One of the plights of being a smaller market team is that it’s always seems harder to pull off impactful free agent signings. When push comes to shove and players have their own choice of where to sign, money talks more often than not, meaning a team like the Kansas City Royals often can’t keep up with the big boys of MLB.
This usually means that for teams like the Royals, there’s a reliance on the trade market to snatch up talent before they get that free-will of unrestricted free agency and the big-time finances that can come with it.
That’s been the story for them this offseason with three of their more impactful additions for 2026 coming via trade with Isaac Collins and Nick Mears joining in a deal with the Brewers and Matt Strahm arriving back in Kansas City after a pre-holiday deal with the Phillies.
That being said, there’s a growing feeling that more needs to be done by J.J. Picollo and the front office before the offseason comes to a close and the trade market seemed to be the best place to do it.
However, it seems of late that the Royals are losing potential trade partners at a rapid rate. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported last week that the chances the Royals swing a deal with the Cardinals or the Red Sox, for Brendan Donovan and Jarren Duran respectively, seems unlikely.
And now, it seems that the New York Mets may’ve just taken themselves out of the running for a trade with Kansas City after addressing their starting rotation needs by trading with Milwaukee for both Freddy Peralta and Tobias Myers.
The Royals are still left with a starting pitching surplus they probably wouldn’t mind capitalizing on and a dwindling amount of prospective suitors left at table for them trade with.
Freddy Peralta trade may’ve eliminated Mets from Royals list of potential trade suitors
As much as the Royals offensive needs have been talked about this winter, so to has their starting surplus and how they could stand to utilize it and part ways with some pieces in order to bolster their offensive holes.
And before the Mets brought in Peralta, despite a pretty full rotation, there were enough question marks with some of the names occupying spots to warrant possibly adding new names.
This is where an All-Star name entering his final year of team control like Kris Bubic could’ve been a decent fit. Or, if the Mets valued control, perhaps Kansas City could be persuaded out of a name with an abundance of control like Noah Cameron.
On the other side, the fit made increasing sense recently with the amount of solid bats the Mets had they may be hard pressed to find regular at-bats in 2026, most prominently infielder Brett Baty.
Now though, with the Peralta inserting himself as New York’s presumptive ace next season and Myers representing solid rotation depth, the Mets fall in the same boat as the Royals, as they now have potentially too many major league ready rotation options.
Along with Peralta and Myers, the Mets’ starting pitching depth chart includes veterans Kodai Senga, Sean Manaea, David Peterson ans Clay Holmes, along with blue-chip prospect Nolan McLean fresh off an impressive low-2.00s ERA eight start cameo last season.
So for, now it’s not egregious whatsoever to say that perhaps J.J. Picollo and Co. suddenly need to explore other options if they want to narrow out their rotation and capitalize on their surplus, because the staff in Queens looks plenty full.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source kingsofkauffman.com ’
