The Kansas City Royals have been in offseason mode for awhile now, with J.J. Picollo and the rest of the front office squarely focused on bringing this team back to the point of postseason contention they were at a year ago.
In their end-of-season press conference, the Royals’ brass seemed to acknowledge the fact they had offensive issues in 2025. And the one clear spot they could due with an upgrade is in the outfield.
Kansas City’s outfield ranked dead-last in MLB in wRC+ and RBI this past year, while sitting 29th in OPS, 27th in AVG and 28th in HR as well.
While Kyle Isbel may not have set the world ablaze with his bat, his Gold Glove caliber defense makes him a prime candidate to patrol center field for the Royals again in 2026. This means that it will be the corners where the Royals will likely focus their offseason attention to this winter. And with one of their few bright spots in Mike Yastrzemski set to hit free agency next month, the need seems that much greater.
As the search for re-enforcements gets underway, the Philadelphia Phillies have reportedly thrown another hat in the ring as rumors have surfaced Nick Castellanos’ time in Philly seems all but up.
Could Nick Castellanos be a name the Royals pursue this offseason?
According to Matt Gelb of The Athletic, the Phillies seem to be inclined to explore routes to move on from Castellanos.
“The Phillies owe Castellanos $20 million next season, and team sources have indicated for weeks they expect to move on from the veteran outfielder,” Gelb wrote. “Castellanos is expected to be traded or released this offseason as the Phillies remake their outfield.”
These reports come off the back of a season where Castellanos began to fall out of favor with the Phillies. As Gelb pointed out, he hadn’t started in 13 of their 25 games in September. On top of that he was a notable omission from Phillies’ NLDS Game 1 starting lineup versus the Dodgers.
This appeared to be the result of what was a less than ideal season for the two-time All-Star. In 589 plate appearances across 147 games, Castellanos slashed .250/.294/.400 with 17 HR, 72 RBI and a 90 wRC+.
Now, from a Royals perspective Castellanos isn’t necessarily someone that really moves the needle for them. And if they were to acquire him via trade, that $20 million price tag in 2026 makes him that much less valuable to them.
However, sheerly from a baseball standpoint, adding a veteran bat that still managed to scratch across over 70 RBI this season and hit in the mid-.200s to a struggling outfield unit isn’t a terrible thought by any means.
And it’s hard to look at a 90 wRC+ hitter and not see it as an upgrade over the seasons they just got from guys like Jac Caglianone (46 wRC+), John Rave (65 wRC+), Drew Waters (66 wRC+) and MJ Melendez (-14 wRC+), all of whom they deployed at the corners at some point in time over the course of 2025.
There are certainly going to be better upgrades this team could explore for the outfield needs over Castellanos this winter, that’s a guarantee.
However it’s always good for a front office to do their due diligence and Castellanos should still definitely be an option to at least kick the tires on and evaluate whether or not he fits into this team’s vision in 2026 and beyond.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source kingsofkauffman.com ’
