Kansas City Royals Very Close To Being Sellers At MLB Trade Deadline

A disastrous post All-Star break series for the Kansas City Royals should really put General Manager Dayton Moore in the mood to sell. The Royals were swept by the Boston Red Sox and Kansas City really looked disinterested for the final two games of the series.

Dayton Moore and the Glass family have waited too long to acquire significant help and now it may just be too late. The Royals are back below .500 and they have fallen from being at the top of wild card contenders to just another postseason pretender.

After Sunday, they are 4.5 games out of the second wild card spot with several teams they would have to jump over to earn that final berth.

Surely this was the plan. The front office waited to see where the team was at the break and how they would play after the break before they pulled the trigger on deal that didn’t involve middle relievers. Instead of being proactive, they played the wait-and-see game, and now they know.

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The question now becomes if Moore and the Royals will sit still and pretend the Kansas City Royals still have a chance, and admit they made a huge mistake not upgrading the offense more in the last off season?

The Royals face Chris Sale tonight, so don’t hold your breath the Royals will end their losing streak. Best case scenario, the Royals somehow win and finish the night at .500, with 10 days before the MLB Trade Deadline.

More importantly, the Royals are quickly falling out of the wild card race.

Moore has done little to instill confidence that he can pull off the right moves. Either he trades for a big bat right now, or he should just face reality that this bunch of overrated offensive players are not good enough for a playoff team.

Yesterday, according to Jon Morosi of Fox Sports, the Royals are looking at Marlon Bryd as well.

Really? Marlon Byrd? Is this the big bat Moore thinks can put the Royals over the top? He is a 36-year old have a good, not great season.

The Royals are evidently scouting the Padres’ Ian Kennedy. Whether Moore is looking at Kennedy as a rotation upgrade, or as a replacement for James Shields next year, or as insurance for Yordano Ventura, who just hasn’t been the same pitcher since complaining of elbow soreness late in May, Moore seems to think pitching will be easier to acquire than offense for the stretch run.

In Ventura’s first 10 starts, he had 59 strikeouts in 57.1 innings. Since leaving the game on May 26th with a sore elbow, he has 10 games (1 relief appearance) 29 strikeouts in 50.1 innings. That drop is very scary, and might mean there is something going on with the young flamethrower.

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In all honesty, this team isn’t good enough to be a playoff team. There, I said it. It’s not. No amount of warm, happy thoughts are going to change that fact.

If the Seattle Mariners offer a bucket of balls for Billy Butler, Moore should take it. We should all be reading tomorrow on MLB Trade Rumors that James Shields and Greg Holland are available.

Really, just about everyone on this roster should be available, except Salvador Perez, Danny Duffy, Ventura, and maybe Alcides Escobar (since the Royals have no replacement). Keeping Alex Gordon and Eric Hosmer would be nice, but since the Royals still don’t appear all that close to be being more than a .500 team, Moore should cash in on all chips of value.

Moore will never oversee a full rebuild. These are mostly his guys. Unloading them would be a full admission of failure, and that will mean his job. Still, Shields and Holland should be shopped. Hard!

If Moore could put together a few deals – say add Byrd and Kennedy, and sign someone like A.J. Pierzynski to back up Salvador Perez so we don’t have to watch Brett Hayes play again – this might give the Royals a chance. Might!

The Royals organization needs to truthfully evaluate their chances of winning a wild card spot. While we all wish the talent on this team was good enough, in our heart of hearts, we know it isn’t. Trade Butler, Shields, and Holland – that is what the Royals need to do. Get the best deals you can, Mr Moore.

See if you can get some players that can truly make this team a contender and not a pretender. Do it now!

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