Ya know, Luke Hochevar wasn’t the All-Star we may have hoped for after being the first overall selection in the 2006 draft, but he had his moments in his Royals career. We discussed his recent retirement and the up and down career Hoch experienced with the Royals.

We also discussed some of the recent moves, including the release of Blaine Boyer and trade of Terrance Gore, plus the pitching staff adjustments that corresponded with a Danny Duffy DL designation.

Finally, we took a glance at the standings and talked about the relative strength of each league as well as our current favorites from each side.

Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes and BlogTalkRadio. You can also download this episode here (mp3).

Follow the Vault at @KCBaseballVault. Follow host Jeff Herr at @TheJeffReport, co-host Michael Engel at @michaelengel. You can also email feedback to KansasCityBaseballVault@gmail.com.

• I wrote back in December that the Royals should use Jorge Soler as their leadoff hitter. It was an unorthodox thought and one that the Royals seem highly unlikely to employ, but after the signing of Brandon Moss, I think it actually makes even more sense. See, before they signed him, Soler looked like one of key power sources in the middle of the lineup. It would have been tough to move that from the middle of the order where he could have driven in some runs. Now, though, Moss is in Kansas City, and he can be a big power source for the Royals in the middle of that lineup. I wouldn’t complain about Alex Gordon at the top either, for what it’s worth, but with Yost loving the alternating construction of a lineup that could go R-L-R-L-R-L in the top six spots without having to think too hard, Soler makes some sense to me. That’s not to say I think this will actually happen. I’m fully prepared for Alcides Escobar or Whit Merrifield to be in the batter’s box when that season opens on April 3^rd, but a guy can dream.
• In the introductory press conference for Moss, Dayton Moore mentioned that he still planned to add another pitcher. He wasn’t sure if it was a starter or reliever or if that pitcher would be acquired via free agency or trade. As Craig Brown noted on Twitter after the comment was made, the 40-man roster is full, so a trade would make sense from that perspective. Of course, guys get shoved off there all the time and the Royals have some prime candidates. To me, the best option has been Jason Hammel all along. He’s not an ace, but he can slot in the middle to back of a rotation and provide some quality innings to help the Royals alleviate some of the stress the bullpen has had to deal with the last couple years. I mentioned in my write-up of the Moss deal that Cheslor Cuthbert could be trade bait for a starting pitcher. That was met with some skepticism, but I think what we have to keep in mind is that the likely fifth starter at this moment is Chris Young. I love what Young did for the Royals in 2015, but his 2016 was nothing short of a disaster and, at his age, it’s more likely 2015 was the last hurrah than 2016 was an aberration, so an improvement on him is certainly a possible return for a 24-year old third baseman with plenty of team control who has shown he can at least hold his own playing every day in the big leagues. But still, they should just get Hammel signed and call it a day.
• I found Moore’s wording interesting regarding this potential move as well. It definitely seemed like it was a starter or a reliever, rather than a starter and a reliever, but I really think they need both. I feel like we’ve gone over the list of available relievers about 30,000 times since the start of the off-season, but there are still options available. My guess is starter or not, Luke Hochevar finds his way back to the Royals. It just makes too much sense. But I still think they need one more. Joe Smith is hanging around out there after performing well for the Cubs down the stretch in 2016. He’d be an interesting pitcher to look at. Peter Moylan performed well for the Royals and he expressed some interest in a return. Joe Blanton, as I mentioned last week, probably commands a little too much, though I wonder if that remains as true every day he doesn’t sign somewhere with spring training fast approaching. Given the details of the contract the Rockies gave to Greg Holland, I completely get why the Royals didn’t end up with him. Still, they need some help back there. And if you were wondering, there are still guys out there who could start and relieve like Travis Wood and even Yusmeiro Petit, so that may be the direction the Royals end up going.
• One of the most common questions asked when I talk about the Royals on the radio is what is the biggest key to the season. Obviously that’s a difficult question to answer because you think that one thing needs to happen, but if it doesn’t, there are ways to compensate, so in a way, there is no one biggest key. But in another way, the biggest key is Jorge Soler needs to become the beast he was expected to be when the Cubs signed him. Let’s say he puts up his career average numbers over 150 games and he hits .260/.330/.435 with 19 homers. I mean, yeah, that’s decent enough, but it’s not enough. We need to see the guy who came up on fire in 2014 and hit .292/.330/.573 in 24 games. We need to see the guy who hit .258/.348/.515 in 36 games after the break in 2016. If he can be someone to pencil in the lineup (at the top or the middle) just about every day who can give consistently good at bats and hit for some real power, I think that will drive the Royals offense. You might remember that I wrote prior to the 2016 season that Kendrys Morales was the straw that stirred the Royals offensive drink (or you might not, that’s okay). I think Soler is that guy this year. If he can help to anchor this offense and be a big contributor, they’re going to score some runs. If not, they could be in trouble again.

Davis is credited with 39 “clean” outings in 45 appearances. The Handbook defines a “clean” appearance as one where the pitcher didn’t allow a run or an inherited run to score. Seems fair. As you probably know, I like to look at something like that as a percentage for a better perspective. So in other words, Davis had a “clean” outing 87 percent of the time.

For comparison sake, Joakim Soria had 46 “clean” appearances. Yay, that’s better than Davis! Except Soria pitched in 70 games. Oh. That’s not so good. That’s a “clean” rate of 66 percent. That’s actually kind of awful.

The Royals had 10 relievers make more than 20 appearances last year. Here they are ranked by percentage of “clean” outings.

There’s not much to really glean from the table. It’s just kind of a fun exercise. But the names do tend to fall in an order you would expect. Davis was amazing and Kelvin Herrera was awesome in his own right. Luke Hochevar and Matt Strahm ranking three and four, respectively, is impressive because of how Ned Yost used them as firemen. Hochevar inherited 30 runners and allowed only four to score. Strahm, who picked up the role after Hochevar hit the DL, inherited 18 and allowed only two to touch the plate.

The bottom five is about what you would expect. Chien-Ming Wang’s average Leverage Index was 0.5, so it’s not exactly a huge deal he made a mess of things when he was on the mound. The game was pretty much out of hand by the time he stood up in the bullpen to get warm. Wang appeared in three tie games – all were in extra innings – and pitched with a lead four times. In those seven outings, he never gave up the game. Hey! Think positive!

Meanwhile, the disturbing name is, indeed, Soria. Despite mounting evidence, Yost kept running him out in high leverage situations. His Leverage Index of 1.6 was second in the bullpen, behind only Davis at a 2.0 LI. A high Leverage Index plus a low rate of Clean outings…yeah. You get the picture.

Davis dominated in so many ways and absolutely deserves to be in the conversation with the top closers in the game. Sure, there may have been questions about his medicals and relief pitching is notoriously finicky business, but the Cubs got great value in this trade. This isn’t to say the Royals didn’t get value in return. It’s just the Royals built their championship teams on the back of an extraordinairly strong bullpen. Yeah, yeah…their relievers rolled off 41 consecutive scoreless innings at one point last year with Davis not in the bullpen, but if you think that’s reason not to be worried about the next edition of the Royals pen, I don’t know what to tell you. Davis will be missed.

The Royals were great when Davis and his relief cohorts were great. It wasn’t the only reason, but it was a large one. Now the task begins to rebuild the pen. Good luck finding another cyborg.

Disclaimer: We ended up talking a bit about the Election, so if you want to skip right to the baseball, jump to the 45 minute mark. We didn’t exactly hold back, so if you’re oversaturated with it, feel free to skip this week.

The Royals made some decisions on mutual options and other contract situations this week and we discussed who might return, and, in light of Greg Holland’s recent workout, we lumped him in with some of the newly-determined free agents.

We also talked about some of the players who’ll be free agents after 2017 who might get traded this offseason (but probably only one and probably not even that).

Follow the Vault at @KCBaseballVault. Follow host Jeff Herr at @TheJeffReport, co-host Michael Engel at @michaelengel. You can also email feedback to KansasCityBaseballVault@gmail.com. Email us a question and if we answer it on the air, we’ll send you a gift certificate to our friends at Kelly’s Westport Inn.

Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes and BlogTalkRadio. You can also download this episode here (mp3).

Instead, the Royals have spent the time since the close of 2016 to take care of some housekeeping. Let’s take a look at each move and see what it means in the frame of the larger picture.

First, they picked up their options on closer Wade Davis and shortstop Alcides Escobar. There was never any doubt. Escobar will make $6.5 million next year while Davis pockets $10 million.

I understand some of the angst surrounding the Escobar option. Really, I do. Escobar magic and #PeakEsky aside, he’s simply not a good shortstop. Defensively, he looks like he’s lost a step (or if you’re into accuracy, at least a step and a half) and really just didn’t impress with the glove. Offensively…woof. Add it all up and you have a player who was worth 0.7 BWARP which is our value for Wins Above Replacement. That ranks 20th out of 21 qualified shortstops. Wait. It gets worse. The shortstop in 21st place, Alexei Ramirez, finished with 506 plate appearances. In other words, had Ramirez not made a start at short for the Rays in game 162, Escobar gets the “crown” of worst everyday shortstop as ranked by BWARP.

However, a move like this doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The market surely would value Escobar at his $6.5 million, and probably more. And were he a free agent, I imagine he would field at least one offer for multiple years of service. While it may not feel like it, the $6.5 million due Escobar is a fair rate for the Royals. Of course, every year his contract has increased means it becomes less likely he provides the Royals with surplus value. Such are baseball economics.

Another factor to consider is the Royals do not have an in-house option to cover the position for an entire season. Raul Mondesi is still the heir apparent, but if you watched him hit last summer, he’s in worse shape at the plate than Escobar. What the Royals need to do now is limit Escobar’s exposure to the plate. That means they need to stop hitting him leadoff and buying into the canard that is Escobar Magic. Like billy goat curses, it doesn’t exist.

The next option that was exercised was for Davis. The only thing that would have prevented the Royals from doing this would have been a catastrophic arm injury. Now the Royals hold an exceptional reliever at a cost that is below market value for such a pitcher. And, as you saw in the postseason, the usage of such pitchers and therefore their value is on the uptick.

This is good news for the Royals. They have some leverage heading into the meeting season. It feels like the Royals have always valued their bullpen a little more that other teams, so it would be a bit of a surprise if they dealt away their closer. On the other hand, they shouldn’t discount their past success in finding quality bullpen arms. They could trade Davis, get a key part for the upcoming season and probably find a suitable replacement.

The next order of business was when Kendrys Morales and Edinson Volquez both declined their portion of a mutual option. Had both sides agreed to pick up the options, Morales would have made $11 million. He gets a $1.5 million buyout. Volquez was due $10 million, but gets $3 million to move on from the Royals.

Again, these are mutual options which is just a procedural way to divert some cash while adding it to the back end of a contract. The Royals in particular use it to their benefit.

Both players create a void. Morales has been a key switch-hitting bat in the middle of the order the last two summers. Volquez struggled in 2016, but you cannot discount the contributions he made in the run to the title the year before.

The next step in the process is the qualifying offer, which the Royals can hang on both players. Let’s just say it’s highly unlikely. There’s a real danger that either (or both) would accept. Volquez’s finish means there’s absolutely zero chance the Royals offer one to him. The local media seems to think there’s a possibility that Morales gets one.

The old saw is there’s no such thing as a bad one year contract. I’d have to think there’s an exception for a one year, $17.2 million contract in a small market to a designated hitter.

There’s nothing to say the Royals can’t bring Morales back on a different contract. Rewind yourself to when Billy Butler hit free agency and the Royals were talking about rotating the designated hitter position. While it’s been something of an American League luxury for the last several years for the Royals to have a permanent DH, the amount of money the position commands makes it prudent for the Royals to explore all alternatives. If that means finding a couple of platoon bats and rotating among the regulars getting a day off in the field, so be it.

Finally, the Royals declined their part of the mutual option on Luke Hochevar for $7 million. He will receive a $500k buyout instead. Hochevar had picked up his portion of the option, which means he doesn’t think he can earn more on the open market, and after his health issues of last summer, he’s probably right. He had surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome in August, and with an expected recovery time of six months, he will be ready for spring training.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see him sign another two year (with an option) contract like the one he signed coming off of Tommy John surgery. As mentioned before, the Royals crave bullpen stability. Hochevar can provide that.

• I still think Cheslor Cuthbert is on the trading block. Reports came out that he looked “solid” at second base during instructs, which is kind of a nice thing to see. And then you realize that it seems much of his work was done on the side so there isn’t much in the way of scouts getting to see him in action. I guess it could go both ways here, but I really think that’s posturing to make him appear more versatile in a deal. The reason it could go the other way is they could have put him out at second base in the eye of the public and put him through some drills that even a guy who likely can’t play second base couldn’t fail. But that’s kind of a longshot. With Cuthbert out of options and Moustakas coming back, I’m not saying they’re definitely going to trade the guy, but talking up his versatility that nobody can really verify seems like they’re at least putting him out there, and I think that’s smart. I’ve had in my head a deal with Cuthbert to the Giants for Eduardo Nunez and maybe another piece. I’m not sure if that’s light or heavy or where it is for Cuthbert, but for some reason, that’s been floating around since the end of the season. I know Nunez is a guy the Royals like, so maybe that’s where it came from.
• News came out on Wednesday that Kyle Zimmer had completed his four-week throwing session following thoracic outlet syndrome surgery and that he’d be ready to go for spring training. On one hand, I’m incredibly optimistic that the Royals finally found what it was that was ailing him and now he can finally harness his full potential and be a quality starter for the Royals as soon as 2017. On the other hand, Zimmer threw 5.2 innings in 2016. He threw 64 innings in 2015. You have to go back to 2013 when he threw 108.1 innings to find a respectable innings total for him since being drafted in 2012. He’s thrown 222.1 minor league innings since July 13, 2012. With the caveat that this could change after surgery, if Zimmer is healthy, I think he’s likely one of the four best starters for the big league club in 2017. But that’s just it. It’s always an “if” with him. This isn’t any new information, but the Royals just cannot count on him at any point moving forward. But what that does is it puts them and the fans in a pretty quality situation because the Royals know they can’t count on him so they’re going to proceed without him at the top of their plans. And, in turn, that means there’s no disappointment, only optimism. If Zimmer is healthy, I’m confident he will contribute. I can’t imagine many teams have a guy like that who is nearly a guarantee to be a positive if he’s on the field and if he’s not, there was nothing expected of him. So there’s the positive.
• This World Series, in the early going at least, is shaping up like the 2014 series. That one, you might recall, went seven games. Any series that goes seven games is likely going to be thought of as one of the better World Series to be played just by sheer volume. And yet, if you think back to that series, it wasn’t actually all that competitive game to game. In game one, the Royals lost by six. In game two, they won by five. Game three was a very good game that came down to the last pitch, but then the Royals lost by seven in game in four and by five in game five. And then the Royals won by 10 in game six! Of course, game seven being a classic battle helps to make the series great. Anyway, I think we’re kind of heading there with this series, and I’m not sure it’s going to change because I really hate the matchup for the Indians in game three with Josh Tomlin against Kyle Hendricks. Of course, it’s baseball, so you never know what’ll happen, but unless the wind is gusting in at Wrigley (and it could be), I just think the Cubs are going to tee off on Tomlin and Hendricks will be his usual self. I think there’s a pretty good chance we see this series go six or seven games, but I’m wondering if we’ll be lucky to see even the two competitive games we saw in 2014.
• It’s pretty bold to make a prediction about the 2017 team in October 28, but I’m going to do it anyway because that’s just how I roll. But I am going to put a caveat on this prediction because it is October 28. If the Royals can either re-sign Kendrys Morales or can pick up someone else with similar power, they will break their team single season home run record next year. That record was set in 1987 when they hit 168 homers. Yes, that’s the team record. No, that’s not surprising that it’s that low. But here’s why I think they will. Let’s assume Morales is on the team because it’s easier to use him than a hypothetical player we don’t know about yet. The Royals will have five players who I think will hit 20 or more home runs in 2017 and one more who I think could. Morales, Alex Gordon, Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer and Salvador Perez seem like the guys who will do it. Perez, Morales and Hosmer did in 2016 and Gordon and Moustakas almost definitely would have with a full season. I’m thinking something like 22 for Perez, 28 for Morales, 22 for Gordon, 30 for Moustakas and 25 for Hosmer. That alone is 127. I feel like if Lorenzo Cain is healthy, he’ll get 15-20. Let’s call it 15 to be safe. Now they need 27 homers from the rest of the rest of the roster. If Escobar can hit seven and Merrifield can hit five, they’ll basically have about 1,100 plate appearances to hit an additional 15. It’s a tall task, but I’m saying they’ll do it. And I apologize in advance for when they hit 103 as a team.
• We had a conversation in the BP Kansas City headquarters the other day that somehow led us to Jeff George. Yes, the quarterback. We talked about him as a bust, and while I agreed whole heartedly that he is and was a bust, I wondered if he was one of the best busts of all time. So that got me to thinking about who the best bust in Royals history was. You could argue Christian Colon despite getting the hit that ultimately won the World Series. You could argue Luke Hochevar despite his postseason heroics that included getting the win after two scoreless inning in game five of the World Series. I think you could argue Clint Hurdle, a career .276/.353/.432 hitter with the Royals. Who else? I’m curious what others think here. I wasn’t around for the early days of the Royals, so maybe I’m completely missing someone who is obvious.

Truthfully, pitcher win-loss records might not have ever been a very good measure, but with the evolution of the game over the last 30 years towards more and more bullpen usage, it certainly has become less and less important. That, obviously, applies on down to relievers as well as starters. You can all come up with scenarios where a reliever gets credit for a win for doing little or, as is very common, more harm than good only to be bailed out by an offensive rally. I will say, however, that a late inning reliever who gets a loss more often than not deserved it. Of course, we are talking about pitchers in the roles of Wade Davis, Kelvin Herrera and, no surprise where this was headed, Joakim Soria.

It may not be fair, given the high pressure situations the late inning guys are placed in, but that is the nature of the beast. Soria has eight losses in relief this year, second only to Erasmo Ramirez’s 11 for Tampa. Kelvin Herrera has five losses this year. Wade Davis has four…..in the last three seasons combined. Three of Soria’s losses have come when he has allowed just a single run. He went 11 straight appearances in August without allowing a run, but few of us remember that after a dismal three losses in eight-day span in early September. The bar is high for a late inning reliever. I mean, all we are asking for is perfection, right?

This season, Joakim Soria has appeared in 68 games and allowed runs in 18 of them. Sounds bad, seems bad, felt bad. How does that compare to the other ‘late inning types’ employed by the Royals in 2016?

I wrote an article not all that long ago about how the Royals were missing and would continue to miss Luke Hochevar. I still think that is true, but Luke was far from perfect.  Let’s give Peter Moylan a bit of a break as two of his ‘runs allowed’ outings were multiple inning affairs and let’s also be fair to note that Matt Strahm has a slew of one or two hitter outings on his very brief (but promising) major league resume.

Let’s compare the above to the World Championship late inning roster of 2015:

Hmmm…expecting better weren’t you?  Miss Ryan Madson?  He has seven relief losses this year as the A’s closer. Flawed stat and all, seven losses in that role is not a good number.

More than anything, the above two tables probably point to the fact that the percentage of appearances in which relievers allow a run tells us, like pitcher wins and losses, more about perception than reality. Yet, is there something telling in the fact that the pitchers listed for 2015 combined for 11 total losses, while the 2016 group has been tagged for 18 losses? Quite honestly, if there is something to be learned from an antiquated stat combined with a very basic one, is it teaching us more about the bullpen or a Royals offense that would have to average almost 12 runs per game this final week just to equal the output of the 2015 squad?

There has been plenty of Soria bashing and Soria defending here, there, Twitter, wherever. I have to admit one of my favorite Soria usage defense was ‘don’t you think there are reasons Yost made this decision?’ without ever stating a single reason. Oh to be young and smart again! There has been logic on both sides and in the middle of the argument and there has been just random non-sense and, gasp, raw emotion. In the end, we are all just fans searching for answers and searching for reasons why this season simply got away from the Kansas City Royals.

Does Joakim Soria and the bullpen in general share in the blame? Sure they do, but do they deserve all of it? Certainly not, and frankly, after I emerged from my cave and beat about the very basic numbers with my wooden club, I don’t think the bullpen probably deserves as much of the blame as we might be giving it.

This thought crossed my mind Sunday afternoon as Edinson Volquez – struggling Edinson Volquez, mind you – was pitching into the seventh inning against the Detroit Tigers in what certainly felt like the most important game of the year. For the first time in a painfully long time, Volquez was pitching well. He had navigated the first six innings using 92 pitches and had retired 10 of the last 12 batters since giving up a home run to J.D. Martinez in the fourth. The bottom portion of the Tigers’ order was coming up, and, thanks to Brooks Pounders’ inability to lock down the ninth with a four run lead the night before, Wade Davis (and Matt Strahm) were unavailable. Sure, why not send Volquez out to start the seventh?

Edinson struck out Justin Upton to start the inning, but then gave up a loud double to Tyler Collins. That was followed by James McCann missing a home run to left by a foot, maybe not even that. I was sitting down the third base line and was pretty sure that ball was leaving the park, and I’m not so sure Whit Merrifield, who ended up catching it, didn’t think the same thing. I looked in the dugout, no movement. I said to my wife, “get him out of there.” I told my eight-year old son this was a bad situation. He agreed, but then he was wearing a blue wig, so take that for what it’s worth.

Andrew Romine doubled and the Royals were down two instead of just one.

Of course, we all know the rest of the story. Peter Moylan came on to allow a fourth run, the Royals rallied to take the lead, only to see Joakim Soria give it back. I mean, a LOT went on after Edinson Volquez was left in for at least one, if not two batters too long.

Yet, what if Luke Hochevar had not been lost for the season in late July?

Prior to injury, Ned Yost had turned to Hochevar twenty-one times in the middle of an inning, with Luke inherited runners on base in 18 of those appearances. While Hochevar had a handful of ugly outings in 2016, he allowed an inherited runner to score in only two of those eighteen situations. It is a rather tangled mess of ‘what-ifs,’ but what if Luke had been called on, as he had rather regularly throughout the season, after the Collins double and shut the door? What-if the Royals’ four run rally in the bottom of the 7th had given them a 5-2 lead instead of 5-4? What if?

To take it a step further, what if Yost had Luke Hochevar at his disposal for a critical homestand that saw the Royals lose four one-run games to other wild card contenders?

Now, let me step back a moment and fully acknowledge that the Kansas City Royals’ bullpen managed an impressive scoreless streak without Hochevar AND Davis. This is a team that was simply awful in July…and that was with Hochevar most of the month, during which time he gave up six runs in seven innings and allowed three inherited runners to score as well. Matt Strahm has, to some extent, taken on the role of fireman and been excellent. You could make the case that Strahm does not even see the majors if Hochevar is not hurt. Given those facts, can you really point to Hochevar as a critical loss?

As a strong proponent of the concept that a game in April counts as much as one in August and September, focusing on the impact of only the past few weeks runs counter to my general thoughts on the baseball season as a whole. After all, Hochevar himself was responsible for a five-run seventh on July 4th against Toronto, turning a tie game into a loss. We can also pin a 4-2 loss to Detroit on the 15th of July squarely on him as well. How much would you like those two losses to be two wins right now? All that said, let’s go down that road anyway.

Does Hochevar make an appearance in the 10th inning instead of Soria against the Yankees on August 30th? It would have been the first time Yost had used him in extra frames in 2016. The next night, however, it would seem to have been a classic Hochevar situation.

After Ian Kennedy allowed a one out walk in the seventh, he was replaced by Scott Alexander, who was tagged with a single and a sacrifice fly that tied the game.  The Royals eventually ended up emptying the bullpen and losing in 13 innings. If, as he had done in 16 of 18 previous situations, Hochevar does not allow the inherited runner to score, what would that have meant not only to that game’s outcome, but to the general state of the bullpen for days afterwards? Would it have changed the dynamics in game one versus Detroit when Peter Moylan masterfully stranded three runners in the relief of Danny Duffy, but surrendered a Miguel Cabrera home run when he came back out for the seventh?

I believe a healthy Luke Hochevar makes an appearance in at least one of those two games described about and also in the game this past Sunday. Would two Luke Hochevar appearances in the past week equal two more Royal wins?  Two games back of the second wild card with a 74-64 record versus four games back at 72-66?  Yeah, I think Royals’ fans would take that.  Heck, I would take just one more win.

All of the above is so much the theoretical and implies that the rest of the Royals’ bullpen, which was so good for so much of August, does all of what it did even with Hochevar taking up one of the spots. It’s an exercise to nowhere that proves nothing. I know, however, that on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Detroit that it would have be nice to have Luke Hochevar available when trouble began in the seventh inning.

Two weeks ago, we talked about who the Royals might acquire at the trade deadline. Last week, we talked about who they might sell at the deadline.

Turns out, after injuries to Luke Hochevar and Wade Davis, the Royals ended up with a pretty quiet deadline. We talked about the factors that lead to the lack of activity and what might happen next.

After the break, we talked about Danny Duffy’s incredible start against Tampa and what it may mean for him going forward. He’s had a rocky road, but his work in the rotation this season could signal an emergence as a force.

Follow the Vault at @KCBaseballVault. Follow host Jeff Herr at @TheJeffReport, co-host Michael Engel at @michaelengel. You can also email feedback to KansasCityBaseballVault@gmail.com. Email us a question and if we answer it on the air, we’ll send you a gift certificate to our friends at Kelly’s Westport Inn.

Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes and BlogTalkRadio. You can also download this episode here (mp3).

The Royals have not started the second half well. While the 2014 season saw them make a comeback with a similar record, the odds are against another trip to the playoffs.

The sensible thing is to explore some trades and try to bolster the farm system. But we aren’t talking about trading anyone just to dump them off. We go over the most likely trade candidates and why 2017 can still be another successful year if they play the market right.

Follow the Vault at @KCBaseballVault. Follow host Jeff Herr at @TheJeffReport, co-host Michael Engel at @michaelengel. You can also email feedback to KansasCityBaseballVault@gmail.com. Email us a question and if we answer it on the air, we’ll send you a gift certificate to our friends at Kelly’s Westport Inn.

Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes and BlogTalkRadio. You can also download this episode here (mp3).