Royals Rumors: Astros After Danny Duffy and Yordano Ventura

The Royals rumors have cooled off a bit, but another tidbit surfaced on Sunday evening, and that’s that the Houston Astros are eyeing multiple starting pitchers in the Kansas City Royals rotation.

Just when fans thought the hot stove in Kansas City was done, it fires back up again! This time with an even crazier potential deal on the horizon.

Brian McTaggart of MLB.com wrote a lengthy piece on the Houston Astros’ goals this offseason, and he stated that the team is still looking to add starting pitching to their newly-stacked roster.

How this relates to the Royals, you ask? Well, it appears that two of the guys on Houston’s radar are Danny Duffy and Yordano Ventura. Yeah, the number one and two pitchers for the Kansas City Royals heading into 2017. Those guys.

"Among some of their targets are Jose Quintana, Jake Odorizzi, Chris Archer, Danny Duffy and Yordano Ventura. The team has the prospects to get a deal done and is likely to make a move at some point."

Now let me throw this out there… Just because a team is “eyeing” someone on another team doesn’t mean a trade will happen. Sometimes these rumors are just that – rumors and nothing else.

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While we’ve been hearing all sorts of Royals rumors this offseason, it’d be pretty outrageous for Dayton Moore and the Royals to trade off one or both of these guys. The only way I’d see that happening is if the Astros offered a MAJOR haul… and I’m talking MAJOR.

McTaggart mentioned earlier on in that piece that the Astros wouldn’t be willing to trade their young prospect A.J. Bregman, who would likely be on a lot of teams’ wish lists.

As for the two Royals pitchers in questioning, this isn’t the first time Duffy’s name has come up this offseason. It was rumored that teams were asking about Duffy’s availability. Those teams in questioning were the Cubs, who the team dealt Wade Davis to, and yes, the Astros.

This is the first time that Ventura’s name has been brought up this season though. The flame throwing starter has had an up and down career as a Royal so far, but the hope is obviously that he becomes a true top of the rotation guy in 2017. He’s also under club control through 2019, unlike Duffy, who will hit the market after this year if an extension isn’t done.

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Any time fans hear one of their guys in the hot stove talk, it’s concerning, but this isn’t a trade that I’d be too worried about. Duffy has been reported to be one of the few guys staying put in Kansas City, and Ventura is signed through 2019.

If the KC Royals did send one of these guys to Houston though, I’d imagine quite a haul would be donning Royals jerseys in the years to come.

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