{"id":2287074,"date":"2026-02-18T08:25:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T08:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2287074"},"modified":"2026-02-18T08:25:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T08:25:45","slug":"see-kansas-city-royals-message-to-players-at-spring-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/see-kansas-city-royals-message-to-players-at-spring-training\/","title":{"rendered":"See Kansas City Royals message to players at spring training"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/p>\nSURPRISE, Ariz.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Kansas City Royals gathered for their first full-squad meeting Monday. It was their first time back together since late September.<\/p>\n

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Last week, Royals pitchers and catchers reported to spring training in Surprise, Arizona. Multiple position players arrived either to get a head start ahead of the World Baseball Classic<\/a> or to get extra training before the season.<\/p>\n

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Monday was the official start for full-squad activities.<\/p>\n

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The Royals went over the stated goals of the 2026 campaign and welcomed new faces<\/a> to the clubhouse. Among them were outfielders Isaac Collins and Lane Thomas. Matt Strahm, Alex Lange and Nick Mears acquainted themselves with the pitching staff.<\/p>\n

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The Royals also had several top prospects in camp. Guys like Ben Kudrna and Steven Zobac represented the next wave<\/a> within the organization. Blake Mitchell was also back after breaking his right hamate bone in camp last year.<\/p>\n

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There was an infectious energy after the meeting. The Royals were excited to be back after an 82-80 finish in 2025<\/a>. Even with new faces, the goals haven\u2019t changed for a team looking to get back into the postseason mix.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s fun and it\u2019s nerve-wracking,\u201d Royals manager Matt Quatraro said of his speech addressing the team. \u201cIt\u2019s, \u2018All right, let\u2019s go play baseball.\u2019 And I think that\u2019s the sentiment and just everything matters. That\u2019s most of what the players were talking about and what we have talked about all along. Like every little detail, everything we do, leads to an end goal. And that\u2019s what we want to focus on.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Royals enter 2026 with an established pitching staff. The questions surround their offense \u2014 most notably their outfield production \u2014 as they look to compete in the American League Central.<\/p>\n

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A lot will be asked of young players like Collins and Jac Caglianone. They will get the first shot at being the primary outfielders. Thomas is an intriguing rebound candidate after he missed time with injuries last season.<\/p>\n

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KC native Carter Jensen will also have a big role in 2026.<\/p>\n

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The Royals expect most of the spring competition to be reserve roles. The starting lineup is pretty much set with Bobby Witt Jr., Maikel Garcia, Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez leading the way.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI mean, without naming names, it\u2019s very obvious who some of the everyday guys are,\u201d Royals general manager J.J. Picollo said. \u201cThe competition is going to be how we fill out the last, you know, I\u2019ll say 10 through 13. You know, we have some guys that have more experience than others, but it\u2019ll play out in spring training. And I think our guys are hungry. I think they understand what the competition is like. They want to go out and win.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Witt revealed his desire to win early in camp. He focused his offseason on improving physically to ensure his body was ready for the long haul. The same can be said for several others who arrived in their best shape.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s the ultimate goal,\u201d Witt said about winning it all. \u201cIt\u2019s not just to get there but it\u2019s to go far in the postseason. So it starts today. But you can\u2019t get there today, so we are just taking it one day at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Witt will spend a few weeks in camp before heading off to join Team USA<\/a> for the 2026 World Baseball Classic. He is among multiple Royals who will represent their home country in the global event.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, the non-WBC players will be in Cactus League action. There is an opportunity for guys to win a roster spot with the increased playing time.<\/p>\n

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Picollo hopes to see a relentless approach all spring. It was his message as he addressed the team on Monday.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy message was pretty simple,\u201d Picollo said. \u201cJust go out and compete, be aggressive, be relentless and give us effort. I mean, that\u2019s what it is. We have a great fan base and tremendous support from ownership. There\u2019s no reason we can\u2019t be the last team standing, and that\u2019s the ultimate goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Royals are looking forward to the journey ahead.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think there were a lot of conversations throughout the offseason,\u201d Witt said. \u201cMeetings, guys getting together and just knowing, all right, let\u2019s kind of find our foundation. Let\u2019s build what we have and do it day-by-day. And so it\u2019s going to be a lot of fun. We kind of say it\u2019s brick-by-brick, and that\u2019s gonna be our little mantra. That\u2019s what we are going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Related Stories from Kansas City Star<\/h5>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n
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Jaylon Thompson<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Kansas City Star<\/span><\/p>\n

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Jaylon Thompson covers the Royals for The Kansas City Star. He previously covered the 2021 World Series and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Jaylon is a proud alumnus of the University of Georgia.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\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.kansascity.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SURPRISE, Ariz. The Kansas City Royals gathered for their first full-squad meeting Monday. It was their first time back together since late September. Last week, Royals pitchers and catchers reported to spring training in Surprise, Arizona. Multiple position players arrived either to get a head start ahead of the World Baseball Classic or to get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2056456,"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":[91466,43627,311274,377475],"class_list":["post-2287074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-bobby-witt-jr","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-matt-quatraro","tag-mlb-playoffs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Cole-Ragans-shines-as-KC-Royals-finish-2025-on-high.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2287074","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=2287074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2287074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2287075,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2287074\/revisions\/2287075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2056456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2287074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2287074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2287074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}