Royals have one mindset for second half of season as trade deadline approaches
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Royals entered the All-Star break 38-59 after being swept in Baltimore.
- GM J.J. Picollo said they'd evaluate buyer or seller status at the All-Star break.
- Front office leaders said they believe in the current roster and want to add to it.
The Royals fell behind early in Saturday night’s game at Baltimore and lost 6-1 to the Orioles.
The F-word was used afterward — albeit not the curse word.
“Super frustrating,” Royals second baseman Michael Massey said afterward. “Super frustrating last two nights. Super frustrating whole first half of the season, right? I think we can be honest about where we’re at and the way things have gone. And we’ve got to get better. We’ve got to figure out how to get better.
“We’ve got to figure out what we need to address and how we’re going to do it. So we’ve got to come out and compete tomorrow and try to get a win going into the break, and come back and really be better in the second half.”
Unfortunately, the Royals lost 8-2 on Sunday and were swept out of Baltimore. At 38-59, the Royals are tied with the Angels for the worst record in baseball.
It’s not what the players or the pundits expected.
In its preseason rankings, the Ringer predicted the Royals would have at least 83 wins. ESPN also saw a winning record at 83-79. Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projection saw the Royals winning the American League Central.
But at the All-Star break, the Royals have a 0% chance of winning the division.
“Frustration is one word. You know, disappointment, anger, every emotion that you can think of,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said Sunday. “I mean we’re battling, not getting any results, and it stinks. Everybody’s frustrated. Everybody in here puts in every effort they can, and when you come out on the losing end as much as we have, it’s been a bad first half. It’s been a bad pre-All Star break, and nobody in there is happy with it.”
The Royals will have to win two of every three games just to get to the .500 mark by season’s end, which would seem to make them prime candidates to be one of baseball’s clear sellers at the trade deadline.
In early June, Royals general manager J.J. Picollo said the team probably would begin evaluating whether to be trade-deadline buyers or sellers at the All-Star break. He reiterated that a few weeks ago. Picollo also noted the Guardians last season and the Tigers in 2024 both got hot and made the playoffs.
One big difference: The low point for Cleveland was eight games below .500 and Detroit was nine under. The Royals are 21 games under .500.
“It was (the start of) a 12-game run probably when he said that. I think we were hoping just to kind of see 12 games. If you go 9-3, it’s a different outlook,” said Scott Sharp, the Royals’ senior vice president of major league operations/assistant general manager. “We just haven’t done that going into the break.
“We’ll regroup. Got about roughly three weeks coming out of the break from the deadline. We hope to be opportunistic in any way we can, and for this club for now and in the future.”
The Royals instead went 3-9 in that stretch. They are only 10 games out of a wild-card spot, which is not bad considering their record. But every other contender is above them, except the Angels.
In the AL Central, the Royals are 6 1/2 games behind fourth-place Detroit and trail the first-place White Sox and Guardians by 13.
The Royals open the second half of the season with a series at home against the Padres. They’re hoping for a fresh start, but the approach seems far too familiar to many fans.
“Obviously, it’s not a first-half/second-half thing, but it’s kind of a clean slate in a way,” Royals first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino said. “Just everybody get away, except for the guys going to the All-Star Game. Get away, try to clear your head and get ready to go. We can’t focus on anything external right now. We’ve got to focus day by day, at-bat by at-bat, pitch by pitch. It’s as simple as that.
“And I know you guys are tired of hearing us say that, but it’s just the truth. Like, we gotta go out there and win every pitch in the second half, and we can’t worry about anything else but that.”
Shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. is one Royal who didn’t get a four-day break — he was a starter in Tuesday evening’s All-Star Game in Philadelphia. He, too, is angry and eager to forget about KC’s first-half woes.
This is not what was expected from a team that had a winning record the past two seasons.
“I think you’ve got to take it as a fresh start. Put it in the past,” Witt said. “It wasn’t what we wanted. It wasn’t what we thought we were capable of doing. And for me, for guys in this clubhouse, it sucked in a way because of what we did, and the team in spring training that we thought we had.
“We show up, and we didn’t play the way we thought we were going to. And so it’s frustrating. But now you put that in the past. You have a couple of days to regroup and get back to work, because we’re not just going to roll over.”
There are historical examples of teams that seemed dead in the water only to catch fire and make the playoffs. The 1978 Yankees, the 1964 Cardinals, the 1993 Braves, the 1995 Braves.
Even if the 2026 Royals can’t add their name to that roster of amazing comebacks, the Kansas City front office sees a bright future for many players.
That would seem to indicate there won’t be wholesale changes at the Aug. 3 trade deadline.
“We believe in the roster,” Sharp said. “We believe in the guys that are here long term. So we want to continue to add in that group.”
