Royals could be unorthodox trade partner for Angels thanks to polarizing catching prospect

The Kansas City Royals are all but likely on the verge of officially assuming a seller's role at the upcoming trade deadline. With that comes speculation on who will and who won't be out the door by the time the Aug. 3 comes and goes. For any selling team, the goal is usually to acquire young talent to build for the future with as opposed to selling it off.

However, the Royals are in a unique selling situation. According to Anne Rogers of MLB.com, the Royals want to gear up for a competitive run in 2027 meaning they "would like to acquire talent that’s ready or near-ready for the major leagues". Since they're hard-pressed to trade potentially major assets like Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo, it could be a tall task to get major league-caliber talent with expiring contracts, depth pieces and relievers.

While prospects may not be the names they want to deal, they could potentially have one that's more expendable and that's Blake Mitchell. With both his talent in power and plate discipline and weakness in strikeouts simultaneously on display this year, paired with the major league rise of Carter Jensen and the minor league rise of Ramon Ramirez up the organizational prospect ranks, now more than ever Kansas City can certainly afford to trade Mitchell. And oddly enough, perhaps another bottom feeder in the Los Angeles Angels might be the best place to send him.

According to the Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic, the Angels "are interested in acquiring a young catcher". Now, they might've been discussing a potential deal with the Chicago Cubs when bringing this up, but the desire seems all but likely to ring true regardless of the team they deal with.

As mentioned already, Mitchell has his shortcomings with high strikeout rates, but still ranks as one of the team's better prospects, hasn't been dropped from every outlet's Top 100 prospect list and has shown his power and plate discipline immensely this season with a 17 homers and a 23% walk rate in High-A Quad Cities. He's a former first-rounder who's ceiling still sits as a starting catcher with clean-up-caliber offensive capabilities. Plenty of rebuilding teams would surely be interested in him.

Who could the Royals target from the Angels in a potential Blake Mitchell trade?

The Royals' biggest need right now is pitching, specifically in the starting rotation. Their 2027 staff looks grim with Cole Ragans likely to not to return until mid-2027 after UCL surgery and Kris Bubic seemingly on his way out in free agency after another injury-ridden season.

On top of that, there's been health concerns with Stephen Kolek, Ryan Bergert and Ben Kudrna this season and the aforementioned duo of Wacha and Lugo will be a year further into their mid-to-late 30s. And Noah Cameron hasn't exactly been the rookie sensation he was in 2025.

This means that perhaps names like José Soriano and Reid Detmers with their two years of team control could be ideal targets. Mitchell has enough pedigree to seemingly build a package around after all.

While the Royals will be hard-pressed to beat out contending teams like the Cubs for names like Detmers and Soriano, the fact remains that Mitchell still poses as an intriguing asset to rebuilding team like Halos in search of young catching.

Is this a deal many would see as likely in the coming days? Perhaps not.

However, if we're going off the reports of insider's like Rosenthal and Sammon, there's no denying the Royals have what the Angels want.

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