What If the Kansas City Royals Had Not Traded Wade Davis?

The Kansas City Royals have lost numerous close games this season. Would the team be in a playoff position if Wade Davis hadn’t been trade during the offseason? Let’s take a look.

It’s the time of year when baseball teams outside the playoff race start to play the “What if?” game. The Kansas City Royals are firmly in that position as they enter the week five games behind the Twins with just 13 games to go.

Usually, Monday’s are reserved for our postseason picture updates. But the mountain the Royals need to climb seems too steep to personally justify churning out 3,000 words. Instead, we will put out our second “What if?” piece of the past few weeks.

In the first one, it was examined what might have been if Whit Merrifield had been with the Kansas City Royals the entire season instead of starting off in the minor leagues. This time we will explore the repercussions of trading closer Wade Davis to the Chicago Cubs for outfielder Jorge Soler during the offseason.

As with any hypothetical scenario, a few liberties will be taken in regards to things, more or less, panning out the same way. Meaning, for this exercise, only the Davis-Soler trade is wiped out. No additional trades are made, and we’ll also assume Davis has been healthy the way he has been with the Cubs this season.

All that being said, Davis would seem to be the missing link for the Kansas City Royals 2017 team.