KC Royals: 3 players we might not see next season

A challenging offseason awaits the KC Royals. Even after last winter’s uncharacteristic flurry of activity that added promising pieces to the roster, and despite the Royals already having won more games than in any season since 2017, rethinking the club’s composition is in order.

The team could use another reliable starting pitcher and some outfield stability. Three of the Royals’ most important offseason acquisitions have unexpired contracts or are otherwise under team control—the two-year free agent deals Mike Minor and Carlos Santana signed run through 2022, and although Andrew Benintendi’s two-year contract is up after this season, he’s arbitration-eligible and isn’t going anywhere unless Kansas City trades or non-tenders him.

None of those three have been completely satisfying (although Benintendi’s bat has been ablaze all month), meaning they’re not locks to return next season. And the Royals need to decide whether Michael A. Taylor’s stellar center field defense warrants re-signing him.

And three non-pitchers’ KC futures should be in doubt. Who are they?

Is it time for the KC Royals to move on from an adequate backup catcher?

Cam Gallagher has carved out his niche as Salvador Perez’s primary backup. Only in 2019, when Perez missed the entire season and KC had to find a more offensively suitable everyday catcher, and times when his own injuries forced the club to resort to another backup, have the Royals not relied on Gallagher.

His Kansas City time may, however, be nearing an end, and it has nothing to do with the knee inflammation that currently has Gallagher on the Injured List. Instead, younger backstops (Gallagher turns 29 this winter) with better bats may force KC’s hand.

Take, for example, Sebastian Rivero, 22, who in Gallagher’s absence is Perez’s present backup. Rivero was hitting .260 with 26 RBIs in 42 games for Triple-A Omaha before KC called him up when Gallagher went on the IL, and has a four-plus season minor league .251 average. He won’t be an everyday big league starter, but he’s a capable backup. And he’s been catching some of the club’s hottest prospects.

Meibrys Viloria, 24, who’s served as Gallagher’s backup before, is another possibility, but his .215 average in 181 big league at-bats isn’t as good as Gallagher’s career .231. But he’s a .276 career minor league hitter with a .356 OBP. The fact he, like Rivero, has experience with several of the franchise’s best prospects doesn’t hurt.

MJ Melendez, 22, is another possibility, but his big bat (37 homers, 84 RBIs and a .279/.380/.621 minor league line this year) and Perez’s multi-year contract extension make it more likely the Royals will work hard to find another position for him (he’s played third a few times at Omaha) or trade him for prospects.

Moving Gallagher isn’t a foregone conclusion. But don’t be surprised if it happens.

Edward Olivares is pretty popular, but may not fit the KC Royals’ plans.

The notion of Kansas City moving on from Edward Olivares is one based not so much on his .217/.277/.391 major league line this season, or on misplaced discounting of his 15 homers, 43 RBIs and .279 average in 47 Triple-A contests this year, as it is on reading between the Royals’ lines.

The feeling the club isn’t sold on, or entirely comfortable with, the speedy outfielder it received last summer from San Diego in the Trevor Rosenthal deal is hard to shake.

After all, the Royals have recalled him six times, and sent him down five, this season, a cycle hard to accept as merely some natural, unavoidable collective consequence of roster jams and numbers crunches, especially considering the maddening uncertainty plaguing right field and Kansas City’s continuing efforts to resolve it with infielders Ryan O’Hearn and Hunter Dozier.

And it’s unlikely his involvement in, and ultimate responsibility for, a muffed outfield play that cost the Royals two of the nine runs they simply handed to Baltimore during last Wednesday’s meltdown loss will be the moment his KC future ultimately turns on.

Perhaps it’s simply that the Royals just aren’t as committed to Olivares as they may have once been. But there have to be reasons for that.

Call it a feeling, a gut hunch…just don’t be shocked if Olivares, who’s become an object of the fans’ affection this year, plays elsewhere next season, or finds himself a more permanent fixture at Omaha.