Royals should consider locking up ROY hopeful after Red Sox extend Roman Anthony

While the Kansas City Royals seem to have their hands full at the moment with the Boston Red Sox, as they look to not get swept by their American League Wild Card rivals on Wednesday, the Sox have had a different focus.

Early in the afternoon, ESPN's Jeff Passan reported that Boston and their rookie phenom Roman Anthony were in the process of finalizing an eight-year, $130 million contract extension that would kick in in 2026.

Anthony is having himself quite the rookie campaign since being called up on June 9. The 21-year-old is slashing .283/.400/.428 with a pair of homers, 19 RBI, a 133 wRC+ and 1.6 fWAR in his first 46 games. This has catapulted him into the AL Rookie of the Year conversation, according to MLB.com's latest poll last last month.

The bombshell news of Anthony's early extension should now have the Royals thinking about what the future looks like for their 2025 Rookie of the Year hopeful in Noah Cameron.

Royals should consider locking up Noah Cameron amid Rookie of the Year caliber season

The thought of the Royals throwing around big money extensions traditionally hasn't been always been a consideration, given they're a small market team who have just a few excellent windows in both the mid-1980s and mid-2010s bookmarking what was a long period of some bleak baseball in Kansas City.

However, since their triumphant rise back up to the top of the baseball world in 2015, after capturing the franchise's second World Series title, the thought process has switched a bit - even with some rough seasons following their mid-decade triumph.

The Royals have shifted away from the traditional small market mold, opening up the cheque book to lock up some key players, including their face of the franchise in Bobby Witt Jr., along with the likes of ace Cole Ragans, and veterans Michael Wacha and most recently Seth Lugo.

Ownership is willing to attempt to put a core together in order to keep this competitive window open for longer than the two, arguably three, year window around a decade ago.

As the Royals are in the midst of pursuing their second consecutive postseason berth, one of those key pieces to their success this season has been the likes of Cameron.

The 25-year-old has been a breakout sensation this year. In 87.1 innings of work across 15 starts, he's pitched to the tune of a 2.68 ERA, 1.01 WHIP and .199 BAA. This has put him firmly in the Rookie of the Year conversation himself, as the aforementioned MLB.com award poll for July saw him receive a first place vote, and they even went on labeled him as a potential darkhorse candidate for the award.

Given the fact that the Red Sox have now locked up one of their top candidates for the award, there are plenty of reasons to think the Royals should look at doing the same for Cameron.

Now, should they look at an eight-year, nine-figure extension with the St. Joseph's native? No, absolutely not.

He's five years older than Anthony already, and as a 199th overall pick in his draft class, he never held the same prospect pedigree as Anthony - a 79th overall pick and eventual top ranked prospect in all of baseball.

There's also the fact that he's a pitcher, which, nowadays especially, is a position that carries a much higher risk for injury than an outfielder like Anthony.

All that to say, there's reason to believe that they should look to take the same route they did this winter when they signed Ragans to a three-year contract extension that bought out all but his final year of salary arbitration in 2028.

Cameron still has two additional years of pre-arbitration and then his three arbitration years following that, meaning perhaps a 3-5 year deal that buys out some if not all of his arb years would be wise.

And while this would be based off only a partial season in the majors, the numbers show that Cameron's rookie season is not a fluke by any means.

On top of his stellar surface level stat line, his underlying metrics are encouraging. While he's not blowing hitters away frequently with high strikeout rates from a blistering fastball, he uses a diverse five-pitch arsenal to avoid surrendering quality contact (73rd percentile hard-hit rate, 89th percentile barrel rate and 78th percentile average exit velocity) while limiting walks (70th percentile walk rate).

This has lead to some impressive expected metrics, as on top of a respectable 3.70 FIP, he holds an 82nd percentile 3.13 xERA and 76th percentile .227 xBA.

He's been a staple in this rotation and extension or not, will need to continue to be beyond 2025. Cole Ragans has already shown some injury concerns this season. While Lugo and Wacha have both received their rightful extensions since the end of the 2024 season, they aren't getting any younger. And Kris Bubic only has another year of team control remaining.

As more and more pieces of this current competitive Royals squad are coming into place, it's time J.J. Picollo and the front office not overthink things and work towards an extension with one of the key facets of their starting staff.