{"id":818488,"date":"2026-07-23T10:01:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/818488\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T10:01:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:01:26","slug":"royals-sign-alejo-lopez-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/818488\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals Sign Alejo Lopez To Minor League Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Royals signed infielder\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lopezal03.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Alejo Lopez<\/a> to a minor league contract and assigned him to Triple-A Omaha. He backfills the organizational infield depth, as the Royals called up\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/v\/velazan01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Andrew Velazquez<\/a> when they placed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wittbo02.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Bobby Witt Jr.<\/a> on the injured list this morning.<\/p>\n<p>Lopez had been playing in Triple-A in the Seattle system this year. He was released a couple days ago despite a solid .302\/.379\/.419 showing across 146 plate appearances. Lopez walked more often than he struck out, but he doesn\u2019t hit for any power or steal many bases. The switch-hitting infielder has a lifetime .289\/.381\/.395 slash line over parts of six Triple-A seasons. He has bounced between the Braves, A\u2019s and Seattle systems over the past couple years without getting to the majors.<\/p>\n<p>The 30-year-old Lopez did play parts of three seasons at the MLB level with the Reds from 2021-23. He\u2019s a career .265\/.309\/.329 hitter in 74 big league contests. Lopez is stretched at shortstop but can handle either second or third base. The Royals have also been without <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/garcima01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Maikel Garcia<\/a> for the last month, which pushed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/rojasjo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Josh Rojas<\/a> to the MLB level. Lopez joins\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/toroab01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Abraham Toro<\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/drurybr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-07-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Brandon Drury<\/a> among the depth infielders in Omaha.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Royals signed infielder\u00a0Alejo Lopez to a minor league contract and assigned him to Triple-A Omaha. He backfills&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[394199,64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-818488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-alejo-lopez","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}