{"id":2221012,"date":"2026-01-03T17:27:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T17:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2221012"},"modified":"2026-01-03T17:27:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T17:27:21","slug":"royals-shouldnt-discount-reunion-with-recently-dfad-versatile-ex-farmhand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/royals-shouldnt-discount-reunion-with-recently-dfad-versatile-ex-farmhand\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals shouldn’t discount reunion with recently DFA’d versatile ex-farmhand"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Kansas City Royals have entered a bit of a lull in their offseason again after a very active period following a quiet Winter Meetings.<\/p>\n

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While moves for the big-time targets like Brendan Donovan and Jarren Duran<\/a> may take time, the Royals have plenty of other lesser-discussed areas they could stand address in the meantime.<\/p>\n

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One of those areas is bolstering their bench depth after a season where many disappointed outside of their Silver Slugger quartet in the heart of the order<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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There’s no shortage of options and avenues the Royals could take to expand their offensive depth but perhaps a familiar face who was recently made available would do the trick.<\/p>\n

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On Friday the Minnesota Twins announced they’d traded for utility man Eric Wagaman from the Miami Marlins<\/a> and in the process of that move they also designated former Omaha Storm Chasers infielder Ryan Fitzgerald for assignment.<\/p>\n

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A Ryan Fizgerald reunion wouldn’t be a bad option for Royals’ bench depth in 2026<\/h2>\n

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Fitzgerald is coming off a short but productive big league season with the Twins in 2025. In 24 games, he launched four homers and drove in nine with a .758 OPS, 13.2% walk rate, 15.1% K-rate and 110 wRC+. <\/p>\n

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Mixed in with that was an even more successful 59-game stint in Minnesota’s Triple-A ranks, slashing .277\/.367\/.469 with seven home runs, 31 RBI, an 11.4% walk rate and 119 wRC+.<\/p>\n

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And while his 2024 stint with Strom Chasers wasn’t as good, a near-average 94 wRC+ along with a respectable .244\/.336\/.418 slash line with 14 HR, 54 RBI and 10.0% walk rate is nothing to discount by any means.<\/p>\n

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The fact that he appeared at all four infield positions last season in Minnesota already makes him a strong major league bench candidate in general.<\/p>\n

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Then, when you pair that with the fact that his above-average walk rates could certainly help the Royals bolster their 29th ranked BB% from 2025<\/a> as well as the fact that his blend of plate discipline and pop could benefit them and their 19th ranked .706 OPS las season, the fit makes even more sense.<\/p>\n

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He certainly seems to have more offensive promise than current Royals depth names like Nick Loftin (73 wRC+ in 2025) and Tyler Tolbert minus the speed (92 wRC+ in 2025) and is near or equally as versatile defensively.<\/p>\n

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It’s not a move that would garner much fanfare, nor would it be a move that really moves the needle a ton. However, bringing a name familiar with the organization that has plenty of tools to make them better, even if only marginally, should certainly be worth considering.<\/p>\n

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\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 kingsofkauffman.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Kansas City Royals have entered a bit of a lull in their offseason again after a very active period following a quiet Winter Meetings. While moves for the big-time targets like Brendan Donovan and Jarren Duran may take time, the Royals have plenty of other lesser-discussed areas they could stand address in the meantime. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2221013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2221012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Royals-shouldnt-discount-reunion-with-recently-DFAd-versatile-ex-farmhand.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221012","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=2221012"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2221014,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221012\/revisions\/2221014"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2221013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2221012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2221012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2221012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}