Royals stand pat on trade deadline day, and stop short of going all-in on tanking
Time ran out on this season for the Kansas City Royals, at least that’s how general manager Dayton Moore framed his decision to trade relief pitcher Trevor Rosenthal over the weekend ahead of Monday’s MLB trade deadline.
While the Royals made sure to get some long-term returns on their initial investments in Rosenthal and outfielder Brett Phillips, they stopped short of a wholesale sell-off.
The Royals, coming off back-to-back 100-loss seasons, have played better in this pandemic-shortened year. But they weren’t able to position themselves with enough of a realistic shot at a playoff spot that Moore would pass up the chance to get a young, athletic player with potential, as well as a player to be named, in exchange for a veteran slated to hit the free-agent market this offseason.
In the last week, the Royals added 24-year-old outfielder Edward Olivares, a top 15-prospect in the San Diego Padres’ farm system in the Rosenthal trade as well as 23-year-old infielder Lucius Fox, a top-25 prospect in the Tampa Bay Rays’ farm system, in exchange for Phillips.
Phillips had run out of minor-league options and was in partially redundant on the Royals’ roster with the presence of outfielder Bubba Starling. left-handed hitting speedster Nick Heath has also come off the injured list and assigned to the alternate site.
Yet the Royals show no appetite, thus far, for “tanking,” or allowing losses to pile up and draft positioning to improve while the final month serves as purely a developmental exercise for young players.
“I’ve been fortunate in my managerial career that I’ve never been there,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “I’ve had plenty of conversations with Dayton, understanding the landscape. I don’t stick my head in the sand. I understand where we are right now. I wish we had a lot more wins, but I’m still chasing and doing the exact same thing.”
The Royals held onto veteran right-handed reliever Greg Holland, who reportedly garnered interest from many clubs. Holland, 34, will be a free agent at the end of this season.
This season, Holland has been one of the linchpins of the Royals’ bullpen this season. He’s been called upon in crucial high-leverage situations.
Holland has posted a 3.00 ERA with one save, a 2-0 record, 17 strikeouts, six walks, a 1.17 WHIP and 8.5 strikeout per 9 innings. He also has a ground ball percentage of 52.1 percent and a left on base percentage of 70.8 percent.
He has provided an experienced presence and also served as a tutor to the club’s crop of young relievers in their first or second year in the majors such as Josh Staumont, Tyler Zuber and Kyle Zimmer.
Matheny said being conscious of the health and workload of the relief pitchers and the fact that starting pitchers are built up to the point where they can be pushed deeper into games may change his approach with the pitching staff. That’s particularly relevant right now as the club still had 14 consecutive days with a game heading into Monday.
They’ll use a six-man starting rotation for the time being. Without Rosenthal and with Ian Kennedy on the injured list, bullpen roles will certainly remain fluid.
“That’s the only thing you’re going to see different right now, as far as using different guys in different situations,” Matheny said. “Until I’m told differently, I’m going at it the exact same way — that’s with nothing held back and all out with what’s going to give us a chance to win today.
“I imagine those conversations would happen. I’ve been on teams before as a player that you could see there was this change, and now all of a sudden you see certain guys getting opportunities. That’s the responsibility of the organization to understand when to do that. But that’s not where I am, and I don’t think that’s where we should be. We’ve got to go keep playing this game.”
This story was originally published August 31, 2020 at 5:00 PM.
