Royals Rumors: Team interested in acquiring right-handed starter

Royals rumors have cooled off a bit recently, but might be heating back up soon. The Kansas City Royals reportedly are interested in trading for a right-handed starter to add to their rotation.

The Kansas City Royals have apparently given up on acquiring current Atlanta Braves pitcher Jaime Garcia, but are still in the market for a starting pitcher. More specifically, the Royals would like to add a righty to the backend of their rotation.

It’s become clear over his last two starts that Travis Wood isn’t going to get the job done as the fifth starter. Normally having a not-so-good fifth starter isn’t the end of the world, but with the Royals needing to win as many games as possible down the stretch, they can’t be put into situations that Wood has thrown them into in his last two games.

Some righties who could be potentially on the trade block over the next week and have been linked with the Royals are Marco Estrada (Blue Jays), Sonny Gray (Athletics), and Lance Lynn (Cardinals), but Trevor Cahill (Padres) is an interesting name to watch for as well.

I don’t see Kansas City landing Sonny Gray. Teams like the Astros, Cubs, and Indians have been in on him from the start and those teams have more to offer Oakland than the Royals do at the moment. Gray wearing a Royals uniform would be pretty awesome, but I am not going to get my hopes up on him coming to town.

Estrada was a name that was linked to the KC Royals last week. Royals rumors were also throwing Garcia’s name around during that same time and we’ve since learned that that likely won’t be happening.

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Estrada is probably the one that makes the most sense here, but he has not been good this year. He’s currently posting a 5.52 ERA in 20 starts.

If the Royals are going to get that kind of production from Estrada, then I say they should just stand pat and go with someone like Jake Junis as the fifth starter.

The player I’d most like to see the Kansas City Royals trade for is Lance Lynn of the St. Louis Cardinals. Lynn is having a great season, throwing 114.2 innings to the tune of a 3.03 ERA in 20 starts for the Red Birds. The issue with acquiring him is that the Cardinals might not end up being sellers.