Trade season is here and the Royals are open for business

A month out from the trade deadline and the Royals have fired the opening salvo, sending Aroldis Chapman to Texas for a pair of players.

In his final appearance as a Royal, Aroldis Chapman threw 102 MPH, struck out two and allowed José Ramírez to steal home. He then picked up the win when Freddy Fermin laced a two-run walkoff double to left.

That was his three months in Kansas City in a nutshell.

Chapman was a free agent signing for the Royals over the winter, shortly after washing out in New York. A classic buy-low, sell semi-high sort of bounceback candidate. Yes, he has carried around plenty of off-field baggage and really, it would’ve been easier had the Royals not signed the guy. But the move was made in the hope that Chapman would rebound performance-wise where they could flip him at the deadline.

He did and they did.

The lefty established his triple-digit heat from his first appearance of 2023 and was punching out batters to a rate of 16.3 SO/9. He was striking out almost 45 percent of all batters he faced. He also held an attitude of complete ambivalence toward base runners. Opponents swiped 15 bases in 16 attempts against him this year, including that steal of home on Thursday. That’s the most he’s been run on in his career.

I guess the best way to sum up Champan is he’s pitching like the 2021 version of himself. That’s better than the 2022 version, but still some ways off the 2019 version.

The stuff will play in any bullpen, especially one that is in the thick of contention. In between the strikeouts, if he walks a guy in an important game, there’s potential for all hell to break loose. There should be some fun watching him pitch in important games. Good luck with that, Texas.

Even given all the flaws in Chapman, the return feels kind of…underwhelming. The last time Chapman was flipped at the deadline, the Yankees shipped him to the Cubs for four players: Rashad Crawford, Billy McKinney, Gleyber Torres and Adam Warren. Warren was already an established major league reliever at that point. (He had been traded to the Cubs from the Yankees just a few months earlier for Starlin Castro.) McKinney was their number seven prospect according to Baseball America and Torres was their number one and ranked in their Top 100 overall.

It’s not a fair comparison because Chapman obviously has a lot more mileage on the arm, along with some performance issues—and other issues—the last several seasons. He’s no sure thing the way he was considered in 2016. There’s also the small detail that teams value their prospects a helluva lot more these days and are slower to flip their very best. Especially for a reliever who’s walking six batters per nine.

I’m not suggesting the Royals could’ve gotten a similar package. That wasn’t going to happen. Still, given all the caveats we know about the 2023 version of Chapman, it just feels like they could’ve done a little better.

Cole Ragans is a 25-year-old lefty with very low mileage on his left arm. He was the Rangers first-round draft pick in 2016 out of high school but a pair of Tommy John surgeries, coupled with the pandemic meant he missed three full seasons between 2018 and 2020. He returned to the mound in 2021 and pitched to a combined 4.35 ERA with a 9.7 SO/9 and 3.8 BB/9 between High-A and Double-A in 80.2 innings. That got him back on the prospect radar.

A 3.04 ERA with a 10.7 SO/9 and a 2.9 BB/9 in 94.2 innings split between Double and Triple-A got him to the big leagues in 2022.

Here’s how Baseball America scouted Ragans coming into 2023 as the Rangers #19 prospect:

Ragans operates with a four-pitch mix led by a 92-95 mph fastball that touched 96. His best offspeed pitch is a potentially plus changeup in the 82-84 mph range that he threw for plenty of strikes both in the zone and for chases. His repertoire also featured mid-70s curveball of varying quality and a new cutter in the low 90s that he can manipulate to make look like a slider with deeper break. Both the curve and the cutter project to be fringe-average to average, and the Rangers would like to see him add more power to both.

Pitching exclusively out of the bullpen for Texas this season, Ragans was averaging 96 MPH on his fastball. That’s four full ticks above where he averaged as a starter in 2022. He’ll work it up in the zone like he did here against Cody Bellinger:

Ragans did add power to the curve, as suggested in the scouting report above, adding an average of 5 MPH on that offering. It’s a nice pitch when he keeps it low in the zone.

The change is offered almost exclusively to right-handed hitters. The cutter is for lefties. Speaking of that changeup…

It seems like command has been an issue for Ragans this year, at least in the majors. Leafing through his pitch logs at Baseball Savant, it feels like he’s not finishing at times, leaving all pitches up in the zone. He’s walking 5.2 batters per nine against, but has been successful in limiting the base hits, holding opponents to a .225 batting average against.

He’s reporting to Triple-A to start his Royals career, but given the need for innings at the big league level, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in Kansas City before the end of July. The minor league pitching coaching will have him work on a few refinements and he’ll be up once he’s comfortable.

So Ragans falls into the category of most of the pitchers the team acquired last year at the deadline: A test for the new pitching development track. If they can fix his command and move him to the rotation while keeping some of that velocity improvement, they may have found something for the back of their rotation. As we all know, that’s something they really need…this season and beyond.

The intriguing player the Royals got in return is 17-year-old outfielder Roni Cabrera. He was assigned to the Royals’ Dominican Summer League team. Cabrera had already played 16 games for the Rangers DSL squad, where he hit .315 (17-for-54) with 11 extra-base hits, 10 RBI and 6 stolen bases. He’s posted more walks (13) than strikeouts (7). If that’s a lottery ticket, it’s one I would hold on to.

There’s not a ton of info out there about Cabrera. He’s not on the prospecting radars as of yet, but if he keeps putting up those kind of numbers, he will be soon. Meanwhile, here’s some video for you to scout:

I write that the return feels underwhelming, but the Royals probably did just fine. Ragans is a guy who will be on the big league club in very short order and the Royals have him under team control for the next five seasons. They needed that major league arm. It’s the injury history that is a major concern there. Cabrera is all upside at this point and who knows…maybe five years from now I’m writing about his Rookie of the Year potential.

All it cost was three months of Aroldis Chapman.

The Royals have made their first move of the Trade Deadline Season. It won’t be their last.