Royals made their intentions clear at trade deadline despite being frustratingly quiet

The economics of baseball are complicated and painfully boring for the casual fan. They're especially complicated for small market teams like the Kansas City Royals. The Royals are a team in free fall. At 20 games under .500, they're one of the bottom-feeder teams in the league. Only three teams have a worse record than them. In this sport, when you're a bad team, the teams competing for the postseason smell blood in the water and attack. It's a process of unloading veteran players with expiring contracts and gauging trade interest in your team's players.

The idea is to get some reward in return for a miserable season. If pitching is the currency of baseball, then young prospects are capital. For teams like the Royals, prospects are vital to overall success because of their monetary constraints in paying players. The 2015 team that won it all was made up mostly of homegrown talent who played together through the minor leagues.

General Manager J.J. Picollo, however, has a different philosophy, leaning towards more marginal upgrades that could help the major league club this year and in 2027. Picollo has preached competitiveness since he took over as GM and stood by that, hanging on to aging vets like Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha, John Schreiber and Daniel Lynch IV.

"I think it's fair to say that 75% of our everyday players were asked for or inquired about," Picollo told Rob Collins of FOX4 on a conference call. "The guys who have control, especially long control, are always going to be asked about if they're producing."

That philosophy was much to the dismay of Royals fans, and could work against them if they can't put a winning product on the field in 2027 (if there's even a baseball season to be had). He could look like a genius if it works, but it could also blow up in his face if things go sideways, like they did this year.

J.J. Picollo and Royals' front office are pushing all chips into the 2027 season

After the season ends, it seems almost a foregone conclusion that the Royals will blame their season of failure on the countless injuries they faced. They wouldn't be wrong, but they wouldn't be right either. Yes, injuries played a part in why they are 20 games under, but even with everyone healthy, the Royals did not have the makeup of a team that could make noise in the postseason.

The offense struggled to hit for the better part of three months, and the bullpen gave away wins like Oprah during her prime. Still, Picollo isn't interested in building towards the future during this trade deadline.

“Getting prospects back that were three years away or four years away wasn’t that exciting to us... if we were able to get a bat, or get an arm that was already in the Major Leagues, that’s a different discussion," Picollo said. "But when we’re a team that’s not in contention right now and you’re dealing with team’s that are in contention, the last thing they really want to do is take off of their major league team so that makes it a difficult match.”

The lack of interest in prospects signals a few things to me, and it's important to understand what Picollo is saying between the lines.

The Royals front office may be playing for their jobs in 2027. This win-now approach is unusual for a team like the Royals, but they're not far removed from 2024, when they made a postseason run into the ALDS. Chasing the ghosts of two seasons prior can be a dangerous game, but a game they seem committed to playing. While Bubic was traded to the Dodgers on Monday, the rest of the Royals core stayed intact.

It's one thing to hold onto guys if no one is calling about them. It's entirely different to keep aging vets even with multiple teams showing interest.

Looking around the league, most of the high-profile players who were traded were on expiring contracts, such as Tarik Skubal, Casey Mize, Adley Rutschman, Luis Arraez, and Robbie Ray.

The one exception that Royals fans could point to and be envious of is the deal the Mets got for Clay Holmes. Holmes signed a 3-year, $38 million deal with the Mets in 2025, but that didn't stop them from trading him to the Cubs. In return, the Mets received Jefferson Rojas, the No. 63-ranked prospect who is now New York's top-rated prospect.

Holmes is 33, with a higher ceiling and with better swing-and-miss stuff, so the deal isn't exactly apples-to-apples. Still, with teams always looking for starting pitching, and Wacha's strong track record as a durable starter, it's reasonable to believe he could've brought back at least one top-100 prospect.

But the Royals have made it clear they are not playing the long game. They expect to be better next year and compete for the postseason. Ironically, that's the same thing they said at the beginning of this season. There's an amount of luck that is baked into a baseball season, but you have to be early in identifying when guys' productive years may be coming to a close.

Wacha will be 35 going on 36, and Lugo will be 37 for the duration of next season. Hoping for continued production from those two is not the most bulletproof plan, but it's the one we have nonetheless.

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