3 worst trades in KC Royals history

The Kansas City Royals have been involved in hundreds of player trades over the years, with the franchise's first big trade — acquiring future-All-Star Lou Piniella from the Seattle Pilots in exchange for John Gelnar and Steve Whitaker on April 1, 1969 — happening before the team had even played a single regular-season game. Most recently, the Royals traded starter Brady Singer to the Cincinnati Reds for second baseman Jonathan India and outfielder Joey Wiemer on November 22, and this offseason alone, Kansas City will almost certainly make at least one more move on the trade market.

In theory, trades are supposed to be mutually beneficial for both parties, but unfortunately, that's rarely the way it works out. It's often difficult to predict whether a team won or lost a trade until seasons later when the dust has well and truly settled, and it's only after a major high or low in one of the involved players' careers that teams look back with either pride or regret.

The Royals have made great trades, okay trades, and trades that really had no lasting impact. Unfortunately, they've also made a number of really bad trades, and here are three of the worst.

2017: KC Royals traded Matt Strahm, Travis Wood, and Esteury Ruiz to the San Diego Padres for Trevor Cahill, Brandon Maurer, and Ryan Buchter.

The years following a World Series title can always be chaotic for a team, and Kansas City was no exception. In 2015, the Royals won their second World Series in franchise history, and by mid-2017, the team was still relatively competitive, but the end of an era was fast approaching.

With star players Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, and Alcides Escobar all due to enter free agency at the end of the season, the 2017 trade deadline put all eyes on Royals general manager Dayton Moore. Would he sell the team's big names for prospects — thereby officially starting the team's rebuild — or try to bolster the roster around existing stars for one more playoff berth?

Moore went with the second option, and on July 24, 2017, the Royals traded pitchers Travis Wood and Matt Strahm and infield prospect Esteury Ruiz to the San Diego Padres for veteran pitchers Trevor Cahill, Ryan Buchter, and Brandon Maurer.

It didn't take long for Kansas City to realize that Moore's attempt to secure experienced pitchers for a playoff push had rather miserably failed — especially since the team didn't actually end up making the postseason in 2017.

Cahill pitched just 23 innings for the Royals in 2017, giving up 21 earned runs and walking 21 batters to post an abysmal 8.22 ERA and 2.35 WHIP. Maurer didn't do much better, recording an 8.10 ERA and 2.25 WHIP in 20 innings after giving up 18 earned runs and walking 11 batters. Buchter was the only one of the three newly-acquired pitchers who performed even remotely well, posting an impressive 2.67 ERA and 0.89 WHIP in 27 innings of work. Still, he became a free agent at the end of the season, and while he thankfully took Cahill with him, Royals fans suffered through another entire season of the team trying to make Maurer a passable reliever.

In 2018, Maurer went 0-4 with a 7.76 ERA and 2.14 WHIP, allowing 27 earned runs in just 31.1 innings on the mound — but this shouldn't have been surprising. Arguably the worst part of this entire transaction was that Maurer's disappointing performance in Kansas City was extremely predictable, because he wasn't good in San Diego. During the first half of the 2017 season with the Padres, he'd only managed a 5.72 ERA in 39.1 innings, giving up 25 earned runs and walking 8 batters.

Still, the Royals continued to keep bringing Maurer out of the bullpen, refusing to cut their losses on the last remnant of a terrible trade.

As for the Padres? They fared substantially better with Strahm, Wood, and Ruiz, but only Strahm ended up being really worth their effort. The lefty stayed with the team for four seasons, pitching 203.1 innings with a 3.81 ERA before becoming a free agent at the end of 2021. Meanwhile, Wood accumulated a 6.71 ERA in 52.1 innings, but was designated for assignment at the end of the 2017 season, and while Ruiz's biggest perk was his base-stealing, he didn't make his MLB debut until 2022, and only played 14 games for the Padres before he was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers.

Overall, the Padres definitely came out on top of this 2017 trade, even if it wasn't earth-shattering. The Royals, however, lost the ability to trade their top talent for prospects, leaving the team empty-handed when a slew of top players became free agents mere months later.