The 2027 Royals Payroll Situation

This will likely surprise nobody, but I keep a payroll spreadsheet for the Royals. I’ve done it for longer than this, but my tabs in a Google Doc go all the way back to 2014. They go as far as 2030 now because that’s the last year that anyone currently on the team is guaranteed to be with the Royals, at least by contract. Bobby Witt Jr. can opt out after 2030, and Maikel Garcia has a player option after 2030. So that’s what we know. Players like Jac Caglianone, Noah Cameron and Carter Jensen are technically under team control through 2031, but there’s no guarantee, as there is no contract on the books.

I wonder if I’d keep track of this as much if the Royals were a big payroll team. Eh, probably. But I’m glad I do because the trade deadline shined a light on the Royals’ plan. They do not plan to step back after a terrible season and reset or reboot or rebuild or whatever you want to call it. They plan to compete. But based on what’s happened this year, they’re going to need to spend some money to do it. Even if they make trades, it’s hard to envision a deal that brings in someone who isn’t making some money. We’ll have to figure out later how much they’ll need to spend, but first I want to dig into how much money they have without taking any free agent or trade targets into account.

Let’s start with a look back on the John Sherman era of payrolls. While I do keep my own spreadsheets, I’m going to defer to the sites that track these things even better. And I’m going to start with 2021 even though 2020 was Sherman’s first season as owner because, well, 2020 was a short season, and there’s nothing we can glean from it. This is from the venerable Cot’s Contracts: