Royals News: Kansas City makes a pair of minor trades to bolster depth

The Kansas City Royals continue to focus on depth related roster moves as the 2025 season rages on.

After inking a series minor league deals for veterans with prior big league experience - like the newest member of the pitching staff Rich Hill and former award winners like 2015 AL Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel and 2016 AL Rookie of the Year Michael Fulmer - the Royals looked to the trade market to acquire more depth this time around.

On Wednesday morning, the team announced they'd made two trades. The first was acquiring right-handed reliever Joey Krehbiel from the Tampa Bay Rays for cash considerations. The second was trading for catcher (not the outfield mega-star) Julio E. Rodriguez from the Seattle Mariners also in exchange for cash considerations.

Royals News: Kansas City acquires Joey Krehbiel to bolster pitching depth

While not spectacular at any point during his major league tenure, Krehbiel offers the Royals yet another arm with prior MLB experience to add to the depth chart.

The 32-year-old righty has spent the entirety of the 2025 season with the Rays' Triple-A affiliate in Durham. In 35.1 innings across 25 outings out of Durham's 'pen, Krehbiel has thrown to an uninspiring 6.11 ERA and 1.61 WHIP, however, his sub-4.00 FIP (3.99) gives reason to believe he's a better arm than what the numbers say this year.

Through parts of four MLB seasons - primarily with the Baltimore Orioles, but also the Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks - he's holds a respectable career 3.65 ERA, 1.19 WHIP and .219 BAA in 74.0 innings across 70 appearances.

He's best known for the 57.2 innings he crafted with the Orioles back in 2022, where posted a 3.90 ERA in his only relatively full season in the majors.

He'll provide some much needed pitching depth to stash in the minors for a Royals team suffering some real injury issues on the mound of late, with Cole Ragans, Michael Lorenzen and Daniel Lynch IV being added to an injured list in recent weeks that already included the likes Hunter Harvey, Kyle Wright, James McArthur and Alec Marsh.

Royals News: Kansas City adds new name to deepest position in Julio E. Rodriguez

With the lackluster performance Kansas City's outfield has put up this year as whole, Royals fans would have loved to have gotten the other, more notable, Julio Rodriguez in Seattle. Instead they'll settle for Julio Rodriguez, the minor league catcher.

Rodriguez has been solely a Double-A regular for the past four seasons of his pro-career with three separate teams in the St. Louis Cardinals (2022), Detroit Tigers (2023-2024) and of course the Mariners (2025).

So far this season in Double-A Arkansas, the 28-year-old has hit .231 with a .664 OPS and 99 wRC+ in 57 plate appearances.

At first glance, with numerous top prospects already in their ranks at the catching position, bringing in another one didn't appear to be the Royals' biggest need. However, perhaps this frees up the Royals to utilize some of their top catching depth in trade conversations knowing they have adequate backups in the system to take their place.

After all, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported Wednesday morning that teams are interested in the Royals young catching depth. Maybe this was one of the pre-cursors to a potential bigger move in the coming weeks.