Former MLB GM says Royals' worst-kept secret is finally out after Winter Meetings

At this point, the Royals search for outfield upgrades is anything but a secret, with the rumor mill swirling this week with potential free agent and trade fits they could pursue to address this pressing need..

However, apart from reportedly looking for a pair of ourfielders, "one through free agency and the other through trade" according to The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal last weekend, the specific makeup of they type of player they were looking to fill this role remained somewhat a mystery.

However, after the Royals reportedly acquired Lane Thomas on Thursday night, who seems a shoo-in to occupy their desired right-handed platoon role, it appears the only position left to wonder about now is their starting left fielder.

And perhaps the type of name J.J. Picollo and the Royals are looking for might finally be clear. According to former MLB executive and current insider for The Athletic, Jim Bowden, it appears the Royals value power to fill their vacant role.

"The Royals will move a starter for a power-hitting left fielder," Bowden wrote.

Royals intentions seem to be clear of how they want to fill open left field role

As much as I say this is a secret, this profile of hitter is far from shocking for the Royals to be looking into.

As a whole, Kansas City was one of the poorer performing power hitting teams in all of baseball in 2025. They sat 26th in MLB in homers with just 159 and their sub-.400 team SLG (.397) ranked in the bottom half of the league in a tie for 16th.

And their outfield in particular is what really held them down in the power department, as they sat tied for 28th in HR with 37, 28th in SLG at .348 and 22nd in FanGraphs' hard-hit metric at 30.6%.

It appears the hope will be that right field will be covered by Jac Caglianone, who hopefully will come into his own, and Lane Thomas, who will hopefully have a bounce back year at full health. If both occur, that would certainly do wonders for their power problems in and of itself.

And given his Gold Glove-caliber defense, it's not a stretch to think the Royals are content with what they get out of Kyle Isbel as nine-hole hitting center fielder.

This leaves left field to utilize their abundance of starting pitching depth to address, and thankfully for Kansas City, they have the variety of talent to check virtually whatever box a team would require in a trade return to surrender a major league outfielder.

They have All-Star upside in Kris Bubic, high-end controllable pitching with Noah Cameron and underrated controllable arms in Ryan Bergert, Stephen Kolek and Luinder Avila.

How they Royals address their final outfield need remains to be seen, but if Bowden's correct in his assessment, "a power hitting left-fielder" makes all the sense in the world.