KC Royals: 3 needed additions to the 40-man roster

With 2020 in the review mirror for the KC Royals, building on the last part of the season and adding quality players to the 40-man roster is needed.

One area the KC Royals improved this year was allowing young talent to grow. Many times in the past it appeared that prospects were not called up in order to obtain as much team control as possible before free agency. This year’s decision to have Brady Singer, Tyler Zuber, and Kris Bubic join the major league roster is hopefully a shift in the club’s thinking.

Singer and Bubic proved they were up to the challenge by at the very least meeting expectations, if not exceeding them. This should open the door for other promising youngsters to get their chances.

It will be tempting to some to include Bobby Witt Jr. and Asa Lacy to this list—their ceilings seem unlimited, after all. Because of their little, or in Lacy’s case no, experience in the minor leagues, it is wise to let them begin the season with an affiliate unless they plow through the competition and the Royals have a need at their positions.

The first players that should be considered have had success at the minor league level and will be able to help in areas that Kansas City needs. Having a few veterans sprinkled on the 40-man roster is wise, but signing them this offseason as a security blanket instead of giving the future of the club an opportunity will not breed confidence in the players or the fans.

Being added to the 40-man roster does not mean they have to start the year in the majors but it does ensure they can be called up if needed without making multiple other roster moves. There are some obvious targets to remove from the current alignment, which should make these decisions easy.

The way Mike Matheny and staff allowed the aforementioned players, along with allocating big league experience to Edward Olivares, Nick Heath, and Carlos Hernandez, should pay dividends soon.

The falter of some players in the starting rotation shows the KC Royals still have a ways to go to solidify this aspect.

Kansas City pitchers Matt Harvey and Jakob Junis combined to start 10 games, together went 0-5, and had too-high ERAs of 11.57 and 6.39, respectively. The future of veteran hurler Danny Duffy with the KC Royals could be up in the air, whether it is moving to another team or possibly into the bullpen in Kansas City.

One obvious and immediate solution is to add young right-handed pitcher Jackson Kowar to the club’s 40-man roster. Drafted in the same year and from the same major college as Singer, Kowar showed he is ready to compete with his performance in the minor leagues.

In his one-and-a-half years of minor league experience, he struck out essentially a batter per inning, maintained a respectable WHIP of 1.23 and was stingy with the long ball. All of this came on the heels of a stellar 23-6 record at a Southeast Conference university.

Kowar was a non-roster invitee to the first spring training this year, which shows the Kansas City franchise definitely wanted to take a good look at him. He also spent the summer at the Royals’ alternate training site, which allowed him access to the best training possible with the team in the time of COVID-19.

A trip to the big league spring training surely awaits him and depending on how that goes it is not out of the realm he makes the Royals roster. Of course, that all hinges on him being added to the 40-man which is what needs to happen.

The outfield could be very wide open for the KC Royals in 2020 and a player with four years of professional experience might be an answer.

When it comes to the outfield, there are a couple of minor league players in the Kansas City organization that immediately come to mind when thinking about what additions to make to the Royals’ 40-man roster heading into the 2021 season. Kyle Isbel and Seuly Matias definitely come to mind.

One other good player has Double-A experience and could very well be ready to make the jump sooner, and that is Khalil Lee. The combination of the 22-year old, 5-foot-10, 170-pound outfielder’s speed and mid-level power makes Lee a player definitely worth taking a look at some time during next season.

The strikeouts are concerning, but despite those he still reached base at a .363 clip during the 2019 season playing for the club’s Northwest Arkansas Double-A affiliate. The left-handed swinging and throwing Lee also stole an incredible 53 bases that season, and these two key attributes will be coveted in Kansas City.

Lee, selected by the KC Royals with the 26th pick in the third round of baseball’s 2016 amateur draft out of Flint Hill School in Oakton, Virginia (he was the 103rd overall selection), can probably benefit from getting a bit more seasoning on the farm to start the 2021 season, but with so many questions to be answered in Kansas City’s outfield, he could play his way onto the team with a good spring training. Either way, the Royals need to add him to the 40-man roster so they have the option to easily use him if he’s needed.

Next season is viewed by many as a time the KC Royals pull themselves out of the bottom of the standings and become competitive deep into the year even if they do not make the playoffs.  Winning with the future of the franchise—the near future—makes more sense than granting playing time to those players whose time has passed.