Non-tendered free agents that could benefit the Royals
More players became free agents.
On Friday, 62 more players became free agents after they were non-tendered at the deadline for arbitration-eligible players. Some players non-tendered were not yet arbitration-eligible, but non-tendering them allows teams to get them off the 40-man roster while avoiding waivers, which can allow them to re-sign players to minor league deals as some already yhave. The Royals did not non-tender anyone last week, although they did their 40-man roster cleanup earlier in the off-season, outrighting reliever Josh Taylor.
You can find a complete list of who was non-tendered last week here. There are a few players that might be of interest to the Royals.
Dylan Carlson was a 2.4 rWAR player and finished third in Rookie of the Year voting in 2021, but has declined every year since and was a full win below replacement level this year. He hit just 209/.287/.277 overall this season and is being dumped just two months after the Rays acquired him this summer. He draws walks and is a good defender, and he was a pretty good contact hitter the last two seasons, only to see his strikeout rate spike to 28 percent this year. He’s a pretty enigmatic player, but he’s just 26 and might fare well as a platoon player against lefties.
Bryan de la Cruz is another young player being dumped just months after being acquired. The Pirates picked up de la Cruz at the trade deadline for actual prospects despite only marginally being in contention. He’s a typical low on-base, decent power corner outfielder with poor defense. It wouldn’t take much to upgrade the Royals outfield, but de la Cruz is really just a younger version of Hunter Renfroe.
