The Royals Are In It, But They Need Help

I looked at this about a month ago, but the Royals continue to contend, so let's check in on the possibilities.

I didn’t expect it to be a monthly newsletter topic when I wrote last month about some players the Royals could target at the trade deadline. It’s not that I didn’t believe in them maintaining their pace, but I think most people have been quietly waiting for the dropoff. To this point, it hasn’t happened. The Royals are currently sitting in a playoff spot. With 117 games to go, that means very little, but I think we can all agree that we’d much rather they be in this position than where they were last season after 45 games with just 14 wins. With just 74 days to go, the trade deadline is something the Royals could use to build this year’s team rather than future teams.

They’re not in a great spot, though. While their farm system is performing much better this season than the preseason rankings would have indicated, the talent level still isn’t quite there. That’s where the bulk of the return for a veteran to help the big league club would come from, and I just don’t know who the Royals are giving up. That said, the goal of a farm system is to help the big league team, so while they have high hopes for Blake Mitchell, if they can get a multi-year big league club contributor, maybe he goes in a deal. I’d probably bet a pretty hefty sum of money that he won’t, but you never know.

Assuming they maintain their position as a playoff club and are within whispering distance of first place, they have to balance winning now vs. the ability to win later. I don’t just mean that in the sense of trading prospects, but if they should be dangling veterans. For example, what does the return look like on a 27-year old former first round draft pick with a 2.84 ERA over nine starts who has two years of team control?