Report: Royals Trade Adalberto Mondesi to Red Sox
Less than 24 hours after they traded center fielder Michael A. Taylor to the Minnesota Twins in exchange for a pair of pitching prospects, the Kansas City Royals are making yet another move on the market. Per Mark Feinsand of MLB.com and MLB Network, the club is sending infielder Adalberto Mondesi and a player to be named later to the Boston Red Sox and will get pitcher Josh Taylor in return.
Mondesi, who came to terms with Kansas City on a one-year, $3.045 million contract back in December to avoid arbitration for 2023, is coming off an ACL tear that he suffered very early in the 2022 campaign. In just 15 games on the year, he slashed .140/.204/.140 with a -3 wRC+ and never truly got his season off the ground before it was cut short.
The 27-year-old was likely entering his final year in Kansas City anyway — the trade notwithstanding — after being banged up and never quite living up to the level of expectation the club had for him. In his career that dates back to his regular-season debut in 2016, Mondesi owns a .244/.280/.408 slash with a 79 wRC+ spanning across 1,366 plate appearances and 358 games.
Taylor, a lefty reliever who will turn 30 in March, didn't pitch at the big-league level for Boston last year due to being injured. He avoided arbitration with the team by coming to terms on a one-year, $1.025M deal earlier in January. In 2021, he posted a 3.40 ERA with a 2.83 FIP and an 11.33 K/9 across 47.2 innings and was worth 1.0 fWAR. He's appeared in 121 MLB games for Boston and will now be looking to get his career back on track in Kansas City. Steamer projects him to pitch 42 frames in 2023 and put up a 3.74 ERA while striking out 9.61 batters per nine innings and walking 3.46 under the same parameters.
