The Kansas City Royals’ pitching staff has been in a state of turmoil all season. While some might point to the losses of Cole Ragans and Kris Bubic in the rotation weighing the heaviest, the bullpen has been just as battered. Carlos Estévez, Nick Mears and Connor Seabold are currently on the injured list and the Royals have relied upon fringier major league arms like Eli Morgan, Randy Dobnak and Beck Way in the interim.
On top of that, the Royals are two weeks away from a trade deadline where they appear to be setting themselves up as conservative sellers and the bullpen could be a prime spot for them to recoup some assets as they regroup for 2027 and beyond. That means that they’ll need to replenish their depth and they added yet another name to the their already long list of midseason pitching acquisitions by signing left-hander Aaron Bummer to a minor league contract, as per Jon Heyman of the celebrity.land.
Aaron Bummer agrees to minor league deal with Royals. Reported to Omaha today.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) July 20, 2026
Bummer’s bounced around a couple of teams this season. After being released from the Atlanta Braves on May 19 following 7.63 ERA in 19 appearances, he landed with the Chicago Cubs a couple weeks later on a minors deal. After just four innings in the Cubs’ Triple-A ranks, Bummer opted out of his deal last Thursday.
As bad as this season has gone, Bummer has been a fairly reliable relief option throughout his career. He held a pair of sub-4.00 ERA seasons with Atlanta in 2024 and 2025 and his parts of seven seasons with the Chicago White Sox from 2017 to 2023 were highlighted by a 2.13 ERA in 67.2 innings in 2019 and a 2.36 ERA in 26.2 innings in 2022.
Royals may need MLB-experienced arm like Aaron Bummer if they trade away relievers
Arms like Bummer along with fellow recent minor league signees like Scott Barlow, Easton McGee and Vince Velasquez among others could become so much more important for the Royals if they enter the selling period ahead of the Aug. 3 MLB trade deadline that many expect them to.
With reported reluctance to trade arms like Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo and the current injury to a prime rental candidate like Kris Bubic, Kansas City many have to get more creative in their selling efforts and the bullpen is an ideal place to look.
Names like Alex Lange, John Schreiber and potentially even the breakout sensation in Daniel Lynch IV are potential relief options that look like no-brainers to move off of at the trade deadline and cash in on their value while it’s high.
This means with holes to be filled, the Royals will have to lean on their organizational depth to cover innings and at this point, having names with prior experience doing so at the big league level seems like an ideal option to get through the season.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source kingsofkauffman.com ’
