Royals Trade Yamaico Navarro For Brooks Pounders, Diego Goris

Earlier Wednesday evening, Bob Dutton of the Kansas City Star tweeted that the Royals were shopping 24-year-old infielder Yamaico Navarro to teams so they could clear a spot on the 40 man roster in preparation for Thursday’s Rule 5 draft.

Navarro, acquired last July for Mike Aviles, appeared in six games with Kansas City in September after joining the organization and hit .272/.317/.391/.708 in 101 plate appearances for Omaha. Kevin Goldstein ranked him within his top 20 Royals prospects last month.

In return the Royals receive a pair of 21-year-old minor leaguers.

Diego Goris turns 21 on Thursday and is an infielder out of the Dominican Republic. He signed as a 17-year-old and has been in the Dominican Summer League since, compiling a .302/.338/.418/.756 line in 875 plate appearances at that level.

Pounders was the Pirates second-round pick in 2009. MLB.com has a scouting video of him and you can tell that he’s not very flashy. His scouting report credits him with a fastball around 89-90 mph but with a mix of pitches that can all be solid – his changeup was described as a “plus” pitch before the draft. The Pirates were having him work on his fastball, which isn’t overpowering but he did start to touch 93 mph last year. He’s said to have a lot of poise. If he finds velocity in his development, he already knows how to pitch, and could have a lot of upside down the line. According to Greg Schaum, he’s been a part of Alan Jaeger’s long-toss program for a while, too.

In 2011, he struck out 9.8 batters per nine innings and walked just 1.9 batters per nine. He was mostly used as a reliever by the Pirates organization.

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