<\/p>\n
Royals president of baseball operations J.J. Picollo is on record about the club\u2019s willingness<\/a> to trade from their rotation for outfield help. Most of the focus has been on left-hander Kris Bubic<\/a><\/strong>, who is down to his final season of arbitration. Even if Bubic remains the likeliest candidate, K.C. has predictably gotten hits on their controllable arms as well.<\/p>\n Anne Rogers of MLB.com<\/a> writes that the Royals have gotten calls on each of\u00a0Noah Cameron<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Ryan Bergert<\/a><\/strong> and\u00a0Stephen Kolek<\/a><\/strong>. (The Cardinals are among the teams known to like<\/a> Cameron, who is coming off a 2.99 ERA across 24 starts as a rookie.) Bergert and Kolek are less established but also have extended windows of club control. Bergert has yet to reach a full service year and is under control for six seasons; Kolek has a little over one year of service, so he\u2019s controllable for five years.<\/p>\n The two right-handers landed in Kansas City over the summer in the same deadline trade. The Royals picked up both arms in a trade sending backup catcher\u00a0Freddy Fermin<\/a><\/strong> to the Padres. It was a nice bit of business for Picollo and his staff. Bergert combined for a 3.66 earned run average with a solid 22.6% strikeout rate over his first 19 MLB appearances. He sits in the 93-94 MPH range and has an above-average slider. If he can develop a better changeup or add a cutter against left-handed hitters, he could be a mid-rotation arm.<\/p>\n Kolek is a former Rule 5 selection who moved back to the rotation after spending his rookie year working out of San Diego\u2019s bullpen. He\u2019s also in the 93-94 MPH range with his fastball and uses six pitches with regularity. Kolek\u2019s stuff has never played for many whiffs, but he got ground-balls at a strong 51.4% clip over 19 starts this year. He tallied 112 2\/3 innings of 3.51 ERA ball, and while that\u2019s better than his peripherals suggest, he looks like a fine fourth\/fifth starter.<\/p>\n As it stands, neither Bergert nor Kolek project as one of the top five starters on the depth chart.\u00a0Cole Ragans<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Michael Wacha<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Seth Lugo<\/a><\/strong>, Bubic and Cameron would be the front five if everyone\u2019s healthy. Bergert and Kolek have minor league options, so they could begin the season in Triple-A.\u00a0Bailey Falter<\/a><\/strong> is out of options and probably ticketed for long relief if he sticks on the roster all offseason.<\/p>\n The Royals are unlikely to trade Wacha or Lugo, each of whom recently signed significant extensions. They\u2019ll probably hear teams out on Cameron, but the asking price would be significant even if his middling 20.5% strikeout rate suggests he\u2019s unlikely to turn in another sub-3.00 season. The only pitcher whom the team is all but firmly taking off the table is Ragans.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in a really good spot, so if the right trade comes along, and it costs us a starting pitcher, we have to look at it. It\u2019s just not going to be Cole,\u201d Picollo told Rogers. He subsequently left the door ever so slightly open with the caveat that another team could offer \u201csomething crazy,\u201d but he pointed out that they\u2019d be selling low on an ace-caliber pitcher who missed a good chunk of the season with a rotator cuff strain.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to ask ourselves: Is this his max value right now? Probably not,\u201d Picollo said. \u201cIf Cole pitches like he did in \u201824, who knows what his value is going to be? We just think right now, three years of control on a really good starting pitcher, it would have to be something crazy, something that\u2019s like, \u2018How can we pass this up?’\u201d<\/p>\n The focus for Kansas City remains acquiring multiple outfielders, one apiece in trade and free agency. Rogers writes that they\u2019re specifically after a right-handed hitter who can play center field. Harrison Bader<\/a><\/strong> is the top free agent center fielder, while\u00a0Jake Meyers<\/a><\/strong> fits that bill on the trade front. The Royals have unsurprisingly been linked to both players this week. Speculatively speaking, Colorado\u2019s Brenton Doyle<\/a><\/strong> is another possibility \u2014 though he\u2019s coming off a terrible offensive season and might be too redundant to another glove-only player in Kyle Isbel<\/a><\/strong>. High-end talents Byron Buxton<\/a><\/strong> and\u00a0Luis Robert Jr.<\/a><\/strong> are unlikely to move at all this offseason, and that\u2019s before getting into the difficulty of lining up a trade within the division.<\/p>\n In free agency, Rogers lists\u00a0JJ Bleday<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Adolis Garc\u00eda<\/a><\/strong> and\u00a0Lane Thomas<\/a><\/strong> as players whom the front office has considered. All three are reclamation targets, and none should be an everyday option in center field. Garc\u00eda is a full-time corner outfielder. Bleday and Thomas have played up the middle but fit better in right field, especially in a spacious outfield. Garc\u00eda will be the most expensive of that trio but they\u2019re all likely to take one-year deals.<\/p>\n While the outfield is still the priority, Picollo called adding a reliever a \u201csecondary\u201d goal. Bringing in another lefty to join\u00a0Angel Zerpa<\/a><\/strong> and\u00a0Daniel Lynch IV<\/a><\/strong> would be preferable. It\u2019s a rough class for free agent lefty relievers, but the Royals are facing budgetary constrains and weren\u2019t likely to spend big on that either way.\u00a0Danny Coulombe<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Hoby Milner<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Caleb Ferguson<\/a><\/strong>, Caleb Thielbar<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and Drew Pomeranz<\/a><\/strong> are among the available free agents. The Cardinals\u2019\u00a0JoJo Romero<\/a><\/strong> is the most obvious bullpen trade candidate of the winter.\u00a0Tanner Banks<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0Keegan Akin<\/a><\/strong> and\u00a0Brandon Eisert<\/a><\/strong> are a few other players who could be available for a modest trade return.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.mlbtraderumors.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Royals president of baseball operations J.J. Picollo is on record about the club\u2019s willingness to trade from their rotation for outfield help. Most of the focus has been on left-hander Kris Bubic, who is down to his final season of arbitration. Even if Bubic remains the likeliest candidate, K.C. has predictably gotten hits on their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2193070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[423375,311239,423376,423377,314825,340897,347944],"class_list":["post-2193069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-adolis-garcia","tag-cole-ragans","tag-j-j-bleday","tag-lane-thomas","tag-noah-cameron","tag-ryan-bergert","tag-stephen-kolek"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Royals-Have-Received-Interest-In-Bergert-And-Kolek.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2193069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2193071,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193069\/revisions\/2193071"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2193070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2193069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2193069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2193069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}