KC Royals: 4 players to keep an eye on in final series before trade deadline

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The MLB season is about to start being a little chaotic with the trade deadline around the corner. Teams will be making trades to contend while others try to build for the future. To no one's surprise, the KC Royals are in the latter bucket as they are on-pace for a bottom-five finish in team history at 29-75.

As the deadline nears, the Royals have their last series against the Minnesota Twins, who are trying to build themselves a bigger lead in the AL Central. The Royals, on the other hand, are just trying to see what they have and build value for some players to, hopefully, trade them.

This might be the last series for some of these Royals, but let's get into the four players, on either team, to focus on in this series.

The Captain is starting to right the ship after a down June for the KC Royals

Salvador Perez may not be on one of his tears since the end of the All-Star break, but he has been a lot better since said festivities, and a series against the Twins may help him out more. "Salvy" has hit .268/.286/.463 since the break and has a wRC+ of exactly 100 which is the league average.

The biggest thing for Salvy coming into this series is that he loves hitting Minnesota pitching. He has a slash line of .296/.327/.510 with an OPS of .837 against the Twins in his career. The only issue with Salvy since the break is that he hasn't walked once in 11 games, but he has hit in four straight games coming into this series.

The next Royal on this may come as a surprise.

The KC Royals second baseman has hit for a lot of power since the break

Michael Massey has had a very up-and-down year, but now it is starting to get weird. Massey hasn't exactly been great since the break, but he currently has a SLG of .514 in the 11 games to start the second half. To add to this, he also has an ISO of .297.

His slash line during the 11-game stretch is .216/.256/.514, so the power hitting has carried a lot of his offense in this stretch. This may mean he regresses to the mean soon as not a lot of his metrics are great in this stretch, but he has hit the ball hard at an average exit velo of 87.0.

While his power might regress to the mean, the same could be said for his BABIP in this stretch of play. Massey has a BABIP of .179 in this stretch while having five of his eight hits being extra-base hits which make for a weird conundrum of his power should regress, but he hasn't been lucky so that might turn around.

What is more likely to happen is he regresses a lot during this series as Massey does not hit the Twins well at all. He carries a lifetime slash line of .212/.226/.289 with an OPS of .515. All signs point to Massey cooling off a little, but if he can continue his power surge it might be an interesting series for him.

Now it is time to put the focus on a couple of Twins players starting with a hitter who is on fire.

The Twins second baseman might continue a hot stretch against the KC Royals

Edouard Julien has come out of the break on fire and has been a helpful factor in the Twins building a lead in the AL Central. Julien has a slash line of .410/.511/.718 for a casual 1.229 since the All-Star break. To put it bluntly, he might eat up Royals pitching in this series.

During this 11-game stretch, there have only been two games where Julien hasn't gotten a hit, and even in one of those games he walked twice. The Royals will have their hands full with Julien this series, but there are some key factors that could help them out.

For one, Julien is striking out a lot during this stretch (27.7%) and strikes out a lot in general (on the season, 31.5%). The second factor could be his BABIP as he is carrying a staggering .565 during this stretch. He has been the polar opposite of Massey, at least in BABIP/luck, but Julien is hitting for a lot more power and more consistently than Massey. In this writer's opinion, some regression could come, but not a lot as a ton of the metrics are insanely good for Julien.

And for the last player, we focus on a Twins pitcher who hasn't fully shut down the Royals.

The KC Royals have a slim shot of taking one game against Bailey Ober

The Twins rotation coming into this series is Sonny Gray, Bailey Ober, and Kenta Maeda (projected starters). Both Gray and Maeda have shut down the Royals in their careers, as have many Twins pitchers in the past few years, but Baily Ober is really the only one who hasn't shut the Royals down fully.

In six games against the Royals, Ober is 0-1 with an ERA of 4.00 as well as a WHIP of 1.26. That isn't bad for any pitcher, but just about any pitcher can shut down the Royals (see Andrew Heaney earlier in the year). Obviously, playing in Kauffman will help the pitchers but the Royals could get to Ober if they make contact.

This may be the most winnable game for the Royals, but Ober is having a career year according to Fangraphs and he has been solid since the break.

This series against the Twins will be a tough one (like they all are) for the KC Royals as they face two pitchers who dominate them and the offense is super inconsistent. The main thing to focus on for the Royals are who sticks out and who is being traded from the team.

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