MLB Insider Reveals Royals' Primary Target At 2025 Trade Deadline
A .500 record in mid-June certainly wasn't what the Kansas City Royals had in mind for 2025.
This was a team with big goals coming off a 30-win improvement in 2024. They'd just made their first playoff berth in nine years and lost virtually no important players from the playoff roster, save for starting pitcher Brady Singer, who they traded for new leadoff hitter Jonathan India.
Now that they're 34-34, the Royals have some serious flaws to address if they want to make it back to October. And it starts with their outfield, which has been the worst offensive group of any team in Major League Baseball.
Insider Jim Bowden of The Athletic reported Thursday that the Royals fully intend to upgrade their outfield at the trade deadline--and are prepared to make a fairly significant sacrifice to get the job done.
"The Royals are shopping for corner outfield help and realize they’ll probably have to trade one of their top catching prospects — Blake Mitchell, Carter Jensen or Ramon Ramirez — to make it happen," wrote Bowden.
MLB Pipeline ranks Mitchell as the second-best prospect in the Royals' system behind the recently- ebuted Jac Caglianone. Jensen is third, while Ramirez is 10th. The Royals won't want to trade the wrong one, but at the same time, there's little sense in hanging onto all of them while Salvador Perez is still around.
Meanwhile, Bowden also devised a list earlier this week containing a bunch of top corner outfield targets for the Royals at the deadline, including the Los Angeles Angels' Taylor Ward, the Boston Red Sox's Wilyer Abreu, and Lars Nootbaar of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Though it's too early to predict exactly who the Royals will get, it's a positive sign that they've identified their biggest need and are prepared to go all-in on addressing it.
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Jackson Roberts is a former Division III All-Region DH who now writes and talks about sports for a living. A Bay Area native and a graduate of Swarthmore College and the Newhouse School at Syracuse University, Jackson makes his home in North Jersey. He grew up rooting for the Red Sox, Patriots, and Warriors, and he recently added the Devils to his sports fandom mosaic. For all business/marketing inquiries regarding "Kansas City Royals On SI," please reach out to Scott Neville: scott@wtfsports.org