This week’s mailbag attempts to find a blueprint for the Royals, considers the Cubs’ needs, ponders a Jordan Walker<\/a><\/strong> extension, examines Braves trade targets, explains how minor league options work, and much more!<\/p>\n D.T. asks:<\/strong><\/p>\n Another season lost for the Royals. Other than BWJ and possibly Caglianone, their draft picks, which have all been very high, have traditionally been complete busts. What will it take to turn this organization around?<\/strong><\/p>\n To answer this question, I’ll start by taking roughly an eight-hour drive from Kansas City to Milwaukee.\u00a0 The Brewers seem to be the model for small market contention.\u00a0 How are they pulling it off?<\/p>\n Let’s look at 2023 to present for the Brewers.\u00a0 Their position players have totaled 83.7 WAR since 2023, excluding those who were negative in that metric.\u00a0 Almost three-quarters of that WAR is concentrated in seven players.\u00a0 Here’s how they were acquired:<\/p>\n William Contreras<\/a><\/strong>: 19.6% of total WAR.\u00a0 The Brewers picked up outfielder Esteury Ruiz<\/a><\/strong> as part of the Josh Hader<\/a><\/strong> trade at the 2022 deadline.\u00a0 Ruiz was a 45-grade prospect lacking in power who didn’t profile as a likely regular.\u00a0 The Brewers then inserted themselves into the Braves-A’s Sean Murphy trade a few months later, prying a controllable Contreras loose from Atlanta after a breakout 2022 season.\u00a0 But the Brewers had Ruiz because they first had Hader, an All-Star dominant reliever with a year and a couple months of control left.\u00a0 They had Hader because former GM Doug Melvin snagged him in a deal that sent Carlos Gomez<\/a><\/strong> and Mike Fiers<\/a><\/strong> to the Astros in 2015.<\/p>\n Putting aside the significant work the David Stearns regime did to develop Hader into a star, Stearns was also willing to trade Hader while the Brewers sat in first place with a 90% chance at the playoffs.\u00a0 Aside from the need for bold trades and strong player development, the Brewers willingly put their 2022 playoff chances at risk (and they did miss the playoffs that year) to set in motion of sequence of trades that netted them Contreras, who became crucial in their 2023-26 run.<\/p>\n The Royals had zero playoff shot at the time, but J.J. Picollo did pull off his own masterstroke trade by shipping Aroldis Chapman<\/a><\/strong> to Texas for Cole Ragans<\/a><\/strong> in 2023 before the calendar turned to July.\u00a0 But assuming Ragans bounces back health and production-wise, he’s the type of player the Brewers would be looking at trading this winter or at next year’s trade deadline.\u00a0 So my point is that selling high on Ragans, if possible, could help set the Royals up for more sustained success.<\/p>\n Christian Yelich<\/a><\/strong>: 11.5% of WAR.\u00a0 Stearns made a “go for it” trade to acquire Yelich in January 2018 with five years left on his contract, extending him a couple years later.\u00a0 To do so they gave up a 60-grade medium risk prospect in Lewis Brinson<\/a><\/strong>, a 50-grade high risk in Isan Diaz<\/a><\/strong>, and a 60 grade high risk in Monte Harrison<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 So the Brewers gave up their first, fifth, and ninth-ranked prospects, presumably well-regarded around the game, yet none of them panned out.\u00a0 Would the Royals put Blake Mitchell<\/a><\/strong>, Kendry Chourio<\/a><\/strong>, and another good prospect in a deal for a controllable 4-5 WAR Major Leaguer?\u00a0 They probably haven’t drafted well enough to feel they could sacrifice those players.<\/p>\n
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