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👑 Tuesday, November 4 • 2026 Season Planning Begins 👑

The 2026 offseason begins not with a first pitch, but with a front-office board.

Kansas City Royals Front Office
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Front Office Desk

The inbox looked different this morning.

During the season, it is lineups, injury reports, waiver claims, pitching usage, scouting notes, and the daily question of whether the bullpen can cover what the starter leaves behind. Today, the 2026 offseason opened with a different kind of weight. Contracts. Staff vacancies. Trade proposals. Arbitration sheets. Development plans. Ownership expectations. The kind of work that does not show up in a box score but determines the box scores we will read next summer.

The World Series is over. Tampa Bay has the trophy. San Diego has an empty flight home. Cleveland has the memory of ending our season before we ran into the club that finished the job. Kansas City has the board.

That is where the 2026 season starts for me — not in Arizona, not in the first spring box score, and not when the clubhouse doors reopen. It starts here, on November 4, with the quiet work that determines whether next October lasts longer than two games.

As a manager, I can still feel the shape of the final month. The missed chances. The thin bench. The late innings that became daily leverage math. The injuries to Bobby Witt Jr. and Vinnie Pasquantino, which bent the lineup at exactly the wrong time. The Cleveland series that reminded us how narrow the postseason strike zone becomes when a roster runs out of answers. As general manager, I must turn those feelings into moves. We proved the organization could get back into the postseason conversation. Now we must prove we can build something that survives it.

The first bit of league housekeeping came in the form of a reminder that both high-end and league-minimum salaries have risen. Baseball never stops getting more expensive. The good news is that revenue is expected to climb with it, driven by national and local media, merchandising, and the general lift that comes when a club gives its fans a reason to show up again. Although hot dog and beer prices still seem to climb faster than a high fastball.

The offseason officially starts with three tracks running at once.

The first is emotional. The final out in Cleveland still sits there. The Wild Card berth was real, but the exit was quick, and there is no way to dress that up.

The second is practical. We have decisions that cannot wait for December: options, arbitration, free-agent direction, coaching vacancies, trade-block responses, and which young players get early development attention.

The third is philosophical. We have to decide what kind of club the 2026 Royals are supposed to become.

Last season, the roster found a way to win 85 games and keep Kansas City in the hunt deep enough for the city to care again. But the finish exposed the thin places. Injuries bent the lineup. The bullpen gave us too many nights where the manager's chair felt like a live wire. The rotation carried more than its fair share, and when Zack Eflin's health became a question, the entire staff picture changed.

The 2025 Royals were good enough to reach October. The 2026 Royals have to be built to stay there.

The calendar gives us no warm-up swings. Expansion news arrives first. Arbitration and free-agent filings follow. The Winter Meetings are already waiting in December, and the Rule 5 Draft will test how cleanly we have protected the next wave. Before the international amateur signing period opens in January, we need to know what kind of team we are asking the farm system to support.

So this offseason starts with a simple working rule:

Do not reward the club for reaching October by pretending it is finished.
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Salvador Perez — The Easy Decision

Some decisions were already made before I ever sat down. The $13.5 million team option on Salvador Perez was one of them. That gets picked up. Period.

You do not treat a franchise player like he is just another line on a payroll screen. Salvy has earned a different level of conversation in Kansas City. Five Gold Gloves. Four Platinum Stick awards. Eight All-Star selections. A World Series MVP. Nearly two decades of loyalty to this ballclub.

El Niño stays.

There are roster decisions that require a general manager to be cold. There are others where being cold would be foolish. Salvador Perez still gives us leadership, situational production, clubhouse gravity, and a direct connection to the best parts of this franchise's modern history. That does not mean sentiment runs the roster. It means respect has to be part of the math when the player has earned it.

Figure 1. Salvador Perez — Franchise Respect Meets Roster Reality



Perspective: The November 4 contract review confirms the expected decision: Kansas City will exercise Salvador Perez's $13.5 million team option for 2026. For the front office, this is both a baseball decision and a franchise decision. Salvy remains tied to the club's identity, leadership structure, and late-lineup situational value.
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Staff Desk — Rebuilding the Chain Before It Breaks

The next decisions moved from the major-league roster to the staff chain.

Double-A hitting coach Andy LaRoche had to be replaced, and the expected retirement of Omaha manager Mike Jirschele became part of the day's planning. I probably should have expected Mike to step away soon. He is 66, and even though I thought he might finish out the contract through next season, the timing does not shock me. It does create opportunity.

The organization cannot wait until the major-league staff ages out or falls short before building the next layer. If we are asking the player-development system to produce big-league contributors, then the coaching pipeline has to be treated with the same seriousness as the prospect pipeline.

I made a two-year, $215K offer to Tim Hines to become the hitting coach for the Northwest Arkansas Naturals. He is respected in the farm system, and the reports suggest the Naturals players respond well to him. That matters. Double-A is often where a player stops being a prospect story and starts becoming a decision. The hitting voice there has to connect.

For Omaha, I made a three-year, $315K offer to Juan Mosqueda. Mosqueda is a smallball guy, but the key pieces are patience at the plate and excellent baserunning instruction. That lines up with where I want the organization to go in 2026. We ran, but we did not always run well. We created pressure, but not always with the discipline to make that pressure efficient. I want those habits drilled in Triple-A, so they arrive in Kansas City as instinct, not as a spring-training talking point. At least that is my optimism.

Hopefully, they both accept the contract offers, and I'll meet with them one more time to review the prospects they will mentor before they head to the minor league clubhouse.
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Ownership Meeting — Budget, Expectations, and the Real Shape of 2026

The first day also brought the 2025 season recap and 2026 budgeting conversation with John Sherman. The opening note caught me off guard. John told me the latest fan surveys showed loyalty to the Kansas City Royals had increased to a "Poor" rating. Then he told me that it was excellent news. Keep up the great work.

That is baseball ownership math in a sentence. When the starting point is low enough, "Poor" can still mean progress. The important part is that the fans moved in the right direction. If we can maintain the momentum from 2025, there should be better days ahead in both attendance and revenue.

John increased the total budget by $8.0 million, bringing us to $198.0 million for the 2026 season. That projects to a $120.0 million player payroll. Development and scouting are both expected to receive bumps as well — $25.0 million and $20.0 million, respectively — although I will hold off confirming the final allocations until we get closer to preseason and spring training. Ticket prices will stay at $30.50.

That part matters. Kansas City gave us more energy as the season grew more serious, and we need to keep the door open for the city to come with us. A better team should not become a less accessible team overnight.

John was pleased with my performance against the 2025 goals. But a new season means a new set of demands, and the final minutes of the meeting turned toward where ownership wanted to see improvement. One of the suggested goals was upgrading first base. I pushed back.

Vinnie Pasquantino is not the problem. Last season, he hit .287/.356/.499, logged 519 at-bats, and led the American League with 49 doubles. Trying to "upgrade" first base just to satisfy a generic improvement box would be self-defeating. That is not where the roster leaked. The bullpen leaked.

We spent too much of 2025 trying to stabilize the late innings, and that became obvious long before October. So I steered the priority away from replacing Vinnie and toward improving the bullpen ERA. That had already become a top internal priority before we left August. Now it is official.

Figure 2. 2026 Budget and Goals Review — Sherman Sets the Frame



Perspective: The November 4 front-office budget screen captures the first ownership checkpoint of the offseason. Kansas City's total budget rises to $198.0 million, with projected player payroll at $120.0 million. The key strategic adjustment is redirecting the improvement goal away from first base and toward bullpen stability, preserving Vinnie Pasquantino as a core piece while acknowledging the club's real late-inning weakness.
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Winter Board Priority No. 1 — Rebuild the Bullpen Before It Rebuilds the Season for Us

The first priority is the easiest to name because it was the hardest to manage.

We must rebuild the bullpen. Not patch it. Not dress it up with one veteran arm and hope the rest sorts itself out. Rebuild it.

The 2025 club had enough starting pitching to reach October, but too many nights still turned into bullpen negotiations. The starter gave us five or six, the lineup scraped together a lead, and then the game shifted into that uncomfortable space where I had to manage around the weakness instead of through the strength. That cannot be the 2026 model.

A contender needs more than a closer. It needs a bridge. It needs seventh-inning arms that do not force the eighth inning to arrive early. It needs optional depth in Omaha, not just emergency bodies. It needs at least one reliever who can miss bats when a runner reaches second, and the ballpark starts to feel smaller.

The pitching-and-defense review makes the warning clear. Strikeouts finished at the bottom of the American League, and too many contact-heavy innings asked the defense to be perfect. That can work for a week. It cannot carry a full season. It certainly cannot carry October.



The front office target is simple: add two legitimate leverage arms, one optionable swing arm, and one upper-minors reliever who can force his way into the conversation by June. The manager's target is even simpler: stop turning every one-run lead into a high-wire act. If we are going to play postseason baseball again, the bullpen has to become a weapon instead of the inning we survive.
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Trade Desk — Offers Arrive Before the Coffee Cools

I had placed several players on the trade block as we crossed into October, so once the offseason officially opened, the offers started landing. That means the next few days will be heavy on review. Not just "Do we like the player?" but actual roster logic. WAR gain. Payroll effect. Years of control. Role overlap. Clubhouse impact. 40-man pressure. Whether the move makes us more complete or just more active.

Last year's offseason WAR gain/loss tally landed around +3.0. This year, I want to push that closer to +5.0. I know that is subjective, but I need a baseline to keep the winter from becoming a pile of disconnected moves. Activity is not improvement. Improvement has to show up somewhere.

The first offer from Toronto did not last long. They wanted to move a 26-year-old Vladimir Guerrero and his three-year, $83.0 million contract — starting at $28.8 million this season — for Jordan Montgomery.

Hard No. Not close.

I do not know where they got the idea that I would entertain that structure for Monty. Toronto would not move much off the ask, so I left the table. Maybe they were just throwing darts and seeing where one stuck. It did not stick here.

The Cardinals, Mets, and Guardians all showed interest in Brady Singer, which requires a more serious conversation. Singer still carries value around the league, even after a mediocre season by his standards. If there is a deal to be made, it has to return something that helps the 2026 club or materially improves the next roster layer. We are not going to be loose this time. We are not going to be naïve.

If we move Singer, it has to be because the trade makes the staff better, the roster deeper, or the future clearer. Preferably all three.
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Winter Board Priority No. 2 — Settle the Rotation Without Blocking the Next Wave

The second priority is rotation clarity.

Spencer Turnbull already gave us the first clean yes of the winter. That matters. His extension gives the staff a floor, and after the way 2025 ended, I will take every stable inning we can bank. But the rotation board is still crowded, complicated, and important enough to decide the shape of the entire offseason.

Jordan Montgomery gave us durability and volume. Zack Eflin gave us ace-level run prevention before the injury question moved to the front of the file. Cole Ragans requires patience and realism. Luinder Avila earned a longer look. Hunter Brown's losing streak needs a deeper review, not a lazy label. Felix Arronde now stands at the door after a full Triple-A workload and the International League Outstanding Pitcher honor.

That is a good problem only if we manage it correctly. If we panic, we block Arronde. If we assume too much, we expose the staff. If we chase the wrong free-agent arm, we spend flexibility on a name instead of a fit.

The job is to create a layered rotation plan. One layer for Opening Day. One layer for injury. One layer for performance. One layer for Omaha pressure. Arronde should not be handed a rotation spot just because his award looks good on paper, but he should not have to climb over a wall of veterans either.

Eflin is the pivot point. If the medicals and contract demand line up, his command profile is exactly the kind of postseason starter we need. If they do not, we have to move quickly enough to avoid being left with only leftovers when the market thins.

The Baseball 101 version is simple: you need starters who keep you off the barrel and out of crooked numbers. The front-office version is harder: build enough certainty to compete, leave enough room for the next arm, and do not pay twice for innings we may already have developing internally.

The 2026 rotation should not be built on hope. It should be built on pressure — veterans pushed by prospects, prospects protected by veterans, and no one comfortable enough to coast.
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Arbitration and Free-Agent Desk — The Long List Begins

The arbitration list is long, and that alone will shape the next phase of the offseason.

There are a couple of names we already know will be allowed to reach free agency. Lane Thomas will not receive an extension offer. That decision is effectively made. Austin Meadows remains under consideration. His late-season value, hitting-streak presence, and role fit give us something to discuss, but the number and roster pathway have to make sense.

The bigger docket item is Zack Eflin.

Eflin's 2025 performance was not ordinary. When healthy, he gave us the kind of command-and-traffic-control profile that holds up against playoff lineups. His WHIP, walk suppression, quality-start run, and scoreless-inning streak were not cosmetic numbers. They were the backbone of a rotation that kept the club upright. But the question of injury changes the risk.

So now the decision is whether we work to keep him, make the qualifying offer, or accept that draft compensation is the cleanest outcome. That is not a decision to make on instinct. It belongs at the top of the round-table agenda.

Eflin is not just a pitcher decision. He is a rotation-shaped decision.

Figure 3. Salary Arbitration Review — The Winter Math Starts Here



Perspective: The November 4 arbitration screen outlines the first major roster-cost checkpoint of the 2026 offseason. Kansas City's arbitration and pending free-agent decisions will shape payroll flexibility, trade posture, and the timing of any major bullpen or rotation additions.
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Winter Board Priority No. 3 — Build a Deeper, More Resilient Lineup Around the Core

The third priority is depth.

That sounds less exciting than adding a middle-order bat, but September taught us the difference between star power and roster strength.

Bobby Witt Jr. changes games with his legs before he changes them with the bat. Vinnie Pasquantino's doubles production was elite. Salvador Perez still converted situational runs. Maikel Garcia gave us speed. Kyle Isbel saved runs in the outfield. Those are real pieces. But when the injuries hit, the lineup thinned too quickly.

The final leaderboards told the truth. We had individual strengths that belonged among the league's best: Vinnie in the gaps, Salvy with sacrifice flies, Bobby and Garcia stretching the field, Isbel turning contact into outs, Eflin and Montgomery carrying the rotation. What we did not have was enough insulation when two or three of those strengths were missing at once.

That is the 2026 offensive assignment. Find one bat who lengthens the lineup without clogging the roster. Add one bench piece who can start three times a week without making the lineup feel short. Improve the late-game options so the manager has more than a defensive replacement and a prayer. Protect the club against the kind of injury stretch that turned September from a pennant push into a hold-on exercise.

This does not mean abandoning the identity. Kansas City still has to run. Still has to pressure defenses. Still has to use Kauffman's gaps. Still has to win with gloves as much as with bats. But the 2026 bench must be more than a break-glass unit. It needs usable platoon coverage, defensive flexibility, and enough on-base ability to keep the lineup moving when the stars are not carrying the inning.

A roster that reaches October is talented. A roster that survives October is layered.

That is the distinction we must build into the winter.
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Development Lab — Thirteen Slots, One Bigger Bet

The final major review of the day moved into the development lab.

Last season, during the mid-season review with John Sherman, I convinced him to increase our development lab from eight slots to ten. This morning, I pushed again and got three more. That gives us 13 total slots, close to a half-roster equivalent. That is a major internal win.

The 2026 Royals cannot be built only through free agency and trades. We do not have the kind of payroll room to buy every answer, and even if we did, that would not be the healthiest model. We need internal improvement to carry real weight.

I started with the active roster and secondary roster. After the injuries Bobby and others dealt with last season, strength and conditioning had to be part of the conversation. Then I balanced the rest of the lab with top prospects down through the ACL Rookie level. The first six slots went to active or near-active roster pieces. The remaining seven went to prospects whose tools or timelines made the investment worthwhile.

The goal is not to create miracles. The goal is to increase the number of players who arrive in camp slightly more ready, slightly more polished, or slightly more physically prepared than they would have been otherwise. In baseball, a slight edge repeated enough times becomes a season.

Figure 4. Player Development Lab — Thirteen-Player Winter Investment



Perspective: The expanded development lab screen shows Kansas City beginning 13 offseason training programs, balancing major-league and secondary-roster needs with prospect development from the upper minors down through rookie ball. The added lab capacity gives the organization a larger internal improvement mechanism entering 2026.
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Manager's Desk — What I Need by Spring

By the time we get to camp, I do not need every job decided. I do need every competition to make sense.

I need to know which relievers can handle traffic. I need to know which starters can give us length without forcing the bullpen into the game too early. I need to know whether the bench can protect Bobby, Vinnie, Salvy, and the rest of the regulars from being overextended before August.

Spring Training cannot become a tryout for questions we were afraid to answer in November. That is why this first offseason page matters. Winter is when we decide whether the manager gets options or excuses.
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Front Office Offseason Notes

The first day of the offseason did not give us one clean storyline. It gave us a pile of them.

Salvador Perez stays because some decisions are both obvious and necessary. The coaching chain begins to shift, with Tim Hines targeted for Northwest Arkansas and Juan Mosqueda targeted for Omaha. John Sherman gave us a larger budget, but not so large that discipline can leave the room. The bullpen is now the formal improvement target, as it should be. Trade offers are already moving, with Toronto quickly dismissed and the Singer market worth monitoring. Arbitration decisions are coming fast, and Eflin sits at the center of the rotation question.

The development lab expansion may end up being one of the most important wins of the day. Thirteen slots give us a chance to make player growth part of the offseason plan instead of a vague hope attached to spring training.

As GM, this was a paperwork day. As a manager, it was a reminder that every November decision eventually finds its way into a seventh inning, a bench matchup, a tired starter, or a game we either close or give away.

The 2026 winter board is clean enough to understand and hard enough to matter:

Rebuild the bullpen.

Clarify the rotation.

Deepen the roster around the core.

Do not confuse reaching October with being built for October. The 2025 Wild Card berth was progress. The Cleveland sweep was the warning label. Tampa Bay is the winter standard because the Rays won with a roster that held together. Kansas City's next step is building that same kind of coverage.

The farm system must be part of the answer. Arronde's rise changes the rotation conversation, but the 40-man math and Rule 5 decisions must protect the players who can help soon. The Winter Meetings cannot be exploratory only. By December, the shopping list must already be clean.

That is why the first winter ledger matters.
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Around the League

The rest of baseball wasted no time getting started.

Tampa Bay begins its championship winter. San Diego begins the hard review that follows a World Series loss, and the Padres have already started acting like a club that is not content with simply having reached the final round. San Diego moved quickly, making early deals with the Dodgers and Rangers and acquiring closer Evan Phillips from Los Angeles.

The Dodgers also moved a major-league reliever to Cleveland for minor-league pieces, while Milwaukee and Cincinnati, Washington and Minnesota, and the Yankees and Atlanta all completed trades on the first day of the 2026 offseason.

The biggest front-office news came from Toronto, where Ross Atkins was fired as general manager. The club framed the decision as mutual and civil, but the message was still clear. Toronto is resetting its baseball operations direction, at least temporarily, with an interim general manager expected to take over. That context makes their Montgomery offer even stranger. A front office in transition can sometimes float aggressive ideas just to see what the market says back. Kansas City's answer was no.

Expansion news will add a new layer to the offseason. Arbitration will force salary decisions into the open. Free agency will test patience. The Winter Meetings will test discipline.

For Kansas City, this is where the next season begins. No anthem. No lineup card. No first pitch. Just the board, the calendar, and the responsibility of turning an 85-win October team into something deeper, tougher, and harder to finish off. No games today, but plenty of baseball.

The 2026 Royals start here.
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👑 FOR THE CROWN — ALWAYS 👑
Kansas City Royals | 2026 Offseason Opening — November 4, 2025
(OOTP25 Royals Journey — GM/Manager's Dual Log)