Don't Be Surprised if the Royals and A's Strike a Deal This Winter
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The A's and Kansas City Royals finished in comparable positions last season, with the A's holding a 76-86 record and Kansas City finishing at 82-80. Both teams missed the postseason, and both have pretty clear areas to address.
For the A's, it's their pitching staff. The club finished out the 2025 campaign with a 4.71 ERA as a staff, ranking 27th in baseball. Their starters ended up with a 4.85 ERA, which is their biggest area of need, despite having some talented young arms that will be worth a long look this spring. If the A's can make an upgrade, they likely will.
The Royals starters finished with a 3.80 ERA, 7th in baseball. It was their bats overall that were lackluster, finishing with a 93 wRC+ (100 is league average). One spot that was a really hole in the lineup was left field, as the club finished with a 65 wRC+, which is 35% below league average.
Let's see if we can come up with a mutually beneficial trade that could help out both clubs.
Putting Together a Trade for the Royals and A's
Right off the bat, let's be clear about which pitcher the A's would be targeting. It's left-hander Kris Bubic, who broke out in a big way in 2025, posting a 2.55 ERA (2.89 FIP) with a solid 24.4% strikeout rate, an 8.2% walk rate, and even kept the ball on the ground at a 47.2% clip. All of those would be a boon to the A's rotation.
Bubic is also a free agent following the 2026 campaign, and is projected to make $6 million in his final year of arbitration. A rotation of Bubic, Luis Severino, Jeffrey Springs, Jacob Lopez and Luis Morales could be pretty competitive, giving the A's a nice mix of experience and youth. That extra veteran arm should also help the A's avoid a 1-20 stretch that tanks their season.
One option for the Royals to consider would be outfielder JJ Bleday, who has manned all three positions in the grass, though his defense hasn't rated particularly well. The 27-year-old is a lefty bat and a former fourth overall pick, set to enter his first year of arbitration this winter. He has three years of team control remaining.
As for his bat, he broke out in 2024 and posted a 120 wRC+, batting .243 with a .324 OBP and 20 home runs. This past season his power was still working, launching 14 dingers in limited action, but he batted just .212 with a .294 OBP. Bleday can draw walks at a high clip, sitting at 11.5% for his career, but the hits have been infrequent to date.
He seems like a great change-of-scenery candidate for a willing club.
It also wouldn't be fair to have a project piece as the only part of the trade headed back to Kansas City, so the A's would have to sweeten the pot a bit with another player. Right-hander Luis Medina could fit here. He spent the 2025 campaign recovering from Tommy John, but he is still just 26 and has a lot of talent, though he's looking to put it all together.
The two hangups for including Medina from the Royals' perspective would be that he's arbitration eligible for the first time this winter, and that he has four years of arbitration to go through, meaning more money down the line. The bright side there is that he has four years of team control.
The other hangup here is that he's out of options, so he'd have to stick on the Royals 26-man roster. While this hasn't been decided just yet, the assumption is that he'll be serving in the A's bullpen in 2026 to build him back up to a starter's workload.
Another Option for Kansas City
The trade above could be fair in terms of value for a player in his final year of team control, but Bubic was also an All-Star in 2025, and would have likely received Cy Young votes if he'd stayed healthy. His rotator cuff injury that ended his season is also worth considering in putting together a deal.
If the Royals are looking for a bat that has some potential, then perhaps the A's could be willing to move someone like Colby Thomas, who made his big-league debut in 2025, batting .225 with a .267 on-base and six home runs. His calling card is his power, and he smacked 31 homers in the minors in 2024.
He may not be an immediate piece to plug into the lineup every day, but he certainly has potential. He also turned in a bat speed of 74.8 miles per hour, which ranked 56th among all batters with at least 25 swings this past season. Only rookie Jac Caglianone had a faster bat speed for the Royals this past season.
With the injury to Lawrence Butler, the A's may be less inclined to move Thomas this winter, but if the trade were to grow to include a couple of extra players on the edges, perhaps a deal could be struck with Thomas and Bubic at the center.
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Jason has been covering the A’s at various sites for over a decade, and was the original host of the Locked on A’s podcast. He also covers the Stanford Cardinal as they attempt to rebuild numerous programs to prominence.
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