The Kansas City Royals have a lot of challenges to tackle in one go this winter.
Following a disappointing 82-80 campaign (four wins worse than a season ago), the Royals are left to figure out why an offense that added talent from a year ago finished 26th in scoring. And as they evaluate what went wrong, they must also decide which positions to upgrade for next year.
While there are plenty of potential solutions, the Royals should identify second base as a need worth addressing for the next few seasons, as they had two prominent players suffer brutal years in 2025. Accordingly, there’s a free agent who should be attainable that would be a major upgrade.
Detroit Tigers second baseman Gleyber Torres, who made his third All-Star team this season, was an interesting target for the Royals before they traded for Jonathan India last winter. Instead, he’s still playing postseason baseball while Kansas City is sitting at home.
Now that he’s had a productive year and India put together a rough one, he makes even more sense for Kansas City this time around.
It’s not like Torres’ numbers will blow anyone away. He finished the year with a .256/.358/.387 slash line, 16 home runs, and 2.9 wins above replacement. But India and fellow Kansas City second baseman Michael Massey combined for 0.3 WAR, so Torres repeating that season in a Royals uniform would be a big upgrade.
Torres was available for a one-year contract last offseason, and the $15 million he signed for could have been within the Royals’ budget had they chosen to allocate their money a certain way. No one can say with certainty what their budget will look like this time around, but a multi-year deal for a similar salary that works for both parties would be easy to envision.
The Tigers’ infield pipeline is deeper than the Royals, so it’s not obvious that they’re committed to trying to re-sign Torres. That could be a boon to Kansas City, and stealing a productive starter from a division rival never hurts either.
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