11 crucial contract decisions await the KC Royals

It won’t be long before the World Series ends and the complicated offseason baseball business heats up. Assembling next season’s rosters will preoccupy all 30 clubs, including the KC Royals: deciding who to keep, who to trade and trade for, and which free agents to pursue, will all take center stage.

Included in the annual Hot Stove whirlwind will, of course, be arbitration. Kansas City can avoid battling any, or all, of the 11 Royals eligible for the process by giving them new contracts, or by simply “non-tendering” them—in other words, not offering them deals for next season, thereby making them free agents eligible to strike new deals with any other club.

Part and parcel of tender-no tender decisions is predicting how much money those 11 players might make if failing to hammer out new contracts forces the parties into high stakes, adversarial, no-middle-ground hearings where arbitrators decide whose proposed salary—a player’s or a team’s—wins.

Who are the 11 arbitration-eligible KC Royals and what awards might they get?

Useful in considering Kansas City’s tender/non-tender choices is Major League Baseball Trade Rumors’ recent forecast of potential arbitration awards, which projects these potential salaries for the 11 eligible Royals:

• Brad Keller, $ 7 million
• Scott Barlow, $4.9 million
• Nicky Lopez, $3.4 million
• Adalberto Mondesi and Luke Weaver, $3 million
• Brady Singer, $2.9 million
• Amir Garrett, $2.6 million
• Kris Bubic, $1.8 million
• Ryan O’Hearn and Taylor Clarke, $1.5 million
• Josh Staumont, $ 1 million

Even the stingy Royals can absorb all those possible awards, but that won’t happen. They’ll make deals with some players and non-tender others.

But just what decisions should the club make?

Let’s find out.

The KC Royals shouldn’t offer 2023 contracts to these four players.

Determining definitive non-tenders shouldn’t be hard for Kansas City. For one, Ryan O’Hearn, sometimes a first baseman, sometimes an outfielder, sometimes a DH and sometimes a pinch hitter, needs to go. The good bat off the bench he had this season (.367/.406/.567 as a pinch hitter) isn’t enough to offset his disturbing .219/.293/.390 career line. It’s that simple.

Adalberto Mondesi presents a more difficult, yet uncomplicated, decision. The torn ACL he suffered in April was the latest of a perplexingly long string of career-derailing injuries and more evidence of his unreliable health. And Kansas City is packed with talented young infielders—no matter where they play, Bobby Witt Jr., Michael Massey, Nate Eaton and Nicky Lopez will make the Royals’ a hard lineup for Mondesi to crack. He’s become too big a question mark.

Kansas City should also cut Brad Keller. Yes, he’s twice been named the team’s Pitcher of the Year, but he’s never won more than nine games and has lost 14 twice and 12 once in five seasons. He succeeded neither as a starter (6-13, 4.93 ERA) nor a reliever (0-1, 6.23) this season, and his unpredictability and inconsistency make him expendable.

The Royals can easily afford to non-tender pitcher Luke Weaver, who they picked up from Arizona in the trade deadline deal that sent Emmanuel Rivera to the Diamondbacks. Working exclusively out of Kansas City’s bullpen, the righthander went 0-0 with an excessive 5.59 ERA and allowed eight of 14 inherited runners to score. He went 1-1, 7.71 in 12 appearances with Arizona.

The KC Royals should definitely tender two pitchers and an infielder.

Unless the Royals sign pitcher Brady Singer to a lucrative long-term deal, which is almost a given for the club’s now undisputed No. 1 starter, they’ll tender him a 2023 contract.

Singer flourished after spending three early-season weeks at Triple-A Omaha and finished, due in part to his increased usage of the changeup he eschewed for so long, 10-5, 3.23 with a 2.05 BB/9. His return to Kansas City is guaranteed; time will tell what contractual form it takes.

Less likely to receive an extension, but a lock for a tender, is reliever Scott Barlow. Kansas City’s closer saved a career-high 24 games and has 40 over the last two seasons. He also improved his 2021 2.42 ERA to 2.18.

Labeling infielder Nicky Lopez a “definite” tender target might be surprising, but makes sense. Although he didn’t repeat the stellar season he had in 2021—instead of hitting .300, he slumped to .227—that he remained versatile with starts at shortstop, second and third, played 141 games, and stayed off the Injured List make him the best choice for utility infielder next season, especially considering Adalberto Mondesi’s maddening injury history, baggage Lopez doesn’t have.

Who will the Royals tender, and who will they let go?