While the final hours before the Major League Baseball deadline produced a flurry of activity not involving the Royals, general manager Dayton Moore flipped the calendar from July to August feeling as though his club benefited from having made deals early in the process.
The last-day eye-opening swaps in the waning hours of the trade window included multi-time All-Stars, a former Cy Young Award winner and four of Baseball Americas Top 100 prospects.
Teams traded 77 players in 30 trades that became official on Wednesday, compared to 43 players traded in 16 moves last year, according to MLB. Those 30 trades on Wednesday broke the previous high-water mark of 18 in 2016.
The Royals completed a pair of trades by July 15, and last Saturday they pulled the trigger on their third and final trade of the month.
In trading starting pitcher Homer Bailey, relief pitcher Jake Diekman and catcher Martin Maldonado they shipped off three players who werent in their organization until 2019 and who couldve become free agents this winter.
Reportedly, clubs around the majors expressed interest in current Royals such as All-Star infielder/outfielder Whit Merrifield, relief pitcher Ian Kennedy and starting pitcher Danny Duffy.
While Moore declined to discuss interest in specific players, he acknowledged that the Royals wouldve wanted major-league-ready talent in exchange for players under control for multiple years.
Merrifield, Kennedy and Duffy all fall into that category.
Dayton has always been a GM thats been like you know what if were going to make a deal, were going to make a good baseball deal, Royals manager Ned Yost said leading into the deadline. One thats going to benefit you and thats going to benefit us and we both win. Theres a lot of teams that dont look at it that way.
Reaching into Moores past for an example, the trade of Zack Greinke in 2010 (he was under control through 2012), that deal brought back outfielder Lorenzo Cain, shortstop Alcides Escobar and a pitching prospect named Jake Odorizzi. Cain and Escobar had already played in the majors at that point, and the Royals felt they would contribute to majors quickly.
Of course, that deal came in December.
When you make trades this time of year, nobody is going to detract from your major league team, Moore said. What Cleveland did usually doesnt happen.
The Indians, three games out of first place in the AL Central entering Thursday, traded away All-Star caliber starting pitcher Trevor Bauer in a three-team deal.
The Royals were reportedly reluctant to pay off portions of players contracts to necessitate a deal. Moore said simply that any deal wouldve had to make sense financially for a team that wanted to acquire one of the Royals players.
