
This season has not gone as the Royals had hoped. After back-to-back winning seasons, the front office was hoping to return to the formula that led them to a postseason appearances in 2024. But the offense started off cold, the bullpen blew many early leads, and injuries buried any hope the team could climb out of their hole.
There will be a lot of pressure for the Royals to turn their fortunes around next year. Fans are upset this season turned out so badly, and the organization is facing additional backlash for trying to circumvent a public vote on their downtown baseball project. Looming over this offseason is the possibility of a work stoppage that could result in missed games. And if things are resolved, the financial state of the game could look much differently, with owners adamant about implementing a salary cap.
Royals payrolls since 2020, the pandemic-shortened season, have increased under the Sherman ownership team, aside from in 2023 when spending remained flat.

So what does the salary situation look like for 2027? The Royals have already parted ways with Kris Bubic, Lane Thomas, Starling Marte, Matt Strahm, and John Schreiber, all of whom were impending free agents this upcoming offseason. Jonathan India and Craig Kimbrel are also free agents, and the Royals seem very likely to decline the $13 million club option on Carlos Estévez and pay his $2 million buyout after he missed nearly the entire season with an injury.
Salvador Perez will be under the last year of the two-year, $25 million contract extension he signed after the 2025 season. The deal pays him a $9 million salary in 2027, although $2.5 million of it is deferred until 2032. Spotrac has his 2027 number at $12.5 million, reflecting the contract’s $12.5 million average annual value for Luxury Tax purposes. In terms of actual cash paid in 2027, however, the Royals will owe Perez just $6.5 million of his salary, with the remaining $2.5 million coming later, plus a deferred $7 million signing bonus that isn’t paid until 2030.
So here are the amounts the Royals will pay players under contract for next year.
- Seth Lugo $21.5 million
- Bobby Witt Jr. $20.111 million
- Michael Wacha $14 million
- Cole Ragans $7.583 million
- Maikel Garcia $7.26 million
- Vinnie Pasquantino $6.9 million
- Salvador Perez $6.5 million
Those seven players total $85.854 million in salary, plus the $2 million buyout for Estévez. The team has a $6 million club option on Randy Dobnak with a $1 million buyout. With his emergence this year and their need for pitching depth, it seems likely that would get picked up. The Royals also have a $2.5 million club option on Tony Gonsolin which is likely to get picked up. That puts us at $96.3 million.
The Royals have eight players eligible for salary arbitration under the current rules (which may be changed in the next collective bargaining agreement): Lucas Erceg, Kyle Isbel, Alex Lange, Daniel Lynch IV, James McArthur, Nick Mears, Alec Marsh, and Michael Massey.
Considering their injury histories, McArthur and Marsh each seem like a good bet to be non-tendered, although I would expect the Royals to make an effort to retain them on minor league deals. Alex Lange had mixed results, Nick Mears was largely hurt, and Lucas Erceg ended up being demoted so there should be a decision to be made on each of them. But the cost for each of them likely won’t be high and the Royals are not in a position to shed bullpen depth. I would not expect more than $1.6 million as a salary for any of them should they be retained.
Lynch will be tendered a deal for his second year of arbitration, which should earn him a salary around $2 million. Michael Massey will be eligible for the second time, and is probably looking at a deal close to $3 million, while Kyle Isbel could earn $4 to $4.5 million in his final year of arbitration.
The Royals tend to hang onto “close call” arbitration cases, so let’s say these players are all retained for just under $15 million combined. That puts them at just under $111 million in contractual obligations for 15 players.
The remaining 11 players on the roster at near the league minimum will collectively earn around $9 million, so that’s $120 million.
The Royals haven’t publicly committed to a payroll number for next year, but owner John Sherman has hinted the team expects to spend at least as much as they did this year.
“We’re freeing up some money that I think we can invest,” he said in an interview in August. “We have our payroll that I think is probably at the highest sustained level as the Royals maybe ever have had, right? And it didn’t work out this year, and that’s frustrating. But it doesn’t take away from what we want to accomplish here. We want to win. We want to win now. We think that our division is still there for the taking.”
That would give roughly $20 million for Picollo to match this year’s payroll, potentially more if they continue to increase payroll as they have in each of the last three seasons. The Royals need major upgrades to the bullpen, although Sherman dismissed the thought of spending a lot in that area, suggesting they could “cobble” together a solution.
This winter’s free agent class is very heavy on starting pitching, not an area the Royals particularly need to address. There are some bats the team could pursue like Gleyber Torres, Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Randy Arozarena, Taylor Ward, Luis Arraez, or Brandon Lowe, although the depth falls off pretty quickly. The Royals could also wait out the market and pivot to scoop up bargains late, as they did in February of 2025 when they signed Estévez after failing to land a bat.
How would you address this offseason? Can the Royals make the changes needed to get this team back to contention?
Note: The original article omitted Randy Dobnak, Tony Gonsolin, and Craig Kimbrel. The article has been revised to include them.















