Key Royals acquisitions helped lead the team to the playoffs

The MVP of the last World Series-winning Royals wanted to know how far his team was from making a comeback last season.

General manager JJ Picollo did not lie to franchise great Salvador Perez, who rose to fame as the Mets’ killer in October 2015.

Why say something that 106 losses disproved?

“When he asked me for my honest assessment, I replied, ‘A lot of things have to go right for us to get back to the playoffs. We have to change the lineup, we have to stay healthy all year long,” Picollo said Saturday at Yankee Stadium. “But here we are and Salvy is part of it.”

The Royals’ improbable path to Game 1 of the ALDS included a remarkable 30-game regular-season improvement – from 56-106 in 2023 to 86-76 in 2024 – and the Orioles’ lead in the AL Wild Card through two games in the series.

That’s a reward for committing a record $109.5 million in the offseason to free agents – pitchers Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha, Will Smith and Chris Stratton, to name a few – ahead of spring training, according to MLB.com.

Then came the in-season acquisitions of closer Lucas Erceg and outfielder Tommy Pham.

“Our initial shot wasn’t deep enough to compete at a high level,” Picollo said. “It was a matter of trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. When we started pitching, they were the most important thing, but we also had to take care of the bullpen and our lineup. We also wanted players who had playoff experience, so the younger guys who were still learning what it was all about were surrounded by guys who had already been there.”

Around this time last August, the royals came up with the idea for the “Today” slogan that graces their team jerseys and has continued into this season.

At the time, manager Matt Quatraro didn’t want players emailing at the end of a lost year as “also running” looking to the future.

Now it means something different.

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“We don’t care what happened last year. It was last year. This is the year,” said Cole Ragans, who will start Monday’s second game of the series. “We focus on each day. That was our mindset in spring training: We expected to be much better, but we weren’t done yet.

Quatraro said he didn’t even realize he said “today” as often as he did during the course-setting meeting, but Picollo credits the manager’s “stable” personality for turning things around from year to year.

The Royals have at least a few more opportunities today to spoil the Yankees’ World Series dream.

“It was not intentional on my part to come up with a mantra or anything like that,” Quatraro said. “But that’s the way I try to live, and I think our guys have embraced that and realized that there’s no reason to think about the future until you take care of the business that’s in front of you.”