Royals' Messy Rotation Should Lead to Active Trade Deadline for AL's Top Team

For weeks, the Kansas City Royals have had their scouts out everywhere, looking for a starting pitcher.

No reason to stop now.

No reason for a U-turn like the one the Royals had Yordano Ventura make Wednesday, when a day after announcing on Twitter that he was heading for Triple-A Omaha, they announced he's staying in the rotation and pitching Sunday against the Houston Astros. Jason Vargas, who had taken Ventura's spot, lasted only 1.1 innings and now needs Tommy John surgery.

So the Royals need another pitcher...just as they needed another pitcher before Vargas got hurt. The injury was tough news for him, but it really didn't change much for them.

After all, even a healthy Vargas wasn't going to be a game-changer. The Royals can no doubt win the American League Central even if they have to start Ventura every five days for the rest of the season, even if he doesn't get any better than he was when he convinced the Royals to send him down in the first place.

Heck, at this point, the Royals might win the Central if they had to start Eduardo Villacis every fifth day. Don't worry if you've never heard of Villacis, the poor guy a very bad Royals team once sent to the mound at Yankee Stadium to start his first and only big league game.

Anyway, this is a much better Royals team, a point they keep proving, and did so again Wednesday with a 5-1 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. It's a team many AL executives consider to be the league's best, even with a rotation that is far from the best.

It's a team that has every chance to get back to the World Series, and to win it this time, and that's why a club with a 93.1 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to Baseball Prospectus, is also one of the clubs most in need of making a trade before the July 31 non-waiver deadline.

The Royals know it. That's why all of those scouts have been spotted in all of those ballparks where any possibly available starting pitcher is scheduled to appear.

John Minchillo/Associated Press

It's why you hear the Royals linked with Johnny Cueto and Mike Leake of the Cincinnati Reds, with Scott Kazmir of the Oakland A's and with any number of other starters. It's why one AL scout asked Wednesday whether the Tigers would be willing to trade David Price within the division (assuming they trade him).

In fact, the best news of the week for the Royals might be that the trade market for starting pitchers seems to be expanding, as Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com wrote Wednesday.

For now, the Royals rotation consists of Ventura (100 mph fastball, but 5.19 ERA), Jeremy Guthrie (5.36 ERA), Danny Duffy (4.24), Chris Young (3.03) and Edinson Volquez (3.15), who pitched a good game against the Pirates on Wednesday. For the season, the Royals rotation has a 4.32 ERA (even worse than the Blue Jays, another team desperately looking to trade for a pitcher).

Try picking a playoff rotation out of that group.

It may be true that in modern baseball, a strong bullpen matters more in October than a good rotation. It's without a doubt true that the Royals have the most imposing bullpen in the league.

The bullpen may be great enough, and the rest of the team good enough, that the Royals can win without adding a top starter. Just remember when they finally lost last October, it was to the team with the best starting pitcher in the entire postseason.

The Royals can't trade for Madison Bumgarner. They might not be able to trade for their version of Bumgarner.

They can trade for a starting pitcher who is better than what they have now—and they will.

This is no time for a U-turn.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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