The Royals keep nailing trade deadlines by channeling classic Moneyball

The MLB trade deadline came and went yesterday, and it was a wild, wild day. The Kansas City Royals were involved in multiple deadline day deals, and ultimately ended up with six new players when it was all said and done. Along the way, they traded away six players—a delightful balance.

Adding to the balance is the even split between position players and pitchers. Kansas City’s first move was to acquire Adam Frazier a few weeks ago in a deal that rankled many Royals fans but makes more sense in concert with the other acquisitions. Randal Grichuk joined the team earlier this week, and the Royals traded for Mike Yastrzemski right before the buzzer buzzed. On the pitching side of things, the Royals acquired Ryan Bergert, Stephen Kolek, and Bailey Falter.

The Royals did not have to give up all that much to acquire those players. Headlining the departing players is fan favorite Freddy Fermin. Minor leaguers Callan Moss and Yunior Marte will pursue their MLB dreams with other clubs, and a trio of Triple-A players with minimal big league experience—Cam Devanney, Andrew Hoffmann, and Evan Sisk—will do so as well.

This is an unambiguously successful trade deadline. The Royals are better now than they were a week ago. Half the players acquired are under team control for multiple years. Kansas City retained all of their top prospects, and only one of the players departing the team was on the big league roster.

The Royals can applaud their July play for putting general manager JJ Picollo and the front office in the position where making these trades made sense. At the beginning of the month, the team was seven games behind .500 and was the 12th team in the overall AL standings. Now, Kansas City is only one game behind .500 and has ascended to the ninth overall spot in the AL standings. They are only three games behind the final Wild Card spot. And with the Minnesota Twins and the Cleveland Guardians deciding to self-immolate rather than push forward, well, that can only help.

Notably, this is the third consecutive trade deadline where the Royals acquired good talent at an extraordinarily reasonable price. In 2023, the Royals traded half a season of Aroldis Chapman for Cole Ragans; Ragans, obviously, would become one of the best lefty starting pitchers in baseball. Last year, the Royals acquired Lucas Erceg for a trio of minor leaguers who have taken steps backwards; Erceg, obviously, would become the Royals’ best reliever and is under team control for years to come.

I don’t think this is an act of randomness. And, really, it’s just classic Moneyball at play.

Now, Moneyball has been around a while. If it were a person born the date it was initially published (June 17, 2003) it would have graduated college this May. But Moneyball is often misunderstood even, or especially, today. Moneyball is not a book about on base percentage or sabermetrics. It is about finding value where other teams aren’t looking.

Under Picollo and team, the Royals have repeatedly carried out a sort of stealth Moneyball strategy and have repeatedly found outsized value, both at the trade deadline and beyond. One such place has been in late-blooming pitchers. Seth Lugo was a reliever through his age-32 season. Erceg converted to hit in the minors through his age-26 season. Michael Lorenzen was a reliever through his age-29 season. And because of their age and lack of performance history, they were available at steep discounts.

This year, Kansas City could have splurged for a player like Cedric Mullins or Steven Kwan. But instead, they got two players at much lower prices to compliment each other: Yastrzemski and Grichuk. Yas is a righty-killer to the tune of a 118 wRC+, while Grichuk has a 104 wRC+ against lefties. Platoon them together and you get an outfielder with a 111 or so wRC+ for much cheaper than acquiring one hitter who can do so.

And for the pitchers? The pattern is easy to see. Kolek is—you guessed it—mostly a reliever who has only occasionally in his career started for small stretches of time. Bergert and Falter are two pitchers with warts who could improve a la Ragans. That is precisely what the Royals are interested in helping them do.

Of course, you need to have good pitching coaching and development to do so. Thankfully, that is something the Royals have demonstrated some competency in.

Trade deadlines are a funny thing because there is limited ability for us to declare if the Royals succeeded or not. We won’t know if this will work out and the Royals will make the playoffs. Fortunately, what we do know is that the Royals made some moves to improve the team (this year and beyond) and likely didn’t give up anybody who they will wish they had. The Royals are in a tenuous position, but if you’re going to add, you had better do it smartly. That’s exactly what they did.