Revisiting Royals-Rangers 2024 trade that could backfire badly on KC

When the Kansas City Royals traded away reliever Walter Pennington in late July, it wasn't the move that fans were anxiously awaiting for the star minor leaguer. Instead of promoting him from Triple-A Omaha to help stabilize the Royals' shaky bullpen down the stretch, the team shipped him to the Texas Rangers in exchange for Michael Lorenzen, a big league veteran who'd been pitching quite nicely so far that season.

The trade deadline deal worked out fairly well for both clubs — but who won the deal?

Some will say Kansas City won, arguing that without Lorenzen, the team wouldn't have qualified for postseason play, and there's some mathematical merit to that argument. Lorenzen won two games for the Royals, who grabbed a Wild Card berth by finishing a game ahead of the Seattle Mariners, so there's some logic that Lorenzen's pair of wins pushed Kansas City over the line.

But because the same could be said of any other Kansas City hurler with at least two victories, such a claim is tenuous at best. That's not to say Lorenzen didn't fare well in Kansas City — as his 2-0 record, 1.57 ERA, and 1.081 WHIP in 28.2 innings prove, he did, and he might have been even better had a hamstring injury not forced him to the Injured List for almost a month.

The pro-Pennington camp, on the other hand, will claim the Rangers got the best of the deal.

Having only a single game of major league experience but boasting a fine 6-3 record, 2.26 ERA, and 0.99 WHIP in 37 games at Omaha when he was dealt, Pennington won his only decision and had a 15-game 3.12 ERA for the Rangers. While that mark wasn't as good as Lorenzen posted with the Royals, it would have been far better had he not given the Mariners three runs in the two-thirds of an inning he worked against them in his last game of the season — a contest he entered with a 1.56 ERA.

So, again, which team won?

So far, the Rangers are coming out ahead of the KC Royals

It's a close call, but considering present circumstances, Texas has the edge — at least for now.

Pennington holds a coveted 40-man roster spot with the Rangers and is a safe bet to be on the Opening Day roster when they begin the 2025 season at home against the Boston Red Sox. He's also younger (26) than Lorenzen, who turns 33 in January, so the potential difference in their remaining major league tenures is obvious.

The elephant in Kansas City's room, though, is the pitchers' respective situations. With only a fraction of major league service time to his credit, Pennington is under considerable team control, so much so that he isn't yet eligible for arbitration. That gives the Rangers an excellent bullpen piece for quite some time.

Lorenzen, on the other hand, became a free agent when the World Series ended. Considering recent developments — including Kansas City's new multi-year with Michael Wacha — the Royals' 2025 starting rotation appears established, and Lorenzen is almost certainly headed for another club this winter.

If that happens, as it almost surely will, Kansas City will have nothing left to show for the Pennington-Lorenzen trade, and Pennington will be pitching for the Rangers instead of the Royals, despite general manager J. J. Picollo desperately needing to strengthen a bullpen beset with more than its share of frustrating 2024 inconsistency. Pennington could have been part of the fix, but no more.

And for that, the Royals may suffer.