{"id":640305,"date":"2026-03-24T06:20:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T06:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/640305\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T06:20:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T06:20:36","slug":"who-makes-the-cut-for-the-opening-day-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/640305\/","title":{"rendered":"Who makes the cut for the Opening Day roster?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">By the time we hit Friday, March 27th, it\u2019ll be 180 days since the Kansas City Royals played a regular-season game. So much has changed since then; the Royals have been active, trading and signing players to fill the holes in their roster from last season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">In fact, three different Royals who started that afternoon game in Sacramento are guaranteed to not be on the Opening Day roster &#8211; John Rave, Adam Frazier and Mike Yastrzemski. Sam Long even pitched an inning in that game! He\u2019s not even <a href=\"https:\/\/npb.jp\/bis\/eng\/players\/03905152.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">playing baseball in this country<\/a> anymore.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">With injuries and other guys dealing with some nagging stuff or straight up underperforming while battling for a roster spot against someone else, who makes your final cut for the Opening Day roster? Remember, rosters have to be finalized by Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Here are the locks to make the team:<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">A rotation of Cole Ragans, Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo, Kris Bubic, and Noah Cameron.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The bullpen will be Lucas Erceg, Carlos Est\u00e9vez, Nick Mears, John Schreiber, and Matt Strahm. Bailey Falter and Daniel Lynch IV seem likely to make it, barring a trade. Alex Lange likely has the inside track with veteran non-roster invitees Jose Cuas, Eli Morgan, H\u00e9ctor Neris, and Aaron Sanchez competing for a spot. Ryan Bergert, Mitch Spence, Luinder Avila, and Steven Cruz have all been assigned to the minors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">For the hitters, the ten locks are: Salvador Perez, Carter Jensen, Maikel Garcia, Jonathan India, Vinnie Pasquantino, Bobby Witt Jr., Jac Caglianone, Kyle Isbel, Starling Marte, and Lane Thomas. Isaac Collins and Michael Massey have been battling injury. Tyler Tolbert, Drew Waters, and Nick Loftin could be in the mix, and non-roster invitees Jorge Alfaro, Elias Diaz, Josh Rojas, Kevin Newman, Abraham Toro, Brandon Drury and Connor Kaiser all seem likely headed to Omaha.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Who do you think makes the final cut to start to season with the Royals?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By the time we hit Friday, March 27th, it\u2019ll be 180 days since the Kansas City Royals played&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,936,2123,55,77247,2596,2595,4,252,72937],"class_list":{"0":"post-640305","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-kansas-city-royals-discussion","13":"tag-kansascity","14":"tag-kansascityroyals","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-royals","17":"tag-royals-review-question-of-the-day"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116282708603341309","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640305","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=640305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}