Wednesday, January 21

Welcome to this edition of the Royals Beat newsletter. My name is Anne Rogers, and this is my fifth season on the beat. Thanks for following along for another year. Let’s have some fun!

KANSAS CITY -- Happy Opening Day!

Today marks the beginning of another baseball season, and the Royals will get it all started at 3:10 p.m. CT at Kauffman Stadium against the Guardians.

There’s a lot of excited people around town and in the organization about what this season might bring, including John Sherman. The Royals CEO/chairman met with media on Wednesday ahead of Opening Day and touched on a variety of topics:

On the Royals’ 2025 outlook:

“I spent more time in [Surprise, Ariz.,] than I normally do, and I thought we had a great camp. A little bit different in that [it’s a] very confident group. Last year, I think we thought we'd added some tools to the team, and that we had hopes for making the playoffs. 

“I would say that this group expects to be in the postseason.”

On continuing an aggressive mindset with payroll:

“I think we’re willing to do what it takes to put a winning team on the field. … I don’t really give [general manager] J.J. [Picollo] a payroll number. I say, ‘Look, here are some guidelines, but if there are opportunities to make us better, we’re going to be willing to invest in this thing.' I think that’s how we’ve kind of approached it the last two years, and that’s how we’ll continue to approach it. You think about the opportunity with a superstar like Bobby Witt. This would have been the first of his arbitration years if we hadn’t signed him. So this is a really key period – he’s performing at an extremely high level, and we have cost certainty on those years, and it’s cost effective. And it’s really a time to want to surround him with talent and try to do something special for our fans.”

On where the Royals are at in the stadium process, almost a year after a public vote failed to pass a sales tax that would have allowed the Royals to build a downtown ballpark:

“We have multiple opportunities on both sides of the state line [Missouri and Kansas], and it’s just a process. I have empathy for the people who feel like the process isn’t clarified. But I feel really, really good about the process. I feel really, really good about the team that we’ve got on this both internally and the outside experts we’ve hired. I feel like we’ve got really a solid group of potential partners that are trying very hard to do something. This is a tough decision for us. But I don’t think it’s helpful to talk about things in this particular context before we’re ready to kind of talk about something that’s buttoned up.”

On the timeline for when they might have a stadium answer:

“We have a stated objective of being able to talk about a specific location – I’m calling it the middle of the calendar year. In that June or July period.”

Sherman also said he doesn’t think there’s a scenario in which the Royals are still playing at the current Kauffman Stadium after the lease expires in 2031.

On whether he still envisions downtown Royals baseball (as the team is in discussion with sites that include downtown Kansas City, Mo., and in more suburban areas of Kansas):

“I think that’s certainly one of the things that might work. I think we need to make the best decision for the team and for the community. There are variables out there. More broadly, I would say whether it’s urban or really high density – we have the opportunity to create vibrancy and economic activity around it, not just the 81 nights but 365 days a year.”

On how much a new stadium would be publicly or privately funded:

“I think that depends on – I expect that we’ll have a good public partner. I would expect that we will be a very large investor in both the stadium and certainly around it. That’s a hard question to answer right now, just because of the status of the negotiations or multiple parties.”

Salvador Perez has been through 12 Opening Day ceremonies. They’ll never get old for the 34-year-old Royals captain.

“I always say the first game of the season feels like the World Series,” Perez said. “The seventh game of the World Series. Everybody just waits for the first game. Baseball is back. Excited to be here in Kansas City with the fans.”

Perez said he loves playing in front of a packed stadium – and Kauffman Stadium is apparently sold out for today – which is why he loves Opening Day and the postseason. 

Nerves, excitement, all of it: That’s why Perez loves this game.

“If I don’t feel that in my belly a little bit before the game, I think I’m going to be retired,” Perez said. “I feel that even in Spring Training. It’s not bad to be scared. It’s just excitement. It’s not bad to be nervous. It’s the way I love this game. And as soon as I catch the first pitch, it’s a normal game. But I think if you don’t have that before [the game], you’re in the wrong sport.”

• This year marks the 10-year and 40-year anniversaries of the 2015 and 1985 World Series titles, and the Royals will celebrate it all year long. Today, the ceremonial first pitch will be thrown out by Lorenzo Cain and Willie Wilson.

• The national anthem today will be performed by The Haygoods from Branson, Mo., with a flyover by A-10s from Whiteman Air Force Base.

•  Be sure to check out the new food options at The K this season – you can probably find me at the Joe’s KC stand at least once a homestand.

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