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.

A Strength Turned Weakness

The Kansas City Royals have had their fair share of issues this season.

The offense struggled mightily through long stretches, and even challenged the record for longest scoreless run in MLB history. The starting rotation also suffered extreme lapses with Ian Kennedy out of sorts much of the season, Jason Vargas falling off a cliff after the All-Star Game and several pitchers sustaining injuries.

Even still, the bullpen proved just as inconsistent. What was once the strength of the team—particularly during the 2014-15 run—had suddenly become arguably its weakest spot. It didn’t help the perception as two-thirds of the vaunted 2014 backend of the bullpen put up save after save for a pair of the National League’s best teams.

While Greg Holland leads the NL in saves with 40 for Colorado, Davis has been even more consistent. Holland has been stellar much of the year, but he faltered in August, including allowing a walk-off homer to his old teammate Eric Hosmer.

Davis, meanwhile, has zero blown saves. None.

When he closed out the Cardinals on Sunday, Davis secured his 31st save of the season. He has a 2.05 ERA in 54 appearances spanning 52 2/3 innings. Those numbers could bring tears to the eyes of even the most stoic Kansas City Royals fan.

Royals Bullpen Struggles

If Davis had remained in Kansas City, he would clearly have been the closer. There is no debating that. Him staying with the Royals, in turn, would have allowed Kelvin Herrera to remain in the eighth inning, a spot—in hindsight—for which he is clearly better suited.

As mentioned before, we are not able to make assumptions about other moves that might have happened if Davis stayed. However, it can reasonably be assumed that Joakim Soria would have been the seventh-inning guy—or maybe not on the team at all—if Davis isn’t traded.

In an effort to create more waterworks, here are the 2017 stats for Herrera and Soria. Herrera, the Kansas City Royals closer for much of the year, is 3-3 with a shocking 4.56 ERA in 58 appearances. Soria, the standard set-up man, has a 4-3 record and a 3.88 ERA in 54 appearances.

Remember when I said Davis had yet to blow a save? Herrera has blown four saves; Soria has blown seven. The Kansas City Royals have 21 blown saves as a team.

Soria’s injury and Herrera’s struggles in recent weeks have thrown the already chaotic backend of the bullpen into further disarray. During that time, Scott Alexander had to pull four saves out his … hat. Brandon Maurer has shown to be almost completely unpredictable—solid at times but awful at others. Mike Minor has even struggled late in a handful of games.

All of this could have been avoided if Davis was still with the Kansas City Royals.

How Davis Could Have Changed Things

To explore just how damaging the bullpen’s struggles have been, I looked over the Kansas City Royals schedule entering Monday’s day off. The team has played 149 games, so far, this season. It’s record through those contests in 73-76.

By my count, 39 of those 76 defeats have been by three or fewer runs. For a team that seemingly has a penchant for getting blown out, that number is staggering.

Obviously, not all close losses are made the same. Some involve futile late rallies from nearly impossible to overcome deficits. Others are blown leads or tied games that got away.

Thirteen of those narrow defeats have come since Aug. 1. Three occurred just this past week. On Wednesday, the Kansas City Royals let a 3-3 game in the ninth inning turn into a 5-3 loss to the White Sox.

Thursday and Sunday saw the team lose to Cleveland by identical 3-2 scorelines. The games could not have been much different, though. In one instance, the Royals led most of the game only to lose the lead in the ninth and get walked off in the 10th. In the other, Cleveland held a 3-0 lead before Kansas City rallied but ultimately stranded too many runners.

Davis could have made the difference in the Thursday loss. On Sunday, the best he could have done would be to play cheerleader. So it (almost) goes without saying that Davis wouldn’t have turned all of those close losses into wins, but he would have undoubtedly flipped a few of them.

Soler Has Not Reached His Potential

The other part of the argument against trading Davis is that Soler hasn’t added any value to the Kansas City Royals. In fact, according to Baseball Reference, he has a negative-1.0 WAR. (Davis, for what it’s worth, has a 1.8 WAR.)

It would have been one thing if Davis excelled with the Cubs, while Soler lived up to his potential this season. That just didn’t happen.

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To be clear, Soler might end up being an All-Star outfielder for the Kansas City Royals. We might look back on this trade in 2025 or even 2018 as a great move. (Remember Davis is a free agent after this season, which makes it even easier to argue he would have still done well in Kansas City this season with it being a contract year.)

But in regards to 2017, this trade hurt the team. Had Soler been the starting right fielder throughout the season, it could be argued—even if he struggled—that the deal was worth it given the age and control (contract-wise) of the two players. However, Soler has had a hard time with the Kansas City Royals and couldn’t stay healthy early in the season.

Soler showed a lot of promise during an extended stint with Triple-A Omaha, and it’s possible he could be a major piece of the impending Kansas City Royals rebuild. For this year, though, the team needed Davis.