Royals Rumors: Final day of trade deadline uneventful for Royals

There will be no more Royals rumors for the rest of the 2019 season. There also weren’t any Royals rumors on Wednesday, which was the final day of the trade deadline.

The trade deadline has come and gone and the Kansas City Royals didn’t make anymore moves after this past weekend. They previously shipped off Homer Bailey and Jake Diekman to the Oakland Athletics and also sent Martin Maldonado to the Cubs (who later sent him to the Astros), but more trades were being rumored.

No other trades occurred, as the Royals got through Wednesday without making a deal.

The biggest names not to be dealt were Billy Hamilton, Ian Kennedy, and Whit Merrifield, who will all be Royals through the end of the season. Kennedy and Merrifield will be with the team next season, assuming they aren’t traded during the offseason.

Hamilton only signed a one-year deal prior to the 2019 season and the hope was that his defensive prowess and speed would be enough to get him some interest on the trade market. After batting .211, however, teams didn’t appear to be interested in giving anything up for Hamilton’s services.

The problem with finding a trade partner for Kennedy was that he’s owed a lot of money. As you recall, the Royals shelled out a lot of cash to Kennedy after they won the World Series in 2015, in hopes of bolstering their rotation and making another run at it in 2016.

The contract has been a disaster to say the least. Kennedy is finally of use as a reliever (mostly as a closer), but he was signed to be a solid two or three option in the starting rotation. Although there was said to be interest from teams on the market, Kennedy remains a member of the Kansas City Royals.

Merrifield is signed through 2023 and offers versatility all over the diamond. He’s the Royals’ best hitter and was their lone All-Star representative this year, which explains why they’d want to hold onto him. He’s also on the cheap, so that paired with his versatility obviously made him an appealing trade candidate to a contending team.

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The Royals were asking for a lot in return for Merrifield’s services and it’s good to see they didn’t flip him to someone for peanuts. Why trade him if they don’t have to? If a team isn’t willing to part with three or four top prospects, then no deal. Simple as that.

When looking at these three Royals and why they didn’t get traded, each makes sense.

• Hamilton wasn’t producing much at the plate and after he was benched in favor of Bubba Starling, he wasn’t getting anymore opportunities to show off what he could offer to teams.
• Kennedy was too expensive and the Royals weren’t willing to eat a chunk of his salary, per Ken Rosenthal.
• Merrifield is worthy of three or four top prospects and teams weren’t wanting to trade that many players.

While it’s disappointing that Wednesday resulted in zero trades for the Royals, it’s good that they didn’t give up Whit Merrifield for whatever teams offered. They held onto him in the hopes of that he’ll continue to perform at a high level next year and maybe a team will be interested in giving up players for him then.

What did you think of the Royals trades (or lack thereof) this year?