Royals Rumors: Red Sox monitoring Kelvin Herrera

Royals rumors are beginning and the biggest name to watch at the trade deadline this summer is Kelvin Herrera. The Boston Red Sox are interested in the Royals closer.

Kansas City Royals fans had a strong feeling that the trade deadline was going to be the most exciting part of the 2018 season and well… here we are. Kelvin Herrera is Royal who is going to draw the most attention over these next few weeks and it’s not hard to see why that’ll be the case.

Herrera has appeared in 24 games, throwing in 22.2 innings with a sparkling 0.79 ERA and 13 saves. He’s the best reliever in the Royals bullpen and should bring back a few decent prospects in return if a team is in desperate need of a closer to help them make a postseason run in October.

According to Nick Cafardo of The Boston Globe, the Boston Red Sox are interested in acquiring Herrera.

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"The Red Sox are one of the teams that have been watching Royals closer Kelvin Herrera in the event that Tyler Thornburg doesn’t come back in the near future. Herrera obviously wouldn’t be the closer in Boston, but rather a strong late-inning option."

Kelvin Herrera is an attractive trade option for several reasons. He’s proven he can be slotted into just about any role in the bullpen. The Royals used him as the seventh inning guy in 2014 and then promoted him to the setup man in 2015 after Greg Holland missed the last half of the year. In 2016, Herrera continued to be the setup man for Wade Davis. He officially earned the closer job in 2017.

The Red Sox don’t necessarily need a closer, but Herrera would be an experienced reliever to have pitch the seventh or eighth inning in big moments. He’s been to two World Series and pitched beautifully in both the 2014 and 2015 fall classics, so that wouldn’t be anything new to Herrera.

The biggest thing that Cafardo touches on in his latest article is that the Red Sox don’t have much of a farm system. That obviously could be problematic here, as the Royals are going to want a few prospects in exchange for what could be an All-Star closer.

Cafardo also linked Herrera to the Houston Astros in that article and that’s definitely a team to keep an eye on too. Their farm system might be a bit better too and that’s what’s most important here.

Herrera might not bring back what Aroldis Chapman did for the Yankees in 2016, but it should be a few decent pieces that could help jumpstart the Kansas City Royals’ rebuild. This is the first of the Royals rumors floating around, but it certainly won’t be the last.

Kelvin Herrera will almost certainly be wearing a different jersey come August. The question is, what jersey will it be?

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