{"id":513078,"date":"2026-01-10T12:46:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T12:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/513078\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T12:46:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T12:46:15","slug":"kc-continues-to-be-linked-to-reliable-free-agent-outfielder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/513078\/","title":{"rendered":"KC continues to be linked to ‘reliable’ free agent outfielder"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Kansas City Royals have been active in shoring up arguably their biggest need of the offseason, their outfield.<\/p>\n

The signing of Lane Thomas and the acquisition of Isaac Collins have certainly deepened their outfield unit and undoubtedly improved their offensive group year-over-year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, the overarching consensus is that more work needs to be done. And while trades for Jarren Duran or Brendan Donovan would be the dream moves<\/a>, the reality is there are plenty of hurdles that the Royals would need to jump to accomplish such deals.<\/p>\n

This could result in the Royals turning to some consolation options to keep up their offseason momentum.<\/p>\n

And perhaps a familiar free agent target may be resurfacing as a strong option to address Kansas City’s continued outfield need.<\/p>\n

ESPN’s David Schoenfield listed Harrison Bader as a fit to be a “reliable contributor” for the Royals<\/a> among other teams.<\/p>\n

Harrison Bader is still proving to be a strong fit for the Royals in the deeper stages of the offseason<\/p>\n

Bader was a frequently mentioned fit for the Royals in the later stages of the 2025 calendar year<\/a>, but had seemingly been mentioned less as offseason progressed and the Royals began acquiring other outfield options.<\/p>\n

That being said the additions of Thomas and Collins don’t mean the Royals couldn’t still use a name like Bader.<\/p>\n

While he may be another right-handed hitter like Thomas and Collins, Kansas City entered the offseason with a pretty lefty-heavy lineup to begin with. <\/p>\n

So, bringing in a player coming off a 3.2 fWAR season, thanks to a 122 wRC+ showing at the plate and Gold Glove-worthy defense in both center field and the corner outfield, would be a worthy addition regardless of his handedness at the plate being similar to the Royals other offseason additions.<\/p>\n

And again, it’s not as if there isn’t a place for even further right-handed bats in this 2026 lineup. Kyle Isbel hasn’t exactly been the greatest of bats in center, Jac Caglianone is coming off a rookie season where he looked overmatched and frankly out of place, and the newly acquired switch-hitting Collins had a strong year overall, but showed some early-career vulnerabilities down the stretch with a .191 AVG, .664 OPS and 97 wRC+ in the month of September.<\/p>\n

In all of these cases, a right-handed platoon bat could be in order and Bader fits that mold to a T.<\/p>\n

He hits well, defends well and runs the bases to high a high degree, making him somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades, which any competitively-focused team could stand to bring into the mix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kansas City Royals have been active in shoring up arguably their biggest need of the offseason, their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,936,2123,55,2596,2595,4,252],"class_list":{"0":"post-513078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-royals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-kansas","10":"tag-kansas-city","11":"tag-kansas-city-royals","12":"tag-kansascity","13":"tag-kansascityroyals","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115870877875321348","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}