After a brutal 93-loss season, the first baseman has his sights set on improving for 2027.
Vinnie Pasquantino had one last chance to give Kansas City Royals fans something to feel good about before the offseason began, and he made the most of it Sunday afternoon.
Two home runs, a 3-2 win over Cleveland and a little water celebration to close out the season at Kauffman Stadium. For Pasquantino, though, the most revealing part of the afternoon came when he was asked what he expects from Kansas City moving forward.
The first baseman wasn't interested in making promises about what next season will look like. He's been down that road before.
"I think the optimism is I know what work we're going to do this offseason, just as individuals of trying to get better," Pasquantino told Royals TV's Bridget Howard after the finale. "So we try not to make too many proclamations. I did that when I was a little bit younger and learned from it."
That answer says plenty about where the Royals are after a 69-93 season that fell well short of the expectations they carried into April. Kansas City had hoped to build on its back-to-back winning seasons, but instead finished last in the AL Central and now faces an offseason of questions about how to get back to the postseason.
Pasquantino wasn't interested in dressing that up, either.
"When we don't make it, we look at it as a failure, and that's what this was," he said.
It was an unusually direct assessment from a player who has spent much of the season trying to get his own production back on track. Pasquantino finished with a .249 average and 17 home runs in 114 games, numbers that reflect a difficult year interrupted by injuries and stretches of inconsistent hitting.
Sunday offered a much better ending. Pasquantino twice gave Kansas City the lead with solo shots off Cleveland's Austin Peterson, including a go-ahead homer in the eighth inning. It was his first career multi-homer game at Kauffman Stadium and his eighth home run in 23 September games.
Asked about finishing healthy, Pasquantino made clear that was more important to him than the final numbers.
"It's not about chasing results. It's just chasing good at-bats, chasing good swings," he said postgame.
That approach may be particularly relevant for a team that will need its established hitters to rebound next season. Pasquantino also pointed to the progress of Carter Jensen and Jac Caglianone, calling their contributions a major success from the season and saying there's more to come from Caglianone.
The young core gives Kansas City something to build around, but Pasquantino knows development alone won't erase what happened in 2026.
"I'm walking into next season expecting us to be in a playoff push the whole year," he told MLB.com's Jackson Stone. "Those are just words; they don't mean anything right now, but those are my expectations. We just gotta go do it."
For Pasquantino, the offseason begins with the same responsibility he believes every Royal has: looking in the mirror and figuring out how to make the next season different.
