{"id":2200342,"date":"2025-12-15T20:46:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T20:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2200342"},"modified":"2025-12-15T20:46:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T20:46:14","slug":"royals-j-j-picollo-sounds-triumphant-after-unexpected-brewers-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/royals-j-j-picollo-sounds-triumphant-after-unexpected-brewers-trade\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals’ J.J. Picollo Sounds Triumphant After Unexpected Brewers Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"

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J.J. Picollo was in the right place at the right time.<\/p>\n

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On Saturday, Picollo and the Kansas City Royals acquired<\/a> outfielder Isaac Collins and right-handed pitcher Nick Mears from the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for left-handed pitcher Angel Zerpa. All offseason, the Royals had been looking for impact outfielders, and suddenly, they had one for the price of a middle reliever, while getting back a potential replacement for that reliever in the same go.<\/p>\n

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Trading with the Brewers is often terrifying, as Milwaukee is universally regarded for having one of the sport’s shrewdest front offices. But Picollo understandably felt as if he was getting a bit of a steal in this trade. <\/p>\n

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If you like our content,\u00a0<\/em>choose Sports Illustrated as a preferred source on Google<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

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Why Picollo felt Collins trade was no-brainer<\/h2>\n

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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\n

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Nov 7, 2023; Scottsdale, AZ, USA; Kansas City Royals general manager J.J. Picollo speaks to the media during the MLB General Manager’s Meetings at Omni Scottsdale Resort & Spa. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

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On Sunday, Picollo sounded off on why he made the deal after it was made official. Collins, who finished fourth in National League Rookie of the Year voting, was simply too good a fit for this Kansas City team.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAt this point, we felt like this was a very good move for us considering our needs,” Picollo said, per Anne Rogers<\/a> of MLB.com. \u201cThe need for on-base, the need for an outfielder. Adding a switch-hitter to our roster, and then Isaac\u2019s positional versatility is very attractive when you combine that with the number of years of control.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe know right now that the outfield is the primary spot he\u2019s going to play, but it never hurts to have a player that has been in other positions and done well in other positions. We feel like there\u2019s a lot of upside to this and some safety at the same time. It helps you manage your roster well.\u201d <\/p>\n

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Picollo also paid compliments to Mears, who the Royals will likely count on for some critical innings this season even after he was left off the Brewers’ playoff roster.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s an intensity about him,\u201d Picollo said, per Rogers. \u201cHe\u2019s got an above-average fastball. A breaking ball that looks like it fluctuates between a slider and curveball, but both were above average. \u2026 It\u2019s someone else you can go to in leverage situations.\u201d <\/p>\n

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The Royals still could be active in pursuing other outfield solutions even after the acquisitions of Collins and Lane Thomas. But they’ve taken strides in the past week to put them in the hunt for a playoff spot in the year to come.<\/p>\n

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More MLB: <\/strong><\/em>Royals’ Maikel Garcia Extension Comes With Virtually No Downside<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

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\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.si.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

J.J. Picollo was in the right place at the right time. On Saturday, Picollo and the Kansas City Royals acquired outfielder Isaac Collins and right-handed pitcher Nick Mears from the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for left-handed pitcher Angel Zerpa. All offseason, the Royals had been looking for impact outfielders, and suddenly, they had one for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2200343,"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":[],"class_list":["post-2200342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Royals-JJ-Picollo-Sounds-Triumphant-After-Unexpected-Brewers-Trade.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200342","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=2200342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2200344,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2200342\/revisions\/2200344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2200343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2200342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2200342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2200342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}