Royals’ Biggest Win in Taylor Trade May Not Involve Prospect Return

Kansas City got prospects back for Taylor, but something else might be more important.

On Monday evening, it was reported that the Kansas City Royals were trading center fielder Michael A. Taylor to the Minnesota Twins. Taylor, who slashed .249/.304/.357 across two seasons in Kansas City, nets the club $4.5 million in salary relief for the upcoming 2023 campaign and also brings back a pair of pitching prospects from Minnesota's farm system. This comes after both teams reportedly had already discussed a Taylor trade in the past but the asking price for Taylor served as a roadblock initially. 

Getting a package containing Evan Sisk and Steven Cruz is a plus, as Kansas City now has a funky lefty who produced some impressive (albeit mixed) results in 2022 and a righty whose fastball can hit triple-digits and is a premier offering. The Royals' biggest advantage from the trade, though, could involve those who were already on the team.

In 2021 and 2022, Taylor logged a combined 2,196 innings in center field and amassed nearly 1,000 appearances at the plate over that same span. Don't get it twisted — he fulfilled the purpose of his contract and was worth the value due to playing the best defensive baseball of his career — but that's a lot of playing time to give to someone who wasn't going to be a part of the club's long-term future. 

Despite Taylor agreeing to an extension at the end of the 2021 campaign, the optimistic scenario was that he'd either play out the contract on a legitimately competitive team or he'd net something in a potential trade return instead. The latter was always more likely than the former, and that's the new reality.

Without Taylor in the picture, the Royals now have plenty of innings and at-bats to go around in the middle of their outfield. While it remains to be seen what players such as MJ Melendez, Nick Pratto or even Hunter Dozier will get in terms of corner outfield reps, there's a wide-open opportunity in center field for someone to take and run away with. Drew Waters, Kyle Isbel and even the likes of Edward Olivares or Nate Eaton will be tasked with earning reps in spring training, but now there are at least reps available.

Who's the favorite for the job? It's worth arguing that Waters will get the first crack at the center field job if there isn't an evenly distributed workload there. The 24-year-old's swing-and-miss profile remains a legitimate concern, but he posted a 125 wRC+ across 32 games in the latter half of last season while still striking out nearly 37% of the time. Questions about the strikeout rate (and his defense which, while favorable in theory, didn't grade out that way in 2022) remain, yet he has the highest ceiling of anyone in the picture for this coming season.

Behind Waters, Isbel and Olivares have always had an interesting dynamic. Isbel was a tremendous defensive player in multiple regards last summer, but he also saw his production at the plate tank. Across 106 games, Isbel slashed .211/.264/.340 in 278 plate appearances. Olivares' slash was an impressive .286/.333/.410 in 53 games, but he has serious questions regarding his durability and his defense is also borderline unplayable in center field. Eaton is a wild card and someone who could be a multi-position chess piece in 2023 rather than a true center fielder.

The crux here is that although the Royals don't have a final answer right now as to who will garner most of their center field reps in 2023, they now have the chance to possibly find that out. As long as Taylor was on the 40-man roster, that simply wasn't going to happen. The aforementioned prospect haul appears to be sufficient on the surface and could end up being the biggest win of the trade down the road, but Kansas City's largest triumph from this situation just might be something else right now.

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