Royals steal familiar lefty reliever from Phillies in pre-Christmas surprise

Amid all the speculation of what the Royals needed to accomplish this winter, sometimes lost in the fold of determining what outfield upgrades they'd acquire or how they'd narrow down their starting pitching surplus was the bullpen.

The Royals' relief corps looked good last season, ranking amongst the top 10 'pens in baseball in ERA, but they weren't without their holes this winter.

This biggest need they had to address was finding left-handed help after losing a pair of southpaws already in Sam Long and Angel Zerpa this winter. It wasn't just about replacing those names though. Anne Rogers of MLB.com reported during the Winter Meetings, the Royals were in search of "a left-on-left arm that could fit in the back of their bullpen".

However, as time's gone on between that report and now, several strong free agent candidates came off the board insinuating that the clock might be ticking if they wanted to find an impactful southpaw before all the strong options were taken.

And on Friday morning, GM J.J. Picollo and the front office got creative and found that exact aforementioned impactful back-end lefty reliever.

As first reported by FanSided's MLB insider Robert Murray, Kansas City and Philadelphia pulled off a trade that would re-unite Matt Strahm with the team that drafted him. The Royals would later make the deal official announcing that it would be Jonathan Bowlan heading to the Phillies in return.

Royals re-unite with Matt Strahm for an alarmingly low price

While this trade didn't come completely out of left field, after ESPN's Jeff Passan reported on Thursday that the Phillies were shopping Strahm, the make-up of the deal could be a little surprising.

It's impossible to look at this trade and say the Royals didn't get the better name here.

Strahm is an All-Star reliever with a handful of closing experience who's coming off a pair of very strong seasons in the Phillies' bullpen.

Last season, the 34-year-old tossed to a 2.74 ERA, 2.99 FIP, 1.07 WHIP and .201 BAA in 62.1 innings of work. And he's only a year removed from his lone All-Star appearance in 2024, and finished that season with a 1.87 WHIP, 2.29 FIP, 0.75 WHIP and .164 BAA.

On the other side of the deal, the Phillies get Bowlan, who was a certainly a faithful steward in this Royals 'pen in 2025 and largely did his job when called upon, however, it sometimes felt like he was a "Quad-A" type arm, bouncing between Kansas City and Omaha pretty frequently.

In 44.1 innings across 34 appearances last year, the 29-year-old Bowlan threw to a 3.86 ERA, 3.97 FIP, 1.22 WHIP and .227 BAA. Serviceable, but nothing to get overly jazzed about.

In all likelihood, the Phillies may've been looking to shed some payroll here, with a crowded bullpen that was only made more crowded this week after former Royal Brad Keller inked a two-year, $22 million deal with them. And in Bowlan, they at least get a much cheaper arm, five years younger than Strahm who's under team control until the end of 2031.

But sheerly from an on field stand point, the Royals just traded an fringier major league bullpen arm for an All-Star set-up man who will slot in seamlessly alongside Lucas Erceg to set up closer Carlos Estévez.

It's hard not to think the Royals took another step forward in their path to contention and did so at a very low price.