Presenting the 2022 Trade Candidates

Who could get moved this season...you know, assuming there is a season?

We march on here at Inside the Crown as if baseball is going to be played in 2022. I’ve become a lot less confident about a full season due to the fact that the owners seem a lot more willing to lose games than I expected them to after 2020. So I’m still hopeful we see Opening Day on March 31, but I’m less confident than I was even three weeks ago. But that doesn’t mean we stop talking baseball! Today I want to look at the candidates for the Royals to move at some point during 2022. That can be before the start of the year or in mid-season.

The Free Agents

The Royals have three players who can reach free agency based on their contracts after the 2022 season. One of them is almost a lock to have his option picked up, but he’s still eligible for free agency for the first time, so he’s going to be included here because, hey, you never know.

Andrew Benintendi

Benintendi’s first year with the Royals was up and down but generally solid. And he finished with a flourish, hitting .342/.398/.570 in September after struggling in July and August. He also struggled in April before hitting well in May and June. So are we in store for another rollercoaster season or was he getting his feet wet with a new organization in April before finding footing before getting hurt? It’s hard to know, but at least he bounced back decently from a terrible 2020 season.

The Royals like him and he’s only entering his age-27 season, so if they were to extend him for something like four years, it would at least be an extension getting theoretical prime years. But also, they have Kyle Isbel, who seems to be a lot like Benintendi. They also have a farm system of hitters that has improved quite a bit and enough middle infielders to find an outfielder who can handle left field in the long-term. I’ve written about this before that I’d probably not worry about keeping Benintendi beyond 2022, unless he provides a tremendous discount for some reason.

Chance he’s traded pre-Opening Day: 5%

Chance he’s traded by the deadline: 35%

Whit Merrifield

He’s the guy who won’t hit free agency, but he’s technically got a team option for $10.5 million after the season. If he’s on the team, the Royals are all but guaranteed to pick that up outside of some kind of disaster season for Merrifield. They truly should have probably traded him a couple years ago, but now that his bat is in decline but he’s still a good defender, good on the bases and respected in the clubhouse, there’s not a ton of reason unless a team blows them away with an offer. I’ve looked at Merrifield’s bat quite a bit, but his versatility is extremely valuable, even at the $10.5 million 2023 option.

The strength of the system is what makes this even a question of if he finally does get moved, even without the crazy offer. The infield has been a big topic all off-season and will continue to be because beyond what they already have with Bobby Witt Jr., Nicky Lopez and Adalberto Mondesi, there’s also some talent on the way. Nick Loftin and Michael Massey will be in the upper levels this season. Peyton Wilson is a guy they really like and he’s a second baseman. Can Merrifield shift to a corner spot? Maybe he’s the guy who plays left if and when Benintendi goes. But I just don’t love that bat in a corner outfield. Either way, that’s the chance he’s moved, but the Royals have shown their hand consistently with him, so I just don’t see it.

Chance he’s traded pre-Opening Day: 0.000000001% (never say never?)

Chance he’s traded by the deadline: 3%

Mike Minor

The Royals had a need for a veteran starter prior to last season and there were quite a few options. They went with the guy they knew in Minor, who had a rough 2020 but was quite good in 2018 and 2019 after the Rangers moved him back to his original role as a starter. He was pretty similar in 2021 to the guy who finished top-10 in the 2019 Cy Young vote, which probably shows that he was a little better than the numbers last year and a little worse than them in 2020. He missed the end of the season, but if he’s healthy, he’s a guy who will keep a team in the game for five or six innings every fifth day.

The problem for the Royals is a good one, but they have approximately 83 pitchers who could start for them in 2022, all of them more important to the future than Minor. When you look at the list, you see Jonathan Bowlan, Kris Bubic, Austin Cox, Jon Heasley, Carlos Hernandez, Brad Keller, Jackson Kowar, Asa Lacy, Daniel Lynch, Alec Marsh, Drew Parrish, Brady Singer and Angel Zerpa as pitchers in the system who could get a starting opportunity in the big leagues at some point in 2022. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for a roughly average 34-year old. And that’s okay! You don’t have to look any farther than across the state to see that teams will add veteran lefties. The Cardinals traded Lane Thomas for Jon Lester and Evan Sisk and John Gant for J.A. Happ.

Chance he’s traded pre-Opening Day: 15%

Chance he’s traded by the deadline: 60%

Carlos Santana

We conclude our tour of pending free agents with the one everyone wanted moved at the deadline last year. I wanted him moved too after there were reports that the Red Sox were interested and they could have potentially moved him. As I’ve said before, what I heard after that fact was that, yes, the Red Sox wanted him. But he was their third choice behind Anthony Rizzo, who went to the Yankees, and Kyle Schwarber, who they got. When you get one of the choices ahead of your third choice, you no longer want the third choice. And thus, he was kept. I think Dayton Moore could stand to say less in those situations because talking about needing him on the roster was a bad move, but those are just words.

The hope is that Santana’s struggles were all about injuries. He had a slight hand issue and then a big hip issue, so it would make some sense that he was playing hurt and that was causing him problems. On June 4, Santana went 1 for 3 with two walks. That raised his batting line to .254/.393/.438. I don’t know what happened from there, but he didn’t walk again until June 12 and then not again after that until June 18. From June 5 to the end of the year, he hit .195/.278/.295 with a 10.1 percent walk rate. That’s concerning. So he’ll probably be tough to move, but the announcement of the universal DH helps a bit. Santana is a competent first baseman and has the sort of veteran bat that some team might be interested in, especially to move their butcher off first to DH. Or maybe a team misses out on Freddie Freeman or Matt Olsen and decides they want that veteran bat. I don’t know, but I know the Royals are motivated to move him.

Chances he’s traded pre-Opening day: 40%

Chances he’s traded by the deadline: 75%

Two Years of Control

This is a small, but not insignificant group of players the Royals have. Guys with two years of control left are sort of in the sweet spot for being moved either before their penultimate season of team control or at the deadline. This gives teams two playoff pushes with these players they might covet before leaving for free agency. Plus, pending how the qualifying offer works moving forward, teams can still offer it to players if they reach free agency while still with that acquiring team.

Brad Keller

It’s hard to imagine the Royals trading Keller after both talking up how much they love him (with him pitching well for three years) and after his bad 2021 season. But as I wrote last week, it was all about the fastball. He needs to show that he’s back to what he was in 2020 or even the solid starter of 2018 and 2019 before the Royals should or even will consider moving him. You’ll see the odds below, but I’d be as surprised as them moving Merrifield if Keller is traded before the start of the season and if he does pitch like he did in July and August, they should probably look at an extension before moving him.

But the issues with Keller aren’t that different from the issues with Minor. All those names above still exist. And while not all of them will make it (you could argue most won’t), that’s still throwing enough numbers at a rotation that they should be able to get by without having to throw money at a mid-rotation starter like Keller. And with him, an acquiring team could potentially get innings, though as I talked about, he still hasn’t finished a full season as a starter. But they could also get someone who could be a huge postseason relief weapon. He can bump the fastball to the upper-90s and give two or three innings of high-octane, groundball-inducing relief. It depends on my mood of the moment, but Keller could be a fascinating trade candidate this season if they choose to deploy him that way.

Chances he’s traded pre-Opening Day: 0.0001%

Chances he’s traded by the deadline: 19.5%

Adalberto Mondesi

Mondesi is the most complicated player on the team to figure out. He has as much or more talent as anyone in the organization. He plays a very good shortstop, which is nothing to sneeze at. He is, by all accounts, very willing to do what he can to help the team with his move to third to end the 2021 season. But we all know the issues. He’s had trouble staying on the field, only playing a complete season in 2020 when the season was just 60 games. And when he does play, he’s incredibly inconsistent. He has stretches where he looks like the best player in baseball and then stretches where he looks like he’s Michael Jordan trying to pick up baseball.

And by reaching this point in his career without having established himself in basically any way, he’s putting the Royals to a big decision. I say that as if it’s all his fault. It’s not. The Royals massacred his development with bringing him up way too fast in both 2016 and 2017. There’s plenty of blame to go around. But here we are with him two years from free agency and the Royals have a conundrum.

Let’s say he starts off the year playing great and staying healthy and it’s mid-July with him hitting .280/.320/.510. The Royals can either let it play out, extend him or trade him. If they let it play out, he runs the risk of getting hurt or hitting a skid that brings his trade value down, but it would also bring his extension value down. If they extend him, there’s a very real risk that he will also get hurt or hit that skid and then they’ve overpaid. And if they trade him, they run the risk of him having figured it out for good and some other team reaps all the benefits while the Royals patience got them nothing but a few exciting weeks.

He could also start the year hurt. Or start the year terrible. Or maybe it’s something in between. We love to look at the upside, but in 2019, Mondesi played 102 games and had a wRC+ of 81. In 2020, he played 59 (out of 60) games and had a wRC+ of 89. In 2021, he played 35 games and had a wRC+ of 91. We all know there’s more in there, but at some point, you have to believe a player when he tells you what he is. Maybe he breaks out. he’s only entering his age-26 season. Maybe he doesn’t. But man, this is a weird year for him and the Royals because you can make an argument that it’s decision time.

Chances he’s traded pre-Opening Day: 0.0002%

Chances he’s traded by the deadline: 9%

Michael A. Taylor

The Royals gave Taylor a two-year deal toward the end of 2021 because they loved his defense and the question of “who else?” had to have been asked. The Royals have done a nice job of rebuilding the bats in their system, but for all their drafting of athletes, they don’t exactly have a center fielder in place. I think Isbel could handle it, but the Royals value that defense out there more than most, and I think it’s almost entirely justified by their ballpark. So Taylor was given a deal and he’ll be the starting center fielder on Opening Day. But that’s about all you can guarantee.

As I’ve mentioned before, all that middle infield strength could be used to help find a center fielder somehow. I don’t know if that’s Lofton or Wilson or, heck, even Lopez or Mondesi, but someone could move out there and be an asset. Or we could see someone like John Rave climb the ranks of the system to be that next guy. Or maybe it’s someone else. We just don’t know right now. Or maybe they start the year fast and make a move for a guy who can provide more offensively. There are a lot of possibilities here that could make Taylor expendable.

Chances he’s traded pre-Opening Day: 0.0000000001%

Chances he’s trade by the deadline: 13%

The Rest

Everyone else is under team control for at least three more years, including 2022, and with them we’re getting into some different types of deals.

One of the Young Pitchers

I’m not going to waste your time reading this by looking at each one individually. If the Royals are in this race come the deadline or if a deal comes along during spring that could help the team long-term, I think any of the young arms could go. They have so many of them and that’s part of what building a big farm system is about. You have to be able to pick and choose and trade the right ones and you’re likely going to have to move someone you don’t want to move. But that’s just the way the game works. There are only so many roster spots anyway. Let’s looks at the chances the following are moved at any point in 2022:

Ronald Bolaños: 3%
Jonathan Bowlan: 5%
Kris Bubic: 8%
Austin Cox: 2%
Jon Heasley: 3.5%
Carlos Hernandez: 1%
Jackson Kowar: 10%
Asa Lacy: 2%
Daniel Lynch: 4%
Alec Marsh: 6%
Drew Parrish: 2%
Brady Singer: 1%
Angel Zerpa: 7%

I think one of them goes in some sort of deal at some point. Again, it’s a numbers game. Nobody has an especially good shot, but together, there’s a good shot one or two moves.

Scott Barlow/Josh Staumont

I put these two together because I don’t think both get traded. It’s one or the other if either does go. Barlow has three years of team control and has three years of being a high strikeout, solid in high leverage reliever who took a step forward in 2021. Staumont saw his walk numbers drop in 2021 along with his velocity. He talked a bit about his health issues (starting with Covid in spring training) contributing to that and the hope is that in 2022 he can get the velocity back and keep the control. The reason I could see them moving one of these guys is with all the octane they have already on the roster in guys like Dylan Coleman and Jake Brentz and what’s coming with Will Klein and some others along with any of the starters who don’t make it work in the rotation. They’ve got some bullpen arms, so they might want to cash in on the established guys to help fill holes elsewhere.

Chances either are traded pre-Opening Day: 3%

Chances either are traded by the deadline: 30%

Cam Gallagher

I’ve thought Gallagher would be moved for a couple of years now, first with the emergence of Sebastian Rivero and now with MJ Melendez on the cusp of the big leagues. He’s a good defensive catcher who can work a walk. His development is one that’s fascinated me because he was drafted as a bat-first catcher and then the glove caught up and passed the bat. But he’s still a useful piece with a .251/.325/.386 line in 202 plate appearances between 2019 and 2020. Some team could target him as a backup or maybe a rebuilding club looking for a good pitch framer could look to him as a starter.

Chances he’s traded pre-Opening Day: 20%

Chances he’s traded by the deadline: 50%

Nick Pratto

I don’t know why I keep coming back to the idea of trading Pratto, but I think it’s because the Royals now have Vinnie Pasquantino behind him showing that he has a legitimate upside bat. Pratto is the superior defender, but if the Royals have the opportunity to upgrade their roster with someone who can take them to the next level, trading a first baseman isn’t the worst idea in the world. This is definitely a situation where they wouldn’t want to make a move but might get to a point where they feel they have to. Watching where Pratto starts the season is interesting to me. He had some strikeout issues in AAA after his promotion and if the Royals keep him down for a bit to start the year, it might be to keep his value at its height.

Chances he’s traded pre-Opening Day: 0.000000001%

Chances he’s traded by the deadline: 10%

Basically, everyone is a trade candidate but Salvador Perez and Bobby Witt Jr., but these are the guys who I think are most likely to be part of something between now and July 31 (or whenever they make the trade deadline in the 92-game season that’s coming). Kyle Isbel is another name who I don’t think will get moved, but maybe a team is interested, especially if the Royals do lock up Benintendi long-term. The Royals are entering a very interesting team with prospects starting to come to the big leagues, so they should be entering a playoff push in terms of building the roster but still need to evaluate to know what they need and who they might have to move to get it. Now if we can only get this pesky lock off the season.