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At The Star, Jaylon Thompson writes about the MLB 100<\/a>:<\/p>\n Witt was listed among the 10 best big-leaguers for the 2026 season by MLB Network. He ranked No. 3 for the second year in a row alongside such fellow stars as Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani and Tarik Skubal.<\/p>\n Four Royals rank inside the top 100 this year. Maikel Garcia (No. 65), Cole Ragans (No. 89) and Vinnie Pasquantino (No. 93) were also honored.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n Kacen Bayless writes about a stadium meeting<\/a> with the Missouri governor:<\/p>\n Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and Interim Jackson County Executive Phil LeVota both confirmed to The Star that Gov. Mike Kehoe invited them to the closed-door meeting, which occurred Wednesday afternoon in Kehoe\u2019s Jefferson City office.<\/p>\n Both officials touted the gathering as a sign that Kansas City, Jackson County and Missouri were united around a plan to keep the Royals inside state lines. That acknowledgement appears to center the state\u2019s plan around Jackson County as opposed to another potential spot in Clay County.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n Has it really been 9 years?<\/p>\n Blogs?<\/p>\n At Inside the Crown, David Lesky ($) looks at all the negative value<\/a> the Royals generated in 2025:<\/p>\n Here is a list of players the Royals employed with negative WAR totals as calculated by Fangraphs:<\/p>\n (list, \u201cled\u201d by Jac at -1.6 WAR)<\/p>\n That\u2019s -6.8 fWAR spanning 1,789 plate appearances and 122.2 innings. The pitching side isn\u2019t bad at all. The 122.2 innings represent just 8.5 percent of all innings. The hitting side, though? That\u2019s not what you want. Those nearly 1,800 plate appearances accounted for 29.8 percent of all plate appearances. Of the 10 bats listed, only Massey and Melendez weren\u2019t negatives defensively. They were negatives offensively. It\u2019s a big group. Let\u2019s see how the rest of the playoff teams fared in terms of percentage of plate appearances taken up by negative value players:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n At his new digs at Royals Keep, Kevin O\u2019Brien lists \u201cFour Free Agents Whose Return Could Make Sense<\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n Frazier\u2019s return to Kansas City was a huge boost to the Royals\u2019 lineup. He posted a 98 wRC+ and 0.6 fWAR in 197 plate appearances, and the Royals went 35-30 in the second half (after going 47-50 prior to the All-Star Break). Overall, Frazier posted an 89 wRC+ and 0.7 fWAR in 459 plate appearances with Pittsburgh and Kansas City last year. Hence, he showed that he still has something left in the tank, especially for a team with playoff aspirations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n Blog Roundup:<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Hey, all! It\u2019s been a minute! My last post was on December 5th<\/a>. That\u2019s more than 4 Scaramuccis<\/a> or, roughly, one Liz Truss Lettuce<\/a>.<\/p>\n When I left the country, Mariah Carey was on the radio and there were only 2 Avatar <\/em>movies. I\u2019m sure nothing has arbitrarily changed with pediatric vaccine schedules and the food pyramid. Nicolas Maduro was President of Venezuela, Mar\u00eda Corina Machado still had her Nobel Peace Prize, and there were no threats of military action against Greenland, Iran, or Minneapolis. Also, I wonder who was in the Epstein Files. I\u2019m sure that was a bombshell since the DOJ was legally bound to release all of them by December 19th.<\/p>\n But we\u2019re a Royals blog, gosh darn it. And this definitely is NOT a shamelessly transparent attempt to kill two birds with one stone: catching me up on Royals offseason news while not having to come up with a new OT topic for today.<\/p>\n December 5th was before the winter Meetings. I linked to an article<\/a> from ESPN\u2019s Bradford Doolittle. It listed the Royals early offseason movement.<\/p>\n So far:<\/strong> The Royals re-signed catcher Salvador Perez, tendered a contract to and re-signed infielder Jonathan India, and traded for outfielder Kameron Misner and starter Mason Black.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n Misner and Black were both acquired in minor trades in mid November. The former was acquired<\/a> for our good friend, Cash Considerations (or PTBNL). The latter<\/a> for a 24yo high-A pitcher.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The Royals didn\u2019t lose or gain anyone<\/a> in the MLB portion of the Rule 5 Draft. Like zero. Major league and minor league portion. But they got lucky in the MLB draft lottery and will pick 6th this summer<\/a>.<\/p>\n One day after Mike Yastrzemski signs with the Braves<\/a>, the Royals make their first free agent signing: Lane Thomas<\/a>. Then the big news: Maikel Garcia signed a contract extension<\/a> for 5\/$57.5M with a 6th year club option. Early in the new year, the Royals also extended<\/a> manager Matt Quatraro\u2019s contract. There were also a number of minor league signings sprinkled in that I\u2019m not mentioning individually.<\/p>\n A few days later, JJ struck again<\/a>. He traded lefty bullpen arm Angel Zerpa to the Brewers for OF Isaac Collins and RP Nick Mears. I don\u2019t quite get this one from Milwaukee\u2019s point of view, but they just keep winning so I probably should try to figure it out. Next, the Royals replaced Zerpa with old friend Matt Strahm. Jonathan Bowlan was sent<\/a> to the Phillies in that trade.<\/p>\n The Royals signed some highly ranked prospects in the international signing period<\/a>.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Carlos Beltran was elected to<\/a> the Hall of Fame and Alex Gordon got 1 vote before falling off the ballot. Andruw Jones and Jeff Kent<\/a> will be joining him for this summer\u2019s induction.<\/p>\n What about the stadium search? Cool \u2013 the Royals are moving the fence in<\/a> for the new stadium! \u2026Oh, wait, that\u2019s for Kauffman.<\/p>\n Maybe these stadium search headlines can tell me how it\u2019s going:<\/p>\n Fortunately, the finances of baseball are a-ok! The Royals opted out of their TV deal<\/a> because Main Street Sports Group (aka FanDuel Sports Kansas City) can\u2019t pay the bills.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Dodgers signed .266\/.377\/.464 Kyle Tucker for an AAV record 4\/$240M. In essence, he\u2019s going to cost them more than $100M in 2026 when factoring in the luxury tax<\/a>. Meanwhile, practically every team is calling the Dodgers moves obscene. That includes the Yankees, who re-signed Cody Bellinger for 5\/$162.5M; the Mets, who stole Bo Bichette away from the Blue Jays for 3\/$126M; and the Red Sox, who signed Ranger Suarez away from the Phillies for 5\/$130M. Yay?<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure next offseason will go well: \u201cMLB owners will reportedly push for salary cap, \u2018no matter what\u2019<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n For Song of the Day, last week, Nintendo offered a 7-day free trial of Madden 26<\/a>. Madden games don\u2019t make it to Nintendo very often: maybe once per generation. So I was pretty happy to try it out.<\/p>\n Everyone else spends hours as a GM, trying to break the trading, drafting, and training system and not playing a single down of football, right? While you\u2019re on the menu screens, music is constantly playing. Sports games have been doing this for a while. A couple of years ago<\/a>, I mentioned how I discovered Fall Out Boy from one of the NBA2K games. Here\u2019s a track list<\/a> for the Madden 26 soundtrack. It ranges from Judas Priest to Wolfmother to Run DMC to N.E.R.D. to Lil Nas X.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve mentioned Mammoth (WVH) a couple of times in this space. \u201cDon\u2019t Back Down\u201d is on the soundtrack and it\u2019s one of the biggest songs from their first album. If you watch this and the two other songs I\u2019ve linked to (bel0w), you get the mostly complete story of the Wolfs to date (not much happens in this video, though).<\/p>\n \u201cAnother Celebration at the End of the World<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n (It kindof continues in \u201cI\u2019m Alright<\/a>\u201d)<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n\n
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