Undealt Royals players entirely overshadowed any progress KC made with completed deadline trades

The trade deadline has officially passed and the Kansas City Royals had an interesting one to say the least. Royals fans had likely already reluctantly come to terms with the fact that they wouldn't be moving off of their highest profile trade targets in Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo, no matter how much returns for them would've helped their retooling efforts. However, after successfully trading away expiring deals in Lane Thomas on Saturday and then the injured Kris Bubic on Monday, you'd be hard pressed to find a Royals fans who expected the likes of multiple expiring deals to be remaining on the roster when the dust settled.

That's where the Royals are at though. While it's not shock that Matt Strahm and his mid-7.00s ERA didn't attract a buyer, it's very surprising to see the likes of John Schreiber and Starling Marte still on the roster. Neither was blowing anyone away with their numbers this season, but there were enough positives to be had with both names to think that someone would've taken a swing on them for a postseason stretch run.

Schreiber may be sporting a -0.5 fWAR, but a 3.76 ERA has him on track for his fifth-straight full major league season with a sub-4.00 ERA.

He may not be an arm that you trust with closing games, but with an above-average 62nd percentile groundball rate and the amount he's been able to outperform his expected metrics, the fifth to seventh innings is an easy place to picture him, especially with runners on base and a groundball needed.

Marte was in a similar boat, but just in a positional sense. He may be rather removed from his All-Star and Gold Glove days with the Pirates and Mets where he was a more consistent power and speed threat, however, there were still some things to like about him as a bench bat.

Beyond his experience and potential clubhouse presence, Marte is still managing to hit for a .250 AVG with an average-looking barrel rate and bat speed. For a bench bat, contenders could certainly do much worse. And perhaps getting away from the putrid situation that the Royals offense can be would bring out more in the 37-year-old.

At this point even the ever so exciting cash considerations or a player to be named later would be better than nothing and it's hard to believe this wasn't possible for either Schreiber or Marte on deadline day.

Royals aren't in much better spot for near future despite "focusing" on it at deadline

There's no denying that the Royals added pitching depth help at the deadline. Lucas Braun adds an immediate name to the starting pitching fold, while Carter Holton may be another one down the road. And the likes of Nolan Hoffman and Carlos Duran could be immediate solutions in the bullpen, Add in the recent deal for Nate Pearson and the Royals pitching situation is definitely improved to a degree.

However, none of these names are surefire bets to be solutions for them for their competitive window and all of the carry their risks. Pearson and Hoffman are both DFA'd outcasts from their former clubs, while Duran, Braun and Holton have little to no big league experience, so there's a lot of trust in projections here rather than MLB results.

It's hard to think that they would ever get a game-changing return for rental players and that's an issue in and of itself. Not trading Wacha or Lugo already seemed like an incredibly major missed opportunity. But to not even capitalize on all the rental options they had makes no sense whatsoever.

This only makes what they do in the offseason that much more important, as their past two more complacent offseasons have proven that putting a majority of trust in the existing pieces on this roster isn't going to cut it. They likely need multiple splashes on top of solid between the margins-type moves to get this team back to where they were two years ago. This deadline didn't to much to advance this cause and that's unfortunate.

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