Kansas City Royals

All-Star catcher Salvador Perez is signed through the 2019 season, but the Kansas City Royals may be looking to hammer out the details on a new contract this offseason. MLB Network's Jon Heyman reported on Jan. 25 the Royals are in discussions with Perez about a long-term extension.

Continue for updates.

Perez Comments on Contract Talks

Saturday, Jan. 30 

Perez said his representatives were in talks with the Royals regarding a new deal but noted he wasn't sure whether a deal would be done by spring training, per Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com:

'I don't know,' he said. 'I got my agents they are talking to. We'll see. We have to wait for it. I'm happy either way. I'm happy no matter what. I'm here to play the game.'

Perez said he is not spending much time thinking about a new deal.

'That's why I got my agent,' he said. 'If something happens, great. If not, that's great, too. I don't care. I'll just play hard and keep my concentration and help my teammates. [And] try to get back to the World Series.'

Perez May No Longer Be Among MLB's Biggest Bargains

Monday, Jan. 25

In 2012, the Royals signed Perez to what became one of the most team-friendly contracts in baseball. He'll earn $7 million through the first five years, and after that, he has three club-option years worth a combined $14.75 million, per Baseball-Reference.com.

According to Spotrac, Buster Posey earns the highest annual base salary for a catcher at $20 million, just to put into perspective how great a deal the Royals are getting for a three-time All-Star and World Series MVP.

The Royals were still basking in their World Series glory when general manager Dayton Moore was asked about Perez's future with the team and whether the Royals would reward him for his work on the field.

"That's a decision we'd have to discuss as an organization," Moore said last November, per MLB.com's Jeffrey Flanagan. He continued:

I don't know when the right time is to do that. I don't know if there have been examples of [restructuring long-term deals]. But if a player doesn't perform, the club is usually often wishing it didn't [do a long-term deal]. But you know, we love Salvy. He's family. We'll see.

Few players have been more integral to Kansas City's success than Perez. Over the last three years, he batted .270 with 51 home runs and 219 runs batted in. According to FanGraphs, he was also the second-best defensive catcher in the league during that stretch.

Since he's still under contract for the next few years, the Royals don't necessarily need to give Perez a new deal, but doing so would be a gesture of good faith, and nobody would argue he hasn't done enough to warrant a pay raise.

Kansas City was regarded as one of the more frugal franchises in baseball for years, but as the team has become more successful, ownership has shown a strong commitment to providing the necessary finances to keep the team competitive.

The Royals handed outfielder Alex Gordon $68 million over four years earlier this offseason, and a new deal for Perez may happen sooner rather than later.

Ian Kennedy may not be the ace he once projected to become, but the Kansas City Royals felt he's good enough to upgrade their rotation, signing him to a five-year, $70 million deal Saturday.

Jon Heyman of MLB Network passed along word the sides had reached an agreement, and Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal confirmed the report.

Kennedy had been solid if unspectacular for the Padres, finishing the 2014 season 13-13 with a 3.63 ERA, 1.29 WHIP and 207 strikeouts in 201 innings pitched. Last year, he regressed, going 9-15 with a 4.28 ERA, 1.30 WHIP and 174 strikeouts in 168.1 innings.

Though he didn't pitch much in his first three seasons with the Yankees, he's been a steady performer over the past six years, finishing every season with at least 165 innings pitched and 160 strikeouts.

In 2011, he was one of the finest pitchers in baseball for the Arizona Diamondbacks, going 21-4 with a 2.88 ERA, 1.09 WHIP and 198 strikeouts in 222 innings pitched while finishing fourth in the NL Cy Young Award voting.

While that season proved to be an outlier, at the age of 31, he is still capable of being a solid third or fourth option.

Kennedy should slot into the rotation behind Yordano Ventura and Edinson Volquez, at least at the outset. It gives the staff more depth as Kansas City turns its attention toward a repeat World Series bid.

The Royals will need Kennedy more than ever after losing Johnny Cueto in free agency.

Following his most successful season in the big leagues and a World Series title, the Kansas City Royals have rewarded outfielder Lorenzo Cain with a two-year contract extension to avoid arbitration. 

Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports first reported Cain and the Royals were nearing an agreement on a deal that will pay the All-Star $17.5 million through 2017. ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick confirmed the agreement. 

Cain's deal covers his final two years of arbitration, so the center fielder is still on track to become a free agent when he is 31 years old.

Passan added that Cain had been seeking a six-year deal, but Kansas City officials "balked" at the proposal, noting the Royals likely couldn't have sustained their success with two outfielders signed into their late 30s—Alex Gordon will play the final year of his new four-year deal at 36 years old.

While Cain's long-term future is unclear, the Royals should be thrilled to get one of the American League's best players under contract without having to worry about arbitration. He had a breakout season in 2014 and followed it up by finishing third in AL MVP voting last year.

Defense has always been Cain's calling card, but his offensive surge last season, with a career-high 16 home runs, helped bolster a lineup that finished seventh in Major League Baseball in runs scored. He's still in his prime years, so his rising performance should continue over the next two years. 

Despite their World Series victory in October, the Royals still have to be smart about spending money. They are a small-market franchise that doesn't have the luxury of an open pocketbook, and Cain's extension is a reflection of how they are still operating.

Cain may have wanted a deal with more long-term security, but given how his career has gone to this point, he's still going to be in line for a payday in two years. The Royals will happily accept that trade-off if he helps them continue to make deep runs in October, as he has over the past two seasons.

Free agency is great when it works, and it doesn't only work when a player signs a record contract or when your favorite team grabs the biggest star in the game.

Free agency works when a player gets to play where he wants the most and the team gets to keep the player it wants the most. It works when a small-market club can energize a region, win a World Series and still have a chance to go after another one.

The Kansas City Royals were never going to be able to keep every player who took them to the top, but they've kept the one they really wanted this winter. And by signing left fielder Alex Gordon to a four-year, $72 million deal, which Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com first reported, the Royals proved free agency can work for everyone.

OK, so maybe the process is not working all that well right now for the St. Louis Cardinals, but no Royals fan is going to feel sorry for the Missouri team that so often gets what it wants.

The Royals were an ugly mess for so many years, but they got to the top by doing almost everything right. They got the right management team and the right players, and they put together an organization that no one wants to leave.

They targeted this window to win, knowing some things had fallen into place and that they couldn't keep this group together forever. Soon enough, the bill would come due, with Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain and Wade Davis all eligible for free agency after the 2017 season.

So the Royals threw everything they had at winning now. They went all out after Johnny Cueto and Ben Zobrist at the July 31 non-waiver trading deadline, giving up prospects even though they knew both players would almost certainly be half-season rentals.

The Royals weren't going to keep Cueto or Zobrist, and there was plenty of doubt whether they could keep Gordon. Just a few days ago, one club official expressed hope but also caution, saying the Royals would have a good chance unless the bidding got to $100 million.

Apparently, it didn't get there—perhaps because of the number of outfielders on the market (Yoenis Cespedes and Justin Upton remain unsigned) or because Gordon will turn 32 in February.

He still gets a contract that easily breaks the club record (Mike Sweeney and Gil Meche held the old record at $55 million). He gets $18 million per year (only 10 outfielders in the game make more, according to Cot's Baseball Contracts).

And he gets to live where he wants and play where he wants. Gordon grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, and has homes both there and in Kansas City. He went to school in Lincoln at the University of Nebraska, signed with the Royals as the second overall pick in the 2005 draft and has never gone anywhere else.

He first showed up as the third baseman who was going to be the next George Brett, and then he became an outfielder who was loved by scouts and analytics folks alike. He's superb defensively, and offensively he fits perfectly in the Royals lineup.

When he suffered a serious groin strain early last July, some worried the loss might ruin the already promising Royals season. I wrote the next day they were strong enough to get by without him, and sure enough they went 31-18 in the 49 games he missed.

Losing him now would have been much more costly.

The Royals have more young talent on the way, but they have no one like Gordon to step in after a winter where they will likely let their other starting corner outfielder, Alex Rios, leave via free agency. In an American League Central that is looking increasingly competitive after winter moves by the Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers, the Royals will be challenged to stay on top.

Retaining Gordon reinforces the idea they're willing to try. By keeping the contract reasonable and short enough, they may even have a better chance of retaining some of those post-2017 free agents, too.

There's no guarantee any of them will want to stay as much as Gordon did or that free agency will work out as well for the Royals then as it has now.

But that's two years down the line. First, the Royals get more chances to win with this group—chances to extend a window that easily could have closed soon after those hundreds of thousands of fans showed up for the World Series parade.

That day, not knowing whether he was saying goodbye, Gordon picked up the microphone and thanked "the best fans in the world."

Two months later, there's no need for goodbyes.

This time, free agency worked.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

Ian Kennedy has reportedly signed a five-year, $70 million deal, according to MLB Network's Jon Heyman.

The 31-year-old Kennedy is set to enter his 10th MLB season after stints with the New York Yankees, Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres.

After winning 13 games and posting a 3.63 ERA in 2014, Kennedy's numbers dipped a bit in 2015 with the Padres, as he went just 9-15 with a 4.28 ERA, although he did manage to strike out 174 batters in 168.1 innings pitched.

Kennedy's best season came with the D-backs in 2011, when he went 21-4 with a 2.88 ERA and finished fourth in the National League's Cy Young Award voting. While he hasn't come close to matching those numbers since, he is a workhorse who has made at least 30 starts in six consecutive seasons.

The Royals boast a deep and talented lineup as well as a dominant bullpen headlined by Wade Davis, Kelvin Herrera, Luke Hochevar and Joakim Soria.

Starting pitching may be Kansas City's one question mark, with the likes of Edinson Volquez, Yordano Ventura and Chris Young leading the way, but adding Kennedy would give it a much-needed power arm and the depth it currently lacks.

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First the good news, Royals fans: Kansas City made an offer to free-agent left fielder Alex Gordon, a key piece of their championship puzzle. The bad news? Gordon basically spit on it.

That's according to CBS Sports' Jon Heyman, who updated the Gordon/K.C. talks Friday:

The Royals have made it a priority to try to keep star left fielder Alex Gordon. But so far the sides appear to have a sizable gap in talks. Word is, the Royals made a four-year offer, but Gordon's camp is believed to consider it a proposal that's too great a hometown discount, and has sent back discouraging words about the initial try.

Gordon is thought to seek a deal closer to $20 million annually, but the Royals may view that figure as far too rich for their blood, even with added flexibility. It would be nice to see Gordon, a homegrown player from Nebraska, remain a Royal for life. But at the moment, that seems to be far less than a certainty.

That doesn't mean Gordon will definitely walk. But it undoubtedly calls into question his future with the only big league club he's ever known. The Royals simply aren't in the habit of handing out $20 million-per-year deals to anyone, homegrown fan favorite or no.

Which raises the question: If Gordon does bolt for a hefty payday elsewhere, will the Royals have enough talent to defend their title and keep this run going?

Let's start in the outfield. In addition to Gordon, Kansas City could also lose right fielder Alex Rios to free agency. Rios—who hit just four home runs with an anemic .640 OPS—wouldn't be nearly as big a loss as Gordon, a four-time Gold Glove winner who posted an .809 OPS.

But that's two holes the Royals have to plug on either side of American League MVP finalist Lorenzo Cain. Speedy Jarrod Dyson and Paulo Orlando, who made his big league debut last season at age 29, are currently at the top of the depth chart. Both are fine fourth outfielders, and Dyson's game-changing legs make him an intriguing option to start.

"I think he's capable of stealing 50-plus bases a year and scoring a bunch of runs," general manager Dayton Moore said recently of Dyson, per KCTV's Chris Oberholtz. "When he's on base, we score runs."

But for a team that's about to be fitted with rings, Dyson and Orlando aren't enough. The Royals made their name with a deep, balanced lineup that moved the line and gave opposing pitchers few if any chances to come up for air.

If Gordon exits, they should pursue another name from the next tier of free-agent outfielders, which includes Dexter Fowler and Denard Span.

And the outfield isn't the only place where questions swirl. The Royals rotation won't feature Johnny Cueto, last season's trade-deadline cavalry, after the right-hander inked a six-year, $130 million deal with the San Francisco Giants.

Cueto's departure surprised no one, and his performance with K.C. was up-and-down anyway. But the Royals are currently counting on a group topped by Edinson Volquez—who's steady but not an ace—and the mercurial Yordano Ventura. Yes, they re-upped Chris Young to a one-year pact. That's not going to raise any pulses.

Heyman noted that Kansas City "has its eye" on southpaw Wei-Yin Chen, along with Scott Kazmir and Yovani Gallardo. Chen is seeking a five-year, $100 million contract, according to MASNSports.com's Roch Kubatko, so like Gordon he may be out of reach. But a solid No. 2-quality arm from this depleted yet still deep pitching market would leave K.C. in a much stronger position.

There's plenty to like about this club.

The bullpen, anchored by Wade Davis, Kelvin Herrera and recently added Joakim Soria, remains an unmitigated strength. And even with uncertainty at the corner outfield spots—and Ben Zobrist also bolting via free agency—the lineup is littered with dangerous bats, including Cain, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas and World Series MVP Salvador Perez.

The Minnesota Twins are stocked with young talent. The Cleveland Indians are pitching-rich. And the Detroit Tigers and Chicago White Sox are retooling. The AL Central could be baseball's most wide-open division, particularly if the Royals lose Gordon and don't make any concurrent impact moves.

There's a lot of winter left, obviously. And a gaggle of high-profile hitters—Chris Davis, Yoenis Cespedes, Justin Upton—remain unsigned.

Maybe the initial offer, the one Gordon coated in virtual saliva, was just the first salvo in an ongoing negotiation. Perhaps the Royals really are ready to break the bank to bring him back, to turn Missouri into the Show Me the Money State.

Moore and Co. have constructed a winner without cutting huge checks. They deserve the benefit of the doubt. But without a few more headline-grabbing machinations, the doubts will start to creep in.

At the winter meetings, Moore was asked about the possibility of re-signing Gordon. "I don't know. We'll see," he said, per Andy McCullough of the Kansas City Star. "Don't know the answer to that yet."

He might as well have been talking about the whole offseason, and the Royals' repeat chances. Like the Gordon conundrum, everything's up in the air.

That's good news and bad news.

All statistics current as of Dec. 18 and courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

Don Mattingly led three straight Los Angeles Dodgers teams to 90-win seasons and postseason appearances. He's the only manager in Dodger history—Brooklyn or Los Angeles—with three straight first-place finishes.

So why, in the space of three questions at this month's winter meetings, was the new Miami Marlins manager talking about modeling his new team after the Kansas City Royals?

You know why.

The Royals are the World Series champions, which means they got where everyone else wanted to go. It also means that for the next year, everyone will at least think about trying to do it the way the Royals did.

There are trends in baseball, and maybe the Royals didn't need to win it all to convince other teams of the value of building a strong and deep bullpen, or of constructing a lineup long on speed and athleticism even if it's a little short on power. But have you noticed how much money teams are spending on relief pitchers?

Have you noticed the priority teams like the Boston Red Sox, Houston Astros and Detroit Tigers put not just on trading for a closer, but on building a bullpen around the guy they got?

As Mattingly said at the winter meetings, "See what Kansas City has done with their bullpen."

He also mentioned the 2006 New York Yankees with John Wetteland and Mariano Rivera and the way Bruce Bochy won with his San Francisco Giants relievers. But the mention of the Royals was no mistake, just as it wasn't when Mattingly answered a lineup question with a reference to how the Royals succeeded by "putting the ball in play" and moving runners.

Let's just say plenty of teams noticed that the Royals won despite ranking 24th in the majors in home runs and 22nd in rotation ERA.

Big starting pitchers still have great value, which is why David Price, Zack Greinke and even ex-Royal Johnny Cueto got plenty of money as free agents. Big power still has value, which is why the Baltimore Orioles offered Chris Davis so much money and why the Chicago White Sox were willing to give up as much as they did in Wednesday's trade for Todd Frazier.

But there's another way to win, a way to imitate baseball's latest champion without suffering through the early, low-win years of Kansas City general manager Dayton Moore's famous "process."

It wasn't all by plan, but the Royals spent a quarter of their 2015 payroll to pay for their bullpen. They paid Greg Holland $8.25 million and Wade Davis $7 million on a team where only one player (Alex Gordon) made as much as $10 million.

And with Holland due to miss all of 2016 after Tommy John surgery, the Royals went to the free-agent market themselves and signed Joakim Soria for $25 million over three years. Even in a market that didn't include any true closers, Soria was one of five relievers to already receive at least a three-year deal (with Darren O'Day getting four years and $31 million to stay with the Baltimore Orioles).

Now everyone thinks a deeper bullpen can cover up holes in the starting rotation, or make up for a lineup that doesn't score many runs and thus keeps games close. Even the Colorado Rockies spent some of their precious cash on free-agent relievers, signing Jason Motte and Chad Qualls for two years each.

The New York Yankees actually did the Royals thing last year, bulking up their bullpen with trades (Justin Wilson, Chasen Shreve) and a free-agent signing (Andrew Miller). With Miller and Dellin Betances at the back, the Yankees had their version of what the Royals had with Holland and Davis (before Davis went down in September).

Meanwhile, in a game that has excused big strikeout totals in exchange for power in recent years, the Royals were unusual with their put-it-in-play-and-run attitude. Now that they won with it, though, it seems other teams took notice.

Big strikeout guys like Pedro Alvarez and Chris Carter found themselves non-tendered. Versatile, put-it-in-play Ben Zobrist became one of the most coveted players on the free-agent market.

And the Royals found themselves trying to replace Zobrist and probably Gordon as well, as they got too expensive for what is still a small-market team.

When you win, everyone wants what you had.

It's just as Chicago Cubs president Theo Epstein said going into the NLCS. At that point, four teams remained, with four different ways of building a winning roster.

"The only thing I know for sure is that whatever team wins the World Series, their particular style of play will be completely en vogue and trumpeted from the rooftops by the media all offseason—and in front offices—as the way to win," Epstein told reporters, as relayed by Ted Berg of USA Today.

We'll never know how it would have gone if the Cubs (homegrown position players), the New York Mets (great young starting pitching) or the Toronto Blue Jays (big power and big July trades) had won. Instead, it was the Royals.

Everyone wants to do what they did. Many will also try to do it the way they did.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

Veteran right-handed pitcher Dillon Gee signed a minor league contract with the Kansas City Royals on Monday, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.

Gee, a five-year veteran with the New York Mets, can opt out of his deal on March 2—well before the start of the season—if he’s not on the Royals’ 40-man roster, though Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca speculated that’s unlikely:

Gee reportedly turned down major league offers from other teams in favor of a chance to play for the defending World Series champions, according to Adam Rubin of ESPN.com.

Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports noted that Gee can capitalize on generous incentives—particularly for a minor league deal:

Terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed, but Passan alluded that for for Gee to fully capitalize, he’ll likely need to be a full-time starter throughout the season and/or log somewhere near his career-high 199 innings from two years ago. 

He’ll certainly get a nice pairing with the Royals’ outstanding bullpen, which has arguably been its postseason catalyst in its consecutive American League pennant wins. 

Gee was 0-3 with a 5.90 ERA in 39.2 innings last year, but he was the team’s ace in 2013, logging a career-high 199 innings with a 3.62 ERA, 1.281 WHIP and 12-11 record. 

Gee lost his spot in the Mets’ 2015 rotation to Noah Syndergaard and was eventually was designated for assignment, then sent to Triple-A after not being claimed off waivers. He didn’t even receive a September call-up when rosters expanded, and declared free agency at season’s end. 

Clearly, Gee has his sights set on winning a ring—especially after leaving the Mets before last season’s pennant run—and should be a viable veteran presence in a healthy clubhouse atmosphere.

The window to win almost always closes quicker than you think it will, and it will close on the Kansas City Royals soon enough.

Just not yet.

The Royals pushed into win-now mode when they made their much-debated (at the time) trade for James Shields and Wade Davis three winters ago. They pushed all-in when they traded prospects for a pair of rental players this past July.

They pushed and they pushed because they knew the day was approaching when the great group of kids they developed would grow up and want to get paid. They knew the tough choices that would lie ahead. They knew no matter how much these guys love being together and being Royals, eventually many or all of them would command and want more money than the Royals could pay them.

So they didn't wait around. They went for it, and they have two straight World Series appearances and one glorious World Series title—and parade—to show for it.

They went for it knowing the window would close soon, and it will.

Just not yet.

The Royals will lose Johnny Cueto, the rental ace who won two huge postseason games and more than justified the trade price they paid. They'll likely lose Ben Zobrist, who loved it there—did you see he and his wife put "Royal" in their newborn daughter's name?—but is going to get multiple big offers now that he's a free agent.

Alex Gordon loves the Royals, too, and there are those in the organization who still dream he'll take a discounted deal to stay. Don't count on it.

The Royals will have some work to do filling out their rotation, bullpen and lineup. But this isn't the winter it all falls apart.

This isn't the time the window closes.

It can't be.

Not when seven of the 10 players who started Game 1 of the World Series remain under Kansas City control for 2016. Not when those include all five who hit 15 or more home runs. Not when the Royals are also keeping all three guys who had double-digit steals, the two starters who tied for the team lead in wins and the three relievers most responsible for making their postseason bullpen into the shutdown group it was.

Besides, the free-agent market is deepest in the two areas the Royals should be shopping in.

Don't look for them to make offers for David Price or Zack Greinke. But with so many starting pitchers available, don't be surprised if they go out and find the next Edinson Volquez (signed last winter for two years, $20 million). Don't expect Jason Heyward or Justin Upton, but with free-agent corner outfielders everywhere, they can do better than last winter's Alex Rios signing (for one year, $11 million).

The Royals don't need to search for stars. They have their stars.

They have Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas and Lorenzo Cain for two more years before free agency. They can keep Davis, Alcides Escobar and Kendrys Morales for two more years under current contracts, too.

There's no way they'll keep all those guys beyond 2017. They may not even be able to keep most of them, and that may well be when this Royals window slams shut.

The hope is it won't shut even then. Kids like Raul Mondesi, Ashe Russell and Kyle Zimmer can be the next wave to keep all this going. Also, the Royals know they found something special with the current Hosmer-Moustakas-Salvador Perez group. The immediate task is to try to win as much as they can before they really have to break it up.

So they'll work on a rotation that will still include Volquez and Yordano Ventura but won't have Cueto or Chris Young. Danny Duffy could come back from the bullpen to start. Perhaps Kris Medlen could, too, but the Royals will need to add at least one starting pitcher.

They'll work to add depth to the Davis-Luke Hochevar-Kelvin Herrera group that can dominate the back of the bullpen.

They'll keep hoping Gordon and/or Zobrist will take less money to return and that one of the two could play left field (with Omar Infante expected back at second base). They'll still need a right fielder.

And they'll hope the rapidly improving Minnesota Twins and the still-talented Cleveland Indians and Detroit Tigers don't get so much better this winter that the American League Central becomes too big of a challenge.

There's work to be done, more than just sizing the rings and scheduling the awards dinners. If things go well, there will be work to do again in July when, perhaps, the Royals can go all-in for a second (or would that be the third?) straight year.

The pressure of ending the 30-year title drought is gone. But the pressure of trying to win again before the window closes remains. The Royals can see that window closing.

Just not yet.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.