Royals are leaning on past success with deep international free agent class

Thursday marked another major milestone on the offseason calendar as international free agency opened and the Kansas City Royals were as busy as any organization.

They entered the day with one of the highest signing pools, holding the co-lead along with six other organizations at $8,034,900. And they appeared to put it to good use, signing 19 free agents, more than any team apart from the Cleveland Guardians and Miami Marlins.

And this has been area of player acquisition that they’ve certainly reaped benefits from in recent years.

To name a few current standouts, we have their captain Salvador Perez, who was a product of the IFA market back in 2006 and newly extended All-Star Maikel Garcia was a bargain free agent in the 2016 IFA class.

In the past, Kansas City has also seen plenty of success stories too. Just look at their 2015 World Series roster. Former ace Yordano Ventura was one of their 2008 signings and fireball reliever Kelvin Herrera was a product alongside Perez in the ’06 class.

And looking to the future, three of their Top 10 prospects according to MLB Pipeline (Yandel Ricardo, Kendry Chourio, Ramon Ramirez) are products of international free agency and looking wider, one third of their Top 30 can be attributed to the IFA market.

So come 2026, the Royals have only ensured they have a better shot to continue to have success with international free agents thanks to a very deep signing class.

Royals will hope deep 2026 international free agent class will continue to bear fruit

The Royals 2026 international free agent class has a variety of names at various skill levels and positions. There were high value Top 50 names along with more frugal bargain-type signings. And there were signings all around the diamond and on both sides of the mound. Not only was it deep, it was well-rounded.

Leading the pack was a pair of promising Top 25 prospects according to MLB.com in outfielder Angeibel Gomez and infielder Jaider Suarez who were already speculated to sign with Kansas City for some time now, so Thursday’s news came as no surprise to the Royals faithful.

Along with them though, the Royals were able to land another Top 50 name, with Pipeline’s No. 43 overall prospect catcher Adrian Lunar.

Gomez, who signed for $2.9 million, is a well rounded 60-grade outfield prospect, according to Pipeline, their team of scouts say has extra base power “with a right-handed swing that repeatedly generates hard contact” and is proficient enough in center field to have “the chance to stick there long-term”.

Suarez is a Cuban shortstop prospect with a strong 60-grade arm, according to Pipeline, who offensively has a lot to be excited about with a “swing routinely produces loud contact” and mechanics in the box that are conducive “to extra-base pop”.

Then there’s Lunar, the more unheralded Top 50 prospect if the bunch, who adds to Kansas City’s immense catching depth already and brings some solid tools to the table, with several notably strong grades from Pipeline including a 55-grade hit and field tool as well as a 50-grade arm behind the plate. According to Pipeline’s scouting report, some highlights of his game include swing mechanics “that he utilizes to almost never swing and miss” and “some elite pop times” in the sub-2.0 second range behind the plate.

After those three, the remaining 16 names are made up of two more catchers, three infielders, three outfielders, five right-handed pitchers and three southpaws.

Time will tell how these prospects fit into the grand scheme of their farm system, but there’s no denying that the front office certainly utilized their large bonus pool to deepen their system from top to bottom and across the board positionally – which as a result of the current state of their system has undeniably been a successful strategy in the past.