Kansas City Royals: Thank You Wade Davis

The Kansas City Royals broke hearts of many fans on Wednesday when it was announced that they were trading Wade Davis to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for Jorge Soler. Davis is a Royals legend, no matter what.

When Wade Davis was acquired by the Kansas City Royals in December of 2012, he was a throw-in along with James Shields. That trade was known as the “James Shields trade”, but as time went on, it became evident that Wade Davis was the real MVP from that trade.

Davis started his Royals career off as a starter and was horrendous in that role. Fortunately, he soon found his niche as a reliever, where he spent the  entire 2014, 2015, and 2016 seasons perfecting his craft.

In 2014, Davis was the middle man in the H-D-H trio. He would pitch in the eighth inning to set things up for then-closer Greg Holland. He had a sparkling 1.00 ERA in 72 innings pitched that season, and nobody thought a better season was possible.

Wade Davis came to Kansas City as a nobody, but he’s leaving as a legend.

Davis did indeed deliver a better season than his 2014 campaign though, with a 0.94 ERA in 67.1 innings pitched. He made it to his first All-Star Game in 2015 and became known to fans as “WadeBot” due to his clutch gene that he seemed to have every time he went on the mound.

That 2015 season was when Davis was promoted from eighth inning man to closer, as Holland was injured and his season was cut short. Davis went on to record 17 saves that season and kept the closing job for 2016.

In 2016, Davis was still great, but he wasn’t the Wade Davis of old. It’s sad that a 1.87 ERA and 27 saves leads to him “not being as good”, but he struggled with injuries, landing on the disabled list twice, and only pitching 43.1 innings for the reigning World Series champs.

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Davis was actually on the trade block during the deadline this past summer, but he hit the disabled list for the second time right when the trade talks were heating up. The Royals could have cashed in on some prospects there, but it wasn’t meant to be apparently.

When the winter meetings began a few days ago, fans expected that Davis’ name might be thrown around as trade bait. The Chicago Cubs wanted Davis and they got their man. They sent Jorge Soler to Kansas City in exchange for the four-year Royal.

While it’ll be sad to see Davis rocking a Cubs jersey next year and not a Royals jersey, this was the right move to make. Davis is 31 years old and was injured a few times during the 2016 season. If the Royals were to get anything out of him, this was the time to try and do that.

It would have been cool for Wade Davis to have been a Royal for the rest of his career, but it just wasn’t in the cards. If the KC Royals want to remain in a championship window past 2017, they had to make a move like this.

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Davis didn’t have many effective seasons left, and the Royals have their next closer in Kelvin Herrera. It all makes sense for the Kansas City Royals if they want to keep being relevant.

It’s going to be tough parting ways with Wader, but we’ll never forget him. We’ll never forget him recording the final out of the World Series in 2015 or his dominant performance in Game 6 of the ALCS in 2015 that got the Royals back to the World Series.

Wade Davis came to Kansas City as a nobody, but he’s leaving as a legend.

Best of luck in Chicago, buddy.