Rehabbing Royals regular may not have place on active roster when ready to return

The Kansas City Royals have had a pretty extensive list of regular fixtures in their lineup and pitching staff hit the injured list on recent months.

While some have made their return in recent weeks, there are still a few on there either recovering or out on rehab assignments, including their former everyday second baseman in Michael Massey.

Massey has been on the shelf since early June with a sprained ankle, but has suffered a series of setbacks on his road to recovery.

As he gets further into the rehab process, his potential return will inevitably start to enter more and more minds among the Royals faithful.

However, despite once being a lineup regular, with how strong the Royals have looked in the second-half, it’s reasonable to think that perhaps Massey no longer has a place on the 26-man active roster when he is in fact ready to return.

Michael Massey may no longer have place on the Royals’ active roster when ready to return

There’s multiple reasons as to why Massey may not have a place with the Royals when he’s ready to return.

First is obviously the fact that he struggled immensly at the plate before he got injured. From Opening Day to the time he hit the IL on June 10, Massey was the worst qualified hitter in all of baseball in terms of wRC+ at 25 and OPS at .479. When you pair this with the fact he only has one season above a 100 wRC+ (103 wRC+ in 2024) in his four-year big league career, it doesn’t instill much confidence.

However, since Massey has been out, the Royals have moved on a gotten better without him, as they have climbed their way back up to within 2.5 games out of an AL Wild Card spot thanks to some offensive revitalization.

Jonathan India started to look more comfortable after moving back to second base full-time earlier this season and has solidified his everyday spot in this lineup upon looking like a new hitter entirely after moving out of the leadoff spot.

With his primary position out of the picture, even his secondary position of the corner outfield looks all but covered without him. Mike Yastrzemski, Randal Grichuk and Adam Frazier have been key above average contributors since arriving in Kansas City ahead of the trade deadline and John Rave has looked night and day since the All-Star break after a brutal start to his MLB career.

This leaves the bench, where the likes of Tyler Tolbert (60 wRC+) and Nick Loftin (66 wRC+) could be replaceable. However, both of these names offer stronger positional versatility than Massey, Tolbert offers the Royals some much needed blistering speed on the basepaths and Loftin has had stretches of pure brilliance to dream on at the plate that Massey simply hasn’t had in 2025.

Massey returned to his rehab assignment on August 9 and did so in a strong manner. He was sporting a three-game hitting streak in his first three contests, going 6-for-14 with a pair of RBI and a walk. However, since then he’s had just three hits in the following six games. This means for the month of August, Massey is slashing an uninspiring .231/.286/.282 in nine games.

He hasn’t been convincing at the MLB level this season, he looks unconvincing of late in the minors and the Royals have simply looked better without him.

Given the fact he still has three remaining minor league options, it wouldn’t be a shock to see the Royals keep him at the Triple-A level upon completing his rehab assignment until there comes a point where they absolutely need to call upon him. Because as of right now, it doesn’t seem that the Royals are remotely close to needing his services again.