Lowly Royals reportedly listening to trade offers on talented reliever

The Royals are listening to trade offers on reliever Scott Barlow, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. It doesn’t appear as though they are actively shopping him, but it’s noteworthy that they seem open to considering trade scenarios.

There are several reasons why a deal would make plenty of sense, one of which is the performance of the Royals this year. The club is out to a dismal 17-39 start, a record worse than every club in the majors except for the Athletics. They’re already 16 games out of the wild-card race and 12.5 back of the Twins in the weak American League Central division. That makes them one of the few obvious sellers with the expanded postseason making most clubs at least marginal contenders.

Then there’s Barlow himself, who has been serving as an effective reliever in Kansas City for the past few years. Since debuting in 2018, he’s made 259 appearances with a 3.16 ERA, 29% strikeout rate, 9.3% walk rate and 42.7% ground-ball rate. He has kept earned runs off the board at an even better rate in recent years, as he had a 2.42 ERA in 2021 and a tiny 2.18 mark last year. His ERA has jumped to 3.86 here in 2023, but his 3.34 FIP is actually lower than his 3.62 from last year. He has bumped his strikeout rate from 26.6% in 2022 to 33.7% this year, but his walks also jumped from 7.6% to 12.8%. All of that has come with increased leverage work, as he racked up a combined 40 saves over 2021 and 2022 and six more so far this year.

Barlow, 30, wouldn’t be a pure rental since this is his second of three arbitration seasons, meaning he can still be retained for 2024. That means the Royals don’t strictly have to trade him, as they could decide to keep him around and hope for better results next year. Even if the club didn’t return to contention, there would be another opportunity to trade him at next year’s deadline, but he would have less value when being marketed for one postseason run instead of two. Relievers are often prone to fluctuations in performance, not to mention the ever-present injury risk with all pitchers. If they were to hold onto him, they would run the risk of a dip in performance or an injury diminishing his trade value even further. Taking that into consideration, there would certainly be an argument for pulling the trigger now.

There’s also the fact that just about every contending club could fit another reliever or two into their bullpens, especially one as talented as Barlow, meaning the Royals would have no shortage of suitors. The righty is making an affordable $5.3M this year and would be in line for a raise next year. They still have a couple of months before the Aug. 1 trade deadline to suss out his market, but Barlow looks like one of the clearer trade candidates this summer.