{"id":2279963,"date":"2026-02-13T05:21:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T05:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2279963"},"modified":"2026-02-13T05:21:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T05:21:16","slug":"why-the-royals-swapped-one-pitcher-for-another-in-midweek-trade-with-athletics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/why-the-royals-swapped-one-pitcher-for-another-in-midweek-trade-with-athletics\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Royals swapped one pitcher for another in midweek trade with Athletics"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Kansas City Royals added a veteran pitcher<\/a> to their spring camp on Thursday, acquiring right-handed starter Mitch Spence from the Athletics in exchange for right-handed prospect A.J. Causey.<\/p>\n

Spence, 27, will report to Royals camp in Surprise, Arizona. In a corresponding move, the Royals shifted right-handed starter Alec Marsh \u2014 who is out due to shoulder surgery<\/a> \u2014 to the 60-day injured list.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou\u2019re always looking for starter depth,\u201d Royals general manager J.J. Picollo said. \u201cI think in a year where you\u2019ve got guys (participating) in the WBC (World Baseball Classic), you never have enough starting pitching anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cMitch was the first pitch of the Rule 5 Draft in 2023 going into the 2024 season. He\u2019s a strike-thrower with multiple pitches. He has starting experience and you want to have that depth in your organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spence had a 5.10 ERA in 32 games (eight starts) with the A\u2019s last season, striking out 66 in 84 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n

The Royals certainly found value in the trade. Spence has experience as both a starter and reliever and is also under team control for multiple years. He has minor-league options remaining as well, which gives him a chance to stick in the organization longer-term.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe main attraction is that he has been a major-league starter,\u201d Picollo said. \u201cHe has starts in the major leagues and sometimes you look at guys like that, you know, if they were free agents, how would you view them? And with somebody that has the amount of starts and the options, he would be valued pretty high.\u201d<\/p>\n

Picollo said KC\u2019s scouts liked Spence a lot. Earlier this week, when he was designated for assignment<\/a> by the Athletics, the Royals decided to pursue him.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to see why. Spence has five pitches in his repertoire. He offers a cutter, slider, curveball, sinker and changeup. Opponents registered a .189 batting average<\/a> against his curveball while posting a 35.2 whiff percentage.<\/p>\n

Spence faced the Royals<\/a> in September 2025. He allowed three earned runs and seven hits across three relief innings. Now he gets a chance to log innings for<\/i> the Royals, who will be without Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha due to their WBC responsibilities.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve had discussions about him before going back to the Rule 5,\u201d Picollo said. \u201cSo it\u2019s a name that I\u2019m personally very familiar with just from those discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sending Causey to Oakland in return for Spence wasn\u2019t easy. He was in his first big-league camp as a non-roster invitee this year after being selected in Round 5 of the 2024 MLB Draft out of Tennessee.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure he is trying to process it right now,\u201d Picollo said of Causey. \u201cHe\u2019s a young guy and he\u2019s got upside. He\u2019s got a bright future and he\u2019s gonna do good things. And I think the ultimate goal is you want to benefit, but also when you draft a guy \u2014 and he was a high pick for us \u2014 you want him to do well wherever he goes. That\u2019s what we shared with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible the Royals will continue to strengthen their roster this spring. Picollo noted that the addition of Spence wasn\u2019t owing to any particular injury, but rather to bolster an already-strong organizational tent pole.<\/p>\n

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The Royals could, for instance, turn their attention to adding a right-handed bat. This offseason, the club brought in two new outfielders, in Isaac Collins and Lane Thomas. But another hitter wouldn\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur own people have made the case that, you know, (we\u2019ve) probably got to keep our eyes out maybe on a right-handed hitter more so than left,\u201d Picollo said. \u201cDoesn\u2019t mean we eliminate every left-handed hitter, but I think it\u2019s how does that player fit on our current roster to make it make sense. Right-handed, it\u2019s a little bit easier to slide in a piece.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Royals haven\u2019t closed the door on acquiring a lefty bat, Picollo expressed confidence in KC\u2019s current roster. He said adding a left-handed hitter would entail a prominent move.<\/p>\n

For now, the Royals will continue to evaluate their big-league camp roster. Cactus League play begins next week, with newcomers like Spence poised to prove impactful during the regular season.<\/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 sports.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Kansas City Royals added a veteran pitcher to their spring camp on Thursday, acquiring right-handed starter Mitch Spence from the Athletics in exchange for right-handed prospect A.J. Causey. Spence, 27, will report to Royals camp in Surprise, Arizona. In a corresponding move, the Royals shifted right-handed starter Alec Marsh \u2014 who is out due […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2279964,"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":[311154,424369,384289,423377,311237,377404,423119,27155,244474,351123,402966,22091],"class_list":["post-2279963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-alec-marsh","tag-isaac-collins","tag-j-j-picollo","tag-lane-thomas","tag-michael-wacha","tag-mitch-spence","tag-picollo","tag-royals","tag-seth-lugo","tag-the-athletics","tag-the-kansas-city-royals","tag-the-royals"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Why-the-Royals-swapped-one-pitcher-for-another-in-midweek.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279963","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=2279963"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2279965,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2279963\/revisions\/2279965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2279964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2279963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2279963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2279963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}