{"id":808277,"date":"2026-09-18T15:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T15:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/808277\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T15:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T15:58:09","slug":"kansas-city-royals-news-setting-healthy-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/808277\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas City Royals news: Setting healthy goals!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g79 _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01\">Picollo\u2019s offseason quest to add pop to KC\u2019s outfield corps produced Collins and Lane Thomas. Thomas is gone, dealt to Atlanta at the midsummer trade deadline, and Collins hasn\u2019t produced enough to warrant a 2027 return. After going 0-for-2 against Houston Tuesday, he\u2019s slashing .220\/.326\/.335 with six homers and 40 RBI in 135 games, and is hitting .133 this month, hardly the kind of numbers that inspire hopes of a big 2027. Yes, he walks a bit over 12% of the time, but that\u2019s not enough for a club so lacking in big bats.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1bij9g79 _1bij9g78 _1mt21p01\">And although he\u2019s under team control through the 2030 season, the Royals need the roster spot he\u2019d occupy if they bring him back. Triple-A outfielders Carson Roccaforte and Gavin Cross are enjoying good seasons \u2014 through Tuesday in a campaign split between the Storm Chasers and Double-A Northwest Arkansas, Roccaforte had 35 homers, 94 RBI, 30 steals, and was slashing .259\/.341\/.527 with an .868 OPS, and Cross had homered 17 times, driven in 52 runs, stolen 25 bases, and was slashing .248\/.307\/.437 with a .744 OPS in 114 games for Omaha. KC will have to find room for Roccaforte, Cross, or both, on next season\u2019s 26-man roster \u2014 it\u2019s time for each to get major league shots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Picollo\u2019s offseason quest to add pop to KC\u2019s outfield corps produced Collins and Lane Thomas. Thomas is gone,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,936,2123,55,35554,2596,2595,4,252,38557],"class_list":["post-808277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kansas-city-royals","tag-baseball","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-kansas-city-royals-news","tag-kansascity","tag-kansascityroyals","tag-mlb","tag-royals","tag-royals-rumblings"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117292872685041580","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808277","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=808277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}