3 former Royals prove the club's final decisions about them were right this season

Assembling the best roster possible with the resources available is the primary focus of major league general managers. J.J. Picollo, GM of the Kansas City Royals since the sudden departure of Dayton Moore late in the 2022 season, executed that task superbly two winters ago when he engineered a startlingly good offseason roster rebuild that helped propel his club to its first playoff appearance since Kansas City won it all in 2015.

Unfortunately, though, Picollo's efforts to improve his roster for 2025 — especially at the plate, where KC never landed the big outfield bat it needed — weren't as successful. How much that has to do with a disappointing season marked by an uncanny number of injuries to the pitching staff will be debated all winter.

Not to be forgotten in that discussion, though, are the commendable midseason adjustments Picollo made, including the trade deadline pick-ups of pitchers Stephen Kolek, who's been quite good, and Ryan Bergert from San Diego, and Mike Yastrzemski from San Francisco.

Also to Picollo's credit are at least three roster cuts the club made that, with but a week left in the season, have proven correct.

The Royals were right to move on from reliever Carlos Hernández

Hernández, inconsistent but sometimes outstanding during the parts of five seasons he spent in Kansas City, didn't make it to Opening Day — after he gave up eight runs in 10.1 Cactus League games, the Royals waived him almost a week before the season began. Things have gone badly for him since.

Philadelphia claimed him but waived him in June after he'd let opponents bat .302, allowed six of 11 runs he'd inherited to score, and given up 15 earned runs in 25.2 innings (5.25 ERA).

The Tigers took the next chance on Hernández when they claimed him June 16. His stay in Detroit lasted little more than a month — after the fire-balling righty yielded 12 earned runs and a .311 OBA in just 10.2 innings, the Tigers DFA'd him with a week left in July.

Hernández stayed in the American League Central when Cleveland put their waiver claim in on him July 31. The 3.86 ERA he posted for the Guardians, albeit over only seven innings, was an improvement, but the club outrighted him to Triple-A Columbus in late August.

He's pitched seven times for the Clippers since, including a scoreless two-thirds-of-an-inning stint against Omaha, the Royals' Triple-A affiliate, Wednesday. But he's surrendered four runs in 7.2 innings.

All in all, Hernández, who went 7-19 with a 4.95 ERA in 150 appearances for the Royals, hasn't had a good season. The Royals were certainly right to let him go before the campaign even began.

The club's gamble on Cavan Biggio didn't pay off for the Royals

At least statistically, there was little other than versatility commending Biggio to the Royals when in early January they gave him a minor league contract and an invitation to spring training. He'd had some, but not much, success at the plate since breaking into the majors with Toronto in 2019, and his defense was less than spectacular.

Unsurprising, then, was the Royals' decision not to stick long with him — after slashing a miserable .174/.296/.246, and with a 37-game 58 wRC+ and -0.2 fWAR, Biggio found himself optioned to Omaha in late May.

But despite hitting .285 with a .375 OBP in 41 games for the Storm Chasers, the Royals DFA'd and then released him just days later. The Angels signed him to a minor league deal a few days following that and he's been at Triple-A Salt Lake since then.

In Salt Lake, the numbers haven't nearly been the same as they were in Omaha, as the utility man entered Friday with just an 85 wRC+ as a member of the Bees.

That Biggio played well for Omaha doesn't prove a lot. Instead, it's what he didn't do in Kansas City that demonstrates the club was right to let him go.

The Royals made the right move when they let Trevor Richards go

Richards came to Kansas City via the minor league pact he signed after the Cubs released him in May. Although the 7.27 pre-release ERA he'd posted at Triple-A Iowa, and his 4.95 big league ERA over the previous three seasons didn't bode well for his prospects in Kansas City, he made it back to the majors by saving a pair of games and giving up only two earned runs in 10 games at Omaha.

Unfortunately, that success didn't follow him to Kansas City, where in only three innings the eight-season major league veteran gave up four runs, seven hits, and threw three wild pitches. The Royals DFA'd him June 11 and he became a free agent after rejecting an outright assignment back to Omaha.

Picked up by Arizona, he pitched a month and was battered for 22 runs in 30.2 innings for Triple-A Reno before the Diamondbacks called him up in mid-July. Despite pitching well — he struck out three, walked no one, and yielded a run in 2.2 innings — his new club DFA'd him after only eight days. He accepted an outright assignment to Reno, where he's pitched 11 more times and given up 12 earned runs in 18.1 innings (5.78 ERA).

Despite a serviceable but quite brief stint with the D-backs, Richards' struggles this season prove Kansas City did the right thing when their attempt to send him back to the minors allowed him to move on.