Outfielder Lane Thomas and the Kansas City Royals have agreed to a $5.25 million, one-year contract, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday because the agreement, first reported by The Athletic, was subject to a successful physical.
Thomas can earn an additional $1 million in performance bonuses.
He had nine RBIs for Cleveland in the 2024 AL Division Series against Detroit but hit .160 with four homers and 11 RBIs in 125 at-bats over 39 games this year in an injury-decimated season with Cleveland. He batted .268 for Washington in 2023, when he set career bests with 28 homers, 86 RBIs and 20 stolen bases.
Thomas didn't play between April 8 and 15 this year because of a bone bruise in his right wrist sustained when hit by a pitch from Shane Smith of the Chicago White Sox and between April 19 and May 22 because of the same injury. He was out between May 26 and June 9 due to plantar fasciitis in his right foot.
He played his last big league game of the season on July 4, then was sidelined again because of the foot injury, though he did appear in three Double-A games from Sept. 2-5 as part of an injury rehabilitation assignment. He has surgery on Sept. 23,
A year earlier, he hit a tiebreaking grand slam off Detroit ace Tarik Skubal in Game 5 on an AL Wild Card Series.
Thomas had a $7,825,000 salary in a one-year contract that avoided salary arbitration. He became a free agent last month.
Now 30, Thomas has a .242 average with 65 homers and 254 RBIs in seven seasons with St. Louis (2019-21), Washington (2021-24) and the Guardians, who acquired him from the Nationals ahead of the 2024 trade deadline for infielder José Tena, left-hander Alex Clemmey and infielder Rafael Ramirez Jr.
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FILE - Cleveland Guardians' Lane Thomas (8) celebrates after hitting a solo home run during the second inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs, July 2, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley, File)
BALTIMORE (AP) — A lawyer representing the leader of the cultlike Zizians group that has been linked to six deaths told a judge Thursday that there is reason to believe his client is mentally incompetent to stand trial.
Jack LaSota, a transgender woman who goes by “Ziz,” was supposed to be in federal court for a two-day hearing on whether to suppress evidence collected as a result of her arrest in Frostburg, Maryland, last year. Instead, U.S. District Court Judge James Bredar granted a motion filed late Wednesday seeking a competency evaluation.
The judge said LaSota, who has been detained in the Allegany County Detention Center, will be held in federal custody — at least while the mental competency exam is done and a report is prepared. Bredar said another scheduling conference in the case would be scheduled after LaSota’s mental competency has been determined.
Bredar also expressed doubt LaSota’s trial, which is set for June in western Maryland, will proceed as scheduled, due to the federal court’s finding.
“Counsel believes there is reasonable cause to believe that the defendant is presently suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering her mentally incompetent to the extent that she is unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings,” attorney Gary Proctor wrote.
As the hearing got underway, Proctor said LaSota has demonstrated an inability to follow proceedings, equating being a fugitive with being transgender and accusing a judge of being part of an organized crime ring. LaSota told the judge she wants to represent herself.
Authorities have described LaSota as the apparent leader of what outsiders call the “Zizians,” a group of young, highly intelligent computer scientists who appear to share radical beliefs about veganism, animal rights, gender identity and artificial intelligence. Since 2022, members have been tied to the death of one of their own during an attack on a California landlord, the landlord’s subsequent killing, the shooting deaths of one of the member's parents in Pennsylvania, and a highway shootout in Vermont that left a border agent and another Zizian dead.
LaSota, Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank were arrested last February after a landowner found them living in box trucks at the end of a snow-covered dirt road. Though they are not charged with causing any of the six deaths, police quickly connected them to the homicide investigations in California, Pennsylvania and Vermont.
Maryland state Trooper Brandon Jeffries wrote after their Feb. 16, 2025, arrests that all the “suspects involved are to be questioned regarding other crimes that have occurred across the country and have ties with the Zizians Cult.”
All three face state charges of trespassing and illegal gun and drug possession, while LaSota faces a federal charge of illegal gun possession by a fugitive. LaSota also is charged with obstructing the investigation into the deaths of Zajko's parents. Authorities have called Zajko a person of interest in that case and said they are investigating Blank.
“Ms. LaSota eschews the term Zizian and denies any and all allegations that she and her friends have formed a cult,” LaSota’s lawyers wrote in a recent court filing.
Proctor and co-counsel Jennifer Smith argue that police violated LaSota’s Fourth Amendment right to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure and that she was not trespassing because the landowner had given them until the next day to leave. They also argue that police illegally searched the box trucks without a warrant and therefore any evidence recovered should be barred from trial.
In their response, prosecutors countered that police had probable cause to arrest LaSota and her associates for trespassing, even if they had been given permission to stay another day because the permission didn’t apply retroactively. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Beim also argued that police were justified in conducting a protective sweep for weapons for officer safety and to determine whether anyone was hiding in the trucks. He said officers reasonably suspected LaSota and the others were potentially violent, based on information from media reports about the group.
Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire.
FILE - In this image from video, Jack LaSota, also known as Ziz, who is at the center of a cultlike group known as Zizians and linked to several deaths across the U.S., is escorted into court for a pretrial hearing on trespassing, gun and drug charges in Cumberland, Md., Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Scolforo, File)
This image taken from a Maryland State Police body cam video and released in a court filing shows an officer pointing a rifle at a partially-open a box truck, Feb. 16, 2025, in Frostburg, Md. (Maryland State Police via AP)
In this image taken from a Maryland State Police body cam video and released in a court filing shows Jack "Ziz" LaSota standing outside a box truck, Feb. 16, 2025, in Frostburg, Md. (Maryland State Police via AP)
