Royals: Trevor Oaks has been designated for assignment

After being out with an injury for the entire 2019 season, the Kansas City Royals have designated pitcher Trevor Oaks for assignment.

With the World Series wrapping up and the offseason upon us, the Kansas City Royals can be expected to start making moves. A new manager will hopefully be announced soon, some trades could occur, or contracts could be extended or released.

As of October 29, 2019, the Royals have started their offseason moves, by designating Trevor Oaks for assignment. Oaks spent the entire 2019 season on the injured list, recovering from hip surgery.

Oaks came to the Royals during January of 2018 through a three-team trade between Kansas City, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Chicago White Sox. The Royals received Oaks and Erick Mejia from Los Angeles and in return sent Scott Alexander to LA and Joakim Soria to Chicago.

Since coming to Kansas City, Oaks has been underwhelming in the short time he has actually spent in the majors. In 2018, Oaks appeared in 4 games and started 2 of them holding an ERA of 7.24. Over 13.2 innings, he allowed 21 hits, 11 runs, walked 6 batters, and recorded 10 strikeouts.

Oaks faired much better at the minor league level. Working his way through the Dodgers minor league system, Oaks worked his way up from 2014 to 2017. In 2014 his ERA was a high 6.31, but he was able to work it out, posting ERAs under 3.00 in both 2015 and 2016, and a 3.83 in 2017.

At AAA Omaha in 2018, Oaks continued his minor league success posting a 3.23 ERA over 128.1 innings. Unfortunately for Oaks, he just wasn’t able to maintain this level of production at Kauffman.

Though he wasn’t able to play a game during the 2019 regular season, Oaks was able to get some innings in for the Arizona Fall League. In 7 games, Oaks posted an ERA of 4.50, 12 innings, 6 earned runs, and 11 strikeouts. While it’s again not a huge sample size, the numbers aren’t bad for a player coming off of a year-long injury.

In his only major league time in 2018, Oaks ERA was 7.24, but his FIP was a low 3.96. There is some hope that he may be able to turn his numbers around. To see if this will happen, though, Oaks will need a much larger sample size as his current sample is basically non-existent.

It is no surprise that the Royals are starting to make roster moves and Oaks could also find his way back to the organization on a minor league contract. While he could become a nice arm for the rotation in the future, there are other players that are Rule 5 eligible that the Royals apparently see as better options that they will want to protect.