Royals Rumors: Team has high asking price for Whit Merrifield

Royals rumors season officially started up last weekend when Homer Bailey was sent to Oakland in a trade. Days later, Martin Maldonado was also traded. While Whit Merrifield could be shipped off, the Royals want quite a bit in return.

It should come as no surprise that the Kansas City Royals are sellers at this year’s trade deadline. Yes, even with their somewhat hot start out of the All-Star break, the boys in blue will be sending their players on one-year deals elsewhere.

One-year players are definitely going to be on the move, assuming teams find them worth trading for, but it doesn’t appear that the Royals will be moving their best player this summer. Mark Feinsand tweeted last week that unless the Royals are “blown away” by an offer, Whit Merrifield is likely staying a Royal.

This isn’t shocking.

There are pros and cons to trading Merrifield. The pro is obviously that the Royals could get a ton in return for him, and as Feinsand notes, his contract is also appealing to other teams. He’s a versatile player who is still hitting well despite being 30 years old. His value won’t be any higher than it is right now, so trading Merrifield would make total sense.

The cons on trading Merrifield is that outside of him, no one on this team really pops. Sure, it’s fun watching the new guys like Bubba Starling and Nicky Lopez make their debuts, but Merrifield is THE guy for the Kansas City Royals right now. If you trade him, there’s not much left to be excited about.

While Feinsand’s tweet is from last week, Jon Morosi tweeted something trade related about Merrifield on Sunday.

Teams have been unwilling to meet the asking price on Merrifield and it’s good to see the Royals sticking to their guns here. While I’m okay with the team trading the utility man, they can’t give him away for pennies. It will have to be one nice haul of prospects in return in order for the Royals to part with their best player.

The affordable contract, ability to play multiple positions, and his stats of course are reasons teams would be interested in Merrifield. He’s the perfect player for a contending team and could provide them with what Ben Zobrist provided the Royals with back in 2015. They’re very similar players.

If a team wants to make a run in October, they might be more than willing to give up some big name prospects in order to acquire Whit Merrifield from the Royals. If that ends up happening, it’ll be one of the biggest Royals rumors that’s hit in quite some time.