Royals general manager Dayton Moore said Monday that the team was “living above (its) means” on the balance sheet and that the club’s 2017 payroll would likely “regress a little bit” after record spending this year.
The comments came during a morning news conference at Kauffman Stadium, as Moore and manager Ned Yost addressed a series of wide-ranging issues one day after the regular season ended.
One year after winning the 2015 World Series, the Royals opened 2016 with a payroll that topped $135 million, the largest in club history. Early projections for 2017 suggest that the Royals could approach that number after handing out raises for arbitration-eligible players and covering other rising salaries.