Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year, we ask questions of the most plugged-in
Kansas City Royals fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.Earlier this week, we asked how many players the Royals need to trade away before the deadline
92% of you thought the Royals needed to trade at least three players at this deadline. That’s not surprising at all, but what is at least a little surprising is that the number
of five or more voters isn’t that large. When I originally wrote the poll question, I didn’t realize how many tradeable players the Royals had. The list I added to the original poll post came after the fact and was as much to help me figure out how I was ultimately going to vote.
For those of you who don’t remember and don’t want to click that link, here is the list of potentially tradeable Royals:
Players on expiring contracts:
- Lane Thomas
- Starling Marte
- Matt Strahm
- Kris Bubic
- Jonathan India
- John Schreiber
- Carlos Estévez
Players who might be considered valuable (but replaceable) veterans with contracts that do not expire at the end of the season
- Michael Wacha
- Seth Lugo
- Lucas Erceg
- Alex Lange
- Daniel Lynch IV
- Kyle Isbel
- Vinnie Pasquantino
- Nick Mears
- Michael Massey
- Salvador Perez
There are at least four healthy players in the expiring contracts category, five if Bubic can get his act together. So basically, almost as many of you are happy keeping every single guy the Royals might have back next year as think they should trade at least one of them. For what it’s worth, I stand with the 43% who voted five or more. As I mentioned on the most recent Royals Rundown podcast, I think the Royals need to empty out their bullpen. No one in there has been good enough that I feel excited about bringing them back next year, and if they can bring back any kind of value (including young pitchers who might turn into relief studs next year), then the Royals should get rid of them. Steven Cruz and Beck Way are the only relievers I’m even remotely interested in seeing on next year’s roster. Unless you include Luinder Avila as a reliever (which, honestly, I do.)
Additionally, while Lugo probably doesn’t have much in the way of trade value anymore, I really think they should try to get someone else to take Wacha while he’s still at what is almost certainly the peak of his value and try to replace Wacha with a similarly savvy free agent signing this offseason. It’s not that I don’t like Wacha, it’s just that I think the Royals have shown an ability to find starting pitching just about everywhere, and if they could use him to patch multiple holes or one hole with a really good prospect, I think it makes the most sense for them to do so.
The rumor is that the Royals feel like they’ll have to be blown away by an offer for Wacha in order to deal him, and in recent history, they’ve not ever been blown away by any trade offer. So he’ll probably stay put. Maybe that isn’t the worst outcome in the world, but if they pair it with keeping all of their “controllable” relievers, I might scream.
These survey results are sponsored by FanDuel.
