The Royals made smart, aggressive moves that may not be enough but didn’t do any harm.

Two weeks ago, I came to you and insisted the Royals should be buyers at the trade deadline despite their abysmal record. The biggest reason I made that argument was because, despite the general assertion that baseball has operated as a “seller’s market” since it modified the playoff schedule to send 12 of its 30 teams to the postseason every year, buyers simply didn’t exist in the numbers people assumed they would.

That’s exactly how it played out. In the American League, there were 11 teams within five games of a playoff spot come deadline day. Only seven bought. In the National League, there were nine teams within six games of a playoff spot. Only four bought. That means A total of 11 of the 30 teams in MLB attempted to make their teams better at the deadline, despite the fact that 12 of them will be reaching the postseason.

And, in the end, even the biggest deals seem unlikely to be of much impact to the sellers. Eugenio Suárez was probably the most valuable bat available at the deadline. He returned a 40+ FV first baseman and a pair of 40 FV pitching prospects, per FanGraphs. FanGraphs’ outcome probability calculator doesn’t bother to go as low as those values. That said, a 45 FV position player carries only a 24% chance of becoming a big league regular. Two 45 FV pitchers would have a 29.4% chance of yielding one regular starter. Since none of these players are rated that highly, estimate down from there.

Or, to put it another way, the Seattle Mariners traded roughly the equivalent of Gavin Cross, Chandler Champlain, and Andrew Hoffmann to get the most coveted bat on the market.

Prospects will break your heart

Much was made during the deadline flurry that happened from July 30-July 31st of how pitchers were bringing back pretty good hauls. Some wondered if the Royals should have dealt Seth Lugo and Carlos Estévez in order to take advantage of it. However, to drive home the point that it was actually a buyer’s market the whole time, let’s look at a couple of those deals.

Mets acquire Ryan Helsley for SS prospect Jesus Baez, SP prospect Nate Dohm and RP prospect Frank Elissalt

This is probably the best comp for Estévez that was available. Helsley brought back a 40+ FV infielder and a pair of 35+ FV pitchers. The odds are very high that the Cardinals don’t get a single useful player out of the bunch. Something is better than nothing when you’re going nowhere, but the Royals aren’t necessarily going nowhere. We’ll talk more about that in a bit. Considering that the options for KC weren’t “this” or “nothing” in the same way they were for the Cardinals, it simply wouldn’t have made sense for the Royals to weaken their MLB team for a return like this.

And, of course, Estévez probably wouldn’t have even brought back this much. Helsley is a rental while Carlos has an extra year of control, but Helsley has a stronger history and comes with less risk.

Rangers acquire SP Merrill Kelly for SP prospect Mitch Bratt, SP prospect Kohl Drake and SP prospect David Hagaman

This was similarly the most comparable deal to what the Royals might have expected for Seth Lugo. A trio at 45+, 45, and 40+ FV. There’s something less than even odds that even one of these pitchers becomes a regular starter. Is it any wonder the Royals looked at trade offers like this one and decided to give Lugo a pay bump and tack on one more guaranteed year while setting themselves up to take advantage of his future success rather than give him up for a 40% chance they can get someone who isn’t quite as good as he is?

The big shocker, of course, was the Mason Miller-Leo De Vries deal the Padres and Athletics managed to swing. The Padres gave up the MLB Pipeline number three prospect, along with some others, for Mason Miller and JP Sears. Remembering that Miller is MILES ahead of Estévez in value, what if I told you that the 19-year-old De Vries is only a 50 FV currently in FanGraphs’ system? They have him ranked as the 21st-best prospect in baseball. Sure, those are better than even odds he becomes at least a regular, but that was the apple of the deadline, something the Royals were never close to getting. He looks very, very good for sure, but he’s also miles away from the big leagues and all kinds of things can happen between now and then.

Meanwhile, the Royals probably got one of the best steals of the deadline in a move that might be classified as a “buy” deal for both teams when they sent fan favorite Freddy Fermin to a desperate San Diego for Ryan Bergert and Stephen Kolek. Bergert is a rookie, but had a 45 FV before he graduated. Kolek is a sophomore who carried a 40 FV when he graduated last year. Neither are true prospects anymore, but both still have tons of cheap team control left. JJ Picollo managed to flip his soon-to-be-extraneous backup catcher for something approaching two-thirds the value the Diamondbacks got for the best starting pitcher traded at the deadline.

Supply and demand is still king

At the MLB trade deadline every year, there are three kinds of teams. There are teams that are losing and would like to spend less on losing, so they’re somewhat desperate to give up their veterans who are costing a pretty chunk of change, on expiring deals, or both. Then there are teams that are winning and who are happy about that, but also see little reason to take on salary or give up prospects they think might actually be good someday for that privilege. And then there are teams that are willing to do whatever it takes to make their team win because they think this year is the year for whatever reason.

That means there’s a reasonable supply of available players – this year there were seven true sellers plus the bargain teams willing to sell at least some pieces – but almost no demand – only three teams stood out as true buyers who were willing to pay a premium to make sure they get their guy.

As long as teams are not financially penalized for losing – they still get their TV deal and revenue sharing money no matter their record, both making up much more than gate and merchandise revenue – this is how things will be. It’s not about salary caps or teams spending ungodly amounts of money; it’s about there being too little incentive to win and teams becoming comfortable in that paradigm.

The Royals don’t care about that

In the meantime, the Royals have established themselves as a team that was willing to buck the trend. As I argued a few weeks ago, and as Matthew LaMar praised the team on Friday, the Royals have recognized that there is simply no demand for small upgrades. They took advantage of the market by brilliantly selling from a position of depth to one of the buyers and then bought on the margins from other teams who wished to dump some excess salary. It was, as Matthew and I have both described it, very Moneyball of them.

I’m still absolutely giddy over how well the Royals recognized the things I have been trying to point out for weeks and took advantage of a market that wouldn’t have benefited them if they had followed the common-sense path and sold. They’re a better team in 2025 but even if they’re not better enough, they also made themselves a better team in 2026 and beyond, too, with opportunities to improve even more during the offseason.

I’ve had a lot of issues with John Sherman as an owner, particularly in the way he’s dealt with labor, local government, and the community. But there can be no argument at this point. Unlike so many other owners in baseball, he has hired terrific talent to run his team and empowered them to do their jobs effectively. The Royals couldn’t have had a third excellent deadline in a row without an owner and general manager who are on the same page about what the team is and where it should be going.

Things may never be perfect, but it’s a great time to be a Royals fan.

Some addendums

Originally, I was going to try to go through every single trade and evaluate them through the lens of BaseballTradeValues.com because it has a reputation of being an awful way to try to invent trades, but it’s a tool I’ve really grown to love. Then I discovered they’d already done the work for me.

Starting with the Josh Naylor trade, here’s the scorecard:

Number of trades: 64

Number accepted by the model: 57

Acceptance rate: 88%

Average value variance per deal: 3.5

We’re pretty happy with that. The trade market is inherently inefficient, and there are multiple variables involved, so to go 57-7 feels good.

And yeah, that’s pretty good. And they make a good point about how the trade market is inherently inefficient. Especially at the trade deadline. Because “buyers” aren’t trying to get equal value, they’re trying to improve their immediate team. Just like in real life, you pay for convenience and timeliness. If you want two wins now, you’re probably going to have to give up more than two future wins. One great example of this was the Shane Bieber trade. The Blue Jays wanted what they hope is a front-line starter to help them to first reach and then advance in the postseason. They got -2.1 estimated median surplus value and gave up Khal Stephen with an estimated median surplus value of 9.8. That’s wildly imbalanced. However, Bieber is projected to be worth $5.1 million in value this year – a bit more than half a win above replacement on FanGraphs – but Stephen wasn’t going to provide any value for this season.

Notably, for me anyway, the Grichuk and Yastrzemski trades were considered fair deals, and they were remarkably similar to the ones I proposed a couple of weeks ago in the piece linked at the top.

BTV isn’t perfect, and it can absolutely be misused if you try to just group together a bunch of bad players to get one good one, because whatever the values are, trades don’t work like that. It’s still a perfectly valid tool to use for dreaming up trades if you keep in mind to restrictions.

Finally, it’s worth noting that, as positive as most of the reviews of the Royals’ deadline have been, ZiPS still thinks their playoff odds went down because some of the teams ahead of them got betterer than they did. The Royals did great work to better the team without giving up much, but they’re still going to need some improvement from players already on the roster to finish this thing off.