryan McBroom, and the fact Jorge Soler can play right field if he absolutely must.

But the new 26th spot gives Matheny flexibility and the luxury, if he so chooses, to keep Starling and Phillips, both of whom appear more suited for reserve roles at this point in their careers. Retaining both, at least for the early stages of the season, would reduce the pressure on each to outperform the other–a more relaxed approach to the game might be beneficial to them and the club.

Nothing, of course, requires Matheny to break camp with Starling and Phillips, but one is certain to make the roster. Keeping Starling or Phillips, but not both, would allow Matheny to choose another outfielder; with excellent internal choices, the Royals needn’t look outside the organization for such a player, and could promote up-and-coming prospect Nick Heath. If Heath isn’t quite major league ready yet, he’s close and is high on management’s radar. An adept base stealer, good defender and, at least for a part-time player, a serviceable hitter, he’s Terrance Gore and more.

The downside to keeping Heath? He won’t be able to play every day, something he may need to be doing instead of being a big-league reserve at this stage of his career.

In the final analysis, baseball’s gift of the 26th man gives KC Royals manager Mike Matheny an important decision to make. Will he choose a third catcher for the spot? An extra outfielder or two? A utility man? A one-dimensional specialist? Or will he find a player who offers something entirely different? Matheny has almost six weeks to make his decision; we’ll find out then.