KC Royals Trades: How the midsummer deals worked out

Two KC Royals trades might not have looked big, but they may turn out to be.

The Whit Merrifield, Andrew Benintendi and Carlos Santa trades were big deals. A pair of other transactions, though, didn’t appear to be.

But they might end up being important to the Royals’ future.

The least promising of the trades seemed to be the Aug. 1 money-for-player deal involving the Royals’ transfer of cash to Seattle for reliever Anthony Misiewicz. But Misiewicz, likely unknown to fans of his new club before the deal, became a valuable piece of Kansas City’s troubled bullpen—displaying decent control and a penchant for strikeouts (four walks and 19 K’s in 15.1 innings), he went 1-1 with a 4.11 ERA, the latter stat skewed by the four runs he yielded in two combined innings over his first two KC appearances.

Misiewicz could become a mainstay of the Royal relief corps.

Kansas City’s’ biggest prize of the 2022 trade period, though, came via a trade with Atlanta that brought the Royals three players for their Competitive Balance draft pick.

That’s right. No KC players. Just the pick.

And for that Kansas City received Drew Waters, then MLB Pipeline’s No. 1 Atlanta prospect, pitcher Andrew Hoffman, and third baseman CJ Alexander.

Waters was clearly who the Royals wanted most. Despite his lofty ranking, the Braves for some reason considered him dispensable but, assigned to Triple-A Omaha immediately after the trade, he made it to Kansas City in late August and impressed with his outfield defense. He also hit five homers in 32 games, including a three-run, 10th-inning blast that put the Royals ahead for good Oct. 3 in Cleveland.

Waters, now rated seventh among KC prospects by MLB Pipeline, made almost an airtight case to start next season with the Royals.

Hoffman, now MLB Pipeline’s No. 14 KC prospect, was 7-2, 2.36 in 15 starts at High-A Rome when Atlanta included him in the Waters deal, then went 2-4 with a 6.64 ERA in nine starts for Northwest Arkansas. Alexander had 15 homers at Double-A Mississippi before the trade, and added 10 with a .272 average and .808 OPS at Northwest Arkansas.

(One other deal might take awhile to sort out. KC sent pitcher Foster Griffin to Toronto in mid-July for pitcher Jonatan Bernal. Griffin pitched once for the Blue Jays and was released earlier this month; Bernal went 2-2, 4.70 in nine games for Kansas City’s Low-A affiliate).

The Royals’ summer trades reaped mixed results.