Royals trade deadline grades
· Yahoo Sports
The dust has settled, and the hard trade deadline is over. There were some big trades this year. There were some notable non-trades this year, too—we’ll get to that, later. Kansas City was quiet, though, with only a handful of deals completed.
Let’s grade the ones that they did, and one that they didn’t do.
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Lane Thomas and Bailey Falter to the Braves for Lucas Braun and Carter Holton
Grade: B+
Lane Thomas probably knew when he signed with Kansas City that he’d either make the playoffs with the team or end the year playing for someone else. Bailey Falter has probably wished he was somewhere else for a while, as did the Royals front office at this point. By trading them to the Braves, the Royals enacted their most impactful trade of the deadline.
The key player here is Lucas Braun, a 24-year-old righty selected by Atlanta in the 2023 draft. Braun has seen success in the high levels of the minors as a starter; in 94 innings pitched this year across Double-A and Triple-A, he has a 3.53 ERA and a 3.76 FIP. The Royals also got Carter Holton, the 62nd overall pick in the 2024 draft who missed all of 2025 with Tommy John.
To get legitimate rotation depth and a buy-low lefty pitcher drafted in the second round a few years later is a pretty good result. The only reason this doesn’t get an A is because you just have to wonder what the Royals could have gotten if they didn’t attach Falter and his salary to the deal.
Kris Bubic to the Dodgers for Carlos Duran
Grade: A-
When healthy, Kris Bubic has ended up as the most valuable of all the vaunted 2018 Royals draft class arms. But that is the key: when healthy. Bubic has only pitched a little more than 200 total innings across the last four seasons, and he’s never tossed more than 130 innings. With looming free agency at the end of the year as well as lingering arm problems, it was no guarantee the Royals would be able to move him for anything at all.
However, the Royals did find a suitor for Bubic in Los Angeles. The Dodgers are the cozy home for enigmatic-but-talented pitchers and aren’t afraid to spend the annual GDP of Iceland on players on the injury list. Moreover, the Royals got something back—Carlos Duran. A right-handed pitcher from the Dominican Republic, Duran just turned 25, and threw one third of an inning with Atlanta last year. But in 37 innings for the Dodgers’ Triple-A squad, Duran struck out over 31% of total batters with a 3.38 ERA. He’s got two more option years remaining and many years of control.
Expect him to be the closer by Thursday. I jest. But do I? It was a good trade.
Manuel Colon to the Phillies for Nolan Hoffman
Grade: B-
Not many Royals fans know who Manuel Colon is, and sort of for good reason: he’s a 19-year-old with two innings in A ball this year. He is the definition of a lottery ticket—might be worth something, might be worth less than that—which is the going rate to require roughly replacement level talent in the upper minors, which is what Nolan Hoffman is. Hoffman, 28, is with his fourth big league organization, and is a right-handed arm with a strikeout rate north of 25% in each of the last three seasons at Triple-A.
Kansas City needs arms right now, and Hoffman will probably see the big league bullpen sooner rather than later.
Not trading any of Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo, or Daniel Lynch IV
Grade: F
Sometimes the most impactful trades are the ones you don’t make. Kansas City entered the trade deadline with three pitchers who had multiple years of control and who would have been big additions for another club looking to add legitimate, playoff-caliber talent: starting pitchers Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo, and left-handed reliever Daniel Lynch IV.
Kansas City didn’t trade any of them.
In some comments to the media after the deadline, general manager JJ Picollo was clear that no deal worked out because the Royals wanted big league ready talent and other playoff teams balked at that. He believes that the Royals will compete next year and thinks that Wacha and Lugo and Lynch can help the team then. I think it’s a big miss.
What do I know, I guess. I do know that the Royals’ odds to win the division right now are +30000 at FanDuel and that also doesn’t bode well for the future. But, you know, sure. Let’s win it all next year.