Ignore Ken Rosenthal. Here are four more moves the Royals could make before Opening Day

Over the weekend, Ken Rosenthal dropped a little nugget on Royals fans about their outlook for the remainder of the offseason:

The Kansas City Royals are increasingly unlikely to land either of the two hitters they pursued in trades: the St. Louis Cardinals’ Brendan Donovan and Boston Red Sox’s Jarren Duran.

Barring further moves, the Royals expect to rely heavily on offseason acquisitions Isaac Collins and Lane Thomas in their outfield, as well as rookie Jac Caglianone and holdover Kyle Isbel.

Let’s break down that last sentence a little bit more, though. Another way of saying that would be, “Unless something changes, it will remain the same.” This is a tautology, a logical statement that cannot be negated. If you try to negate his statement, you get, “Unless things remain the same, they will change.” It’s utterly useless. It’s also, simply, incorrect.

The baseball offseason is a game of dominoes. Each move made reduces opportunities and options. This causes teams and players to change the calculus constantly.

Last week, the Red Sox signed their first free agent of the offseason, Ranger Suárez. This has massive repercussions for the Royals. First of all, it made the Red Sox’s desire for Cole Ragans or Kris Bubic fall to basically nil. This made the chances that the Royals could acquire Jarren Duran similarly low.

Or, for a less Royals-oriented move but one which highlights this phenomenon even better, Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker signed deals last week and suddenly Bo Bichette, who had found himself so lacking in team attention that he started leaking news about his willingness to change positions, got a huge short-term deal from the Mets who saw their options evaporating in front of their eyes.

But of course, that deal has implications for the Royals, too. Some of us were hoping Bichette’s value would fall far enough for the Royals to sneak in and swipe him. That’s not happening now. But with so many second basemen in the fold, the Mets probably need to trade away one or both of Brett Baty and Mark Vientos. Either could become a Royals target – I prefer Baty – or their availability could water down Donovan’s market to the point where he falls back into range for the Royals.

Whenever Framber Valdez signs, Kris Bubic should become a lot more appealing to the teams who missed out on Valdez and Suárez. Maybe Donovan and Duran are still off the table, but someone else could become available. Or a three-team deal that had seemed impossible could suddenly manifest for a team that wants Bubic but only wants to trade prospects that the Royals aren’t willing to wait for.

With all that in mind, here are several moves I think the Royals could make and what they’re waiting to happen before they make them.

Kris Bubic gets traded for Brett Baty

Rumor has it that the Mets are considering playing Baty in left field, but that doesn’t really make a ton of sense when they have top prospect Carson Benge about ready to debut, and would make even less sense if they get Bellinger, too. We already discussed this deal a bit above and a few months ago when I wrote my first trade proposal. I don’t know if the Royals can get Kodai Senga, too, but they probably don’t want to have to give up Blake Mitchell. Five years of Baty for one year of Bubic would be a pretty big overpay, so I’d expect the Royals to have to kick in another piece or two to finish the deal, but if the Mets are as desperate as people seem to think they must have been to do the Bichette deal, maybe they’d go straight up.

Bailey Falter gets traded

I don’t know how much of a return Falter will bring, probably not much, but the Royals could get out from under the $3.6 million they owe him by dealing him and as a reasonably competent starting pitcher – no matter how he looked for KC after the deadline last year – there should be multiple teams willing to give up a real prospect to patch a hole in their rotation. Not a top one, but one who has some kind of real value.

Many have expressed shock that Frazier hasn’t already returned to KC. The most likely reason for this is that the Royals can’t guarantee him playing time. It makes all the sense in the world for him to wait until a couple of weeks into Spring Training to see if anyone finds themselves in need of his services that will guarantee him more money or more playing time than what the Royals have offered. Once it becomes clear that no one really wants him, he’ll come back to KC for whatever deal they’ve left on the table for him.

John Schreiber gets traded

You may recall that the Royals first acquired John Schreiber in the middle part of Spring Training two years ago. He’s a talented enough relief pitcher to have value, but not one that has teams clamoring to add him immediately. Much like the Royals in 2024, someone will call KC a couple of weeks into Spring Training wanting to boost the front end of their bullpen just a smidge, and the Royals will be able to offload his $3.715 million contract.

The Royals gave up David Sandlin for him; Sandlin was a low-level prospect with some projectability who looked awful last year, but saw the Red Sox add him to their 40-man roster to protect him from the Rule-5 draft all the same. The Royals could likely get a similar style of prospect in return for him now, though hopefully they’ll scout them a bit better.

Over on the Royals Rundown podcast, Jacob and I have been ranking the most interesting players in the Royals’ system at each position. One thing has become clear as we have ranked the entire infield and begun to prepare to do the outfield next: The Royals desperately lack upper-level talent of any kind. Trading Schreiber and Falter could help them fill in some of those gaps while also freeing up payroll to add another left-handed reliever or some other piece to help them find their way to their second-ever Central Division title.