<\/p>\n
The Royals entered the offseason in pursuit of two outfielders \u2014 ideally adding one apiece via free agency and trade. They accomplished that last week, signing\u00a0Lane Thomas<\/a><\/strong> to a $5.25MM deal and bringing in Isaac Collins<\/a><\/strong> in a trade with Milwaukee.<\/p>\n Collins played mostly left field for the Brewers. He\u2019s loosely penciled in there for now, while Thomas provides a right-handed hitting complement to Kyle Isbel<\/a><\/strong> and\u00a0Jac Caglianone<\/a><\/strong> in center and right field, respectively. It\u2019s better than it was at season\u2019s end but still not a great group on paper. Thomas is coming off an injury-riddled season. Caglianone struggled mightily in his first 62 MLB games and could benefit from more time at Triple-A. Isbel is a glove-only center fielder, while Collins\u2019 breakout season came as a 27-year-old rookie.<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, the Royals haven\u2019t closed the door on the possibility of adding another outfielder. Collins has plenty of minor league infield experience \u2014 mostly at second with a handful of starts at third base as well. President of baseball operations J.J. Picollo indicated that while the Royals expect him to play mostly outfield, he has enough defensive versatility for the front office to keep their options open (link via Anne Rogers of MLB.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n The switch-hitting Collins has a very patient approach. Kansas City ranked 22nd in on-base percentage (.309), and only the Rockies had a lower walk rate than their 7.2% clip. Collins provides a different skillet and generally raises the lineup\u2019s floor, but his limited power means he doesn\u2019t have a huge ceiling as an everyday left fielder. The Royals aren\u2019t going to be in the market for a star outfielder in free agency, yet they\u2019re kicking the tires on a more impactful trade possibility.<\/p>\n Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic<\/a> writes that the Royals could still be a factor for\u00a0Jarren Duran<\/a><\/strong>. Rosenthal suggests that Kansas City has balked at putting star southpaw Cole Ragans<\/a><\/strong> in a Duran trade. Whether the Red Sox would insist on Ragans\u2019 inclusion isn\u2019t known, as The Athletic report indicates that Boston executives view the teams\u2019 talks to date as preliminary.<\/p>\n That said, it\u2019s clear the Red Sox are putting a lofty price on their top outfielders. Tim Healey of The Boston Globe<\/a> writes that chief baseball officer Craig Breslow is telling interested teams that the Sox don\u2019t feel any pressure to trade an outfielder. They\u2019ve taken calls on Duran and\u00a0Wilyer Abreu<\/a><\/strong> at least dating back to the summer. Between Abreu, Duran and\u00a0Roman Anthony<\/a><\/strong>, they have three above-average to star caliber left-handed hitting outfielders. (Anthony signed an eight-year extension in August and certainly isn\u2019t getting traded.) Ceddanne Rafaela<\/a><\/strong> hits from the right side and has the ability to play the infield, but much of his value comes from his elite center field defense.<\/p>\n Keeping all four players limits the Sox\u2019s flexibility a bit. They can find at-bats for them all by rotating them through the designated hitter role and getting Rafaela occasional infield work. Boston has considered swapping one of Duran or Abreu for controllable starting pitching, though they\u2019re less motivated to do so after acquiring\u00a0Sonny Gray<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n The Royals have been on the opposite end. Picollo said a few weeks ago that they were open to trading a starter for outfield help. He essentially took Ragans out of that mix, though. The 28-year-old lefty finished fourth in AL Cy Young voting two seasons ago. He missed a good chunk of \u201925 battling a rotator cuff strain. He\u2019s signed for a combined $12MM over the next two years and will be eligible for arbitration in 2028. He\u2019s a potential ace whom the Royals control for three seasons at what\u2019d likely be no more than $25MM in total.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in a really good spot (with rotation depth), so if the right trade comes along, and it costs us a starting pitcher, we have to look at it,\u201d Picollo told Rogers<\/a> at the Winter Meetings. \u201cIt\u2019s just not going to be Cole. \u2026 We have to ask ourselves: Is this his max value right now? Probably not. If Cole pitches like he did in \u201824, who knows what his value is going to be? We just think right now, three years of control on a really good starting pitcher, it would have to be something crazy, something that\u2019s like, \u2018How can we pass this up?’\u201d<\/p>\n Kansas City has gotten hits on controllable arms like\u00a0Noah Cameron<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Ryan Bergert<\/a><\/strong> and\u00a0Stephen Kolek<\/a><\/strong>. Lefty Kris Bubic<\/a><\/strong> might be their likeliest rotation trade candidate, but he suffered a season-ending rotator cuff injury in July and is headed into his final arbitration year. No one from that group is valuable enough to headline a trade for Duran, who is coming off his third straight well above-average season. Duran is set for a $7.7MM salary and is under arbitration control through 2028.<\/p>\n Even if the sides can\u2019t line up value on Duran, the Royals will evaluate other outfield possibilities. They\u2019re also known to be searching for left-handed relief. That was more of a luxury buy around the Winter Meetings but takes on added importance after they traded\u00a0Angel Zerpa<\/a><\/strong> to the Brewers for Collins and righty reliever\u00a0Nick Mears<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Kansas City is down to Daniel Lynch IV<\/a><\/strong> and swingman\u00a0Bailey Falter<\/a><\/strong> as lefty relievers on the 40-man roster. Lynch managed a 3.06 earned run average over 67 2\/3 innings but did so with a well below-average 15.6% strikeout rate. There are a few one-year deal candidates available in free agency (e.g.\u00a0Drew Pomeranz<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Caleb Thielbar<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Caleb Ferguson<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Danny Coulombe<\/a><\/strong>). They could also explore the trade market, with St. Louis\u2019\u00a0JoJo Romero<\/a><\/strong> known to be available as he enters his final year of arbitration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.mlbtraderumors.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Royals entered the offseason in pursuit of two outfielders \u2014 ideally adding one apiece via free agency and trade. They accomplished that last week, signing\u00a0Lane Thomas to a $5.25MM deal and bringing in Isaac Collins in a trade with Milwaukee. Collins played mostly left field for the Brewers. He\u2019s loosely penciled in there for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2200439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[311239,424369,411191],"class_list":["post-2200438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-cole-ragans","tag-isaac-collins","tag-jarren-duran"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Royals-Continuing-To-Explore-Outfield-Market.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2200438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2200440,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200438\/revisions\/2200440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2200439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2200438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2200438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2200438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}