The Kansas City Royals have usually been bad for the past, oh, three, four decades for a litany of reasons, but one consistent contributing reason has been that they just don’t know when to say goodbye to a player in service of the greater good. David DeJesus. Joakim Soria. Danny Duffy. Kelvin Herrera. Whit Merrifield. Scott Barlow. All those players were true premium trade pieces at one point, but the Royals didn’t pull the trigger on leveraging any of them until after their value tanked. Add Kris Bubic and Cole Ragans to the list, while we’re at it.
Why would teams want to trade their good players? It’s pretty simple: good players have a lot of present value, and good prospects have a lot of future value. Depending on how talented your team is, you might want to exchange some of that future value for present value or vice versa. Trading big league players for prospects is a way for bad teams to make use of their talent in a way that works better for their timeline.
But just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. Have you ever had to go to your boss and explain that you and your team screwed up so badly that you’re recommending your company lose money now with the hope that they make more in the future? That’s what it’s like for general managers to sell these decisions to ownership. Still, that’s part of the job, and if you have players that could be interesting trade assets, it makes it easier.
Fortunately for the Royals, they have a few players who are could be trade assets. Chief among them are starting pitchers Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo. Wacha has arguably been the singular most reliable starting pitcher in the American League for the last three seasons, while Lugo has pitched decently and is two years removed from being the Cy Young runner up. Kansas City is also a very bad baseball team who sealed its fate months ago; it simply doesn’t matter if they lose 90 or 120 games this year because they’re not making the playoffs and they can’t guarantee any spot in the draft thanks to the lottery system.
Are the Royals thinking about trading either? The answer is, predictably, no; get off their lawn.
About a month ago, The Athletic reported that the Kansas City Royals were not as comfortable trading right-handers Seth Lugo and/or Michael Wacha as they were parting with catcher Freddy Fermin at last year’s deadline.
Nothing has changed since, even though the Los Angeles Angels are the only team with a worse record than the Royals in the American League.
A year ago, the Royals knew Carter Jensen was nearly ready for the majors, making Fermin expendable. They have no such potential replacements for Lugo and Wacha. And with shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. and third baseman Maikel Garcia signed long-term, they do not plan to rebuild.
The Royals, according to people briefed on their plans, are telling clubs they will listen on Lugo and Wacha, but their asks will be massive.
You can tell a lot about a team’s willingness to deal a player based on how they are marketing a player. If you have ever played literally any fantasy sport, you know that there is a huge, huge difference between “I am going to listen to trade offers on my available players” and “I am actively seeking to find the best return on my available players.” The latter requires you to hit the group chat, pick up the phone, do some wheeling and dealing.
And here’s the thing: I’ve seen this whole song and dance before. We all have. Kansas City has an asset that has value on the trade market. They’re a good, well-liked player who is integral to whatever position group they’re a part of. But they just drag their feet on getting a trade done, and so it doesn’t happen. Does this quote sound familiar to you? It’s from Dayton Moore at the 2021 trade deadline, but it might as well have come out of JJ Picollo’s mouth yesterday (emphasis mine).
“As it pertains to us, don’t expect us to do any deals moving our core group of specially positioned players and starting pitchers that we feel are part of our future,” Moore said. “Of course, we’ll evaluate every potential deal that’s out there, but I would basically categorize it as, we’ve really got to be overwhelmed if we’re going to move one of our key contributors to this team and those players that we feel are key contributors in the future.
“We like our farm system. We feel like we have a lot of young players on the horizon that will be part of our team in ‘22 and ‘23. We’re going to continue to trust our scouting and player development to produce prospects and not necessarily rely on trades to strengthen our farm system.”
What happened in 2021, you might ask? Well, the Royals didn’t trade Merrifield and they lost a bunch of games. Then the next year, they still lost a bunch of games and eventually traded Merrifield, but by that point his value had declined so much they might as well have not bothered.
The other factor here is that the Royals seem to think they’ll be competitive in 2027. I don’t know where they’re getting that vibe from. Bubic and Ragans are closer to never pitching again than they are to making any reliable starts for the team. Salvador Perez is washed. The entire bullpen needs replacing. The Triple-A and Double-A clubs both stink out loud and are bereft of meaningful talent. This team desperately, desperately needs to retool.
I think we all know what will happen here because I’ve seen the Royals use this exact playbook before. Here’s a guess: the Royals won’t trade Wacha or Lugo this month or in the offseason. Next year, the Royals will continue to be a bad team. And at the deadline, they’ll end up trading one or both anyway, and for less than they would have gotten this year because both will be worse next year.
I don’t like this movie. I’ve seen it. But we seem cursed to watch it again.
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