Royals announce non-roster invitees for spring training

Can you smell it? (is this the creepiest opening sentence to a RR article?) The smell of spring is creeping forward like that misty haze you seen in cartoons that trek through obstacles to target a nose. With that smell, indirectly it brings spring training with it.

If you're on the Royals 40-man roster, your chances of making the Royals active 25-man are quite good, and you are going to find yourself mandatorily attending spring training. Meanwhile, if you are a spring training non-roster invitee you are not on the 40-man roster, your chances of making the Royals 25-man active roster is quite low, and you are more or less "invited" to spring training (an invitation that I don't think has ever been turned down).

Generally non-roster invitees are either a) prospects (even if that term is applied loosely) or b) veterans on minor-league deals looking to find their way into the organizations plans.

The Royals have invited 23 such players as described.

In the prospect realm, Almonte, Mondesi and Manaea are bona fide prospects while Starling and Dwyer are former top prospects. Christian Binford is a prospect in an actual sense while Brett Eibner, Whit Merrifield,and Scott Alexander are prospects in the most loose and general sense.

Ryan Madson has been paid nearly $10M the since 2012 and has not pitched a single MLB inning in that span and only one minor league inning. Good for him.

Ryan Roberts and Ryan Jackson have some Major League experience and could fight their way onto the roster as a reserve infielder. Moises Sierra has an outside chance to be the fifth outfielder, if they carry one.

Almonte, Manaea, Starling, Dozier, Binford, and possibly even Mondesi are likely to all report to AA Northwest Arkansas once their Spring Training workouts are over.

Pitchers and catcher report February 19th. The full squad reports the 24th, and activities begin the 25th.