This KC Royals trade deadline chip is plummeting in value

It is, as they say, early. The baseball calendar has yet to turn to May, divisional races haven't taken on meaningful form — after all, and despite a losing record, the KC Royals are well within range of the American League Central lead — and time remains for most players to break out of April slumps and have productive seasons.

None of that, though, means it's too early to think and dream about the trade deadline period, the big leagues' midseason wheel-and-deal frenzy that captivates the game every July. Really, it's never too early to consider the possibilities of this year's July 31 drop-dead date for major league-level swaps.

Whether the Royals, for whom general manager J.J. Picollo swung some nice deadline deals last season, will be buyers or sellers remains to be seen; most observers would likely bet on the former. But the club won't get talent without giving up the same valuable commodity. Unfortunately for Picollo and the Royals, one potential trade piece is rapidly losing his value ...and may not be able to get it back.

Hunter Renfroe.

Hunter Renfroe's KC Royals trade value is plummeting

To understand what Renfroe offered when the Royals signed him two winters ago helps explain why his once-high stock is now so low.

Hunter came to Kansas City in December of 2023 riding a one-year free agent deal with a hospitable player option for this season. What he arrived with then — near-perennial 20-homer power and almost a decade of big league experience — made him, on paper, good help for a club reeling from a disastrous 106-loss season, and also a likely trade deadline candidate. His glove was passable but, more importantly, he'd hit at least 20 homers in all but two of nine major league seasons — his 11-contest 2016 introduction to the majors and the pandemic-truncated 60-game 2020 season.

The hopes for Renfroe were high, but he dashed them. Hot in June and July when across 38 games he homered seven times, drove in 22 runs, and slashed .311/.394/.555, a poor start and bad finish yielded unsightly full-season stats — Renfroe ended his first KC campaign with 15 homers, a .229/.297/..392 line, a -0.1 fWAR, and a 92 wRC+.

Renfroe predictably and wisely jumped at exercising his 2025 player option. The $7.5 million move probably guaranteed him more for this season than he'd have commanded on the open market.

And it left him without a deal for next season, which makes him bait for this July's trade deadline.

But perhaps in name only.

Has Hunter Renfroe destroyed his trade value with the KC Royals?

Now in his 10th big league season, Renfroe is defying any notion that, after last year's distressing plate performance, he had nowhere to go but up. Through Saturday afternoon's loss to Detroit, his batting average is almost 100 points lower (.131) than last season's .229 mark. He has only one extra-base hit (a double, not a homer).

But those numbers tell only part of the sad story. Renfroe has no multiple-hit games, his 15-game wRC+ is 14 — yes, 14 — and he hasn't been close to the Mendoza Line all season. Too many of his other metrics are, per Baseball Savant, painfully low.

There is time, of course, for Renfroe to right his unsteady ship. But together with what he didn't do at the plate last year, and the even worse results he's posting this season, the prospects for doing so don't seem good.

So it is that the Royals' prospects for dealing Renfroe away for anything of substance this July are slim ... if not none. Time will tell, as it always does, but Renfroe could be a player Picollo may decide to cut, and whose salary the club may choose to eat, before the season ends.