Lessons the Royals Can Learn From the Zack Greinke Trade

In the trade, the Royals sent Greinke and Yuniesky Betancourt to the Milwaukee Brewers for cash, Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar, Jeremy Jeffress and Odorizzi. On the surface, it looks like the Royals got the better end of the trade with Cain and Escobar coming directly from the trade and Shields and Davis coming indirectly. However, it could be argued that Milwaukee eventually got the better end of this deal, and it comes down to the Brewers' willingness to let talented players go.

The Brewers made the postseason in their only full season with Greinke in 2011, winning the NL Central but falling to the Cardinals in the NLCS. But in 2012, they fell off and were out of the postseason race. Thus, they made the decision to trade Greinke a year after shipping four players to KC to acquire him because he was in the last year of his contract and Milwaukee was going to be priced out by his eventual contractual demands. The Brewers shipped him to the Los Angeles Angels for two minor leaguers that never panned out and Jean Segura, who proceeded to make the All-Star team in his first full season with the team. The Angels got a half-season of Greinke and no playoff appearance out of it all.

Segura, after his lone All-Star season struggled to replicate the same success with the Brew Crew. With the team coming off a 94-loss campaign in 2015, Milwaukee decided to once again trade away another talented player for players and prospects. The Brewers sent Segura to the Arizona Diamondbacks for 2B Aaron Hill, who they flipped in 2016 for two more players: RHP Chase Anderson (who gave the Brewers four seasons of solid starting pitching) and highly regarded prospect Isan Diaz.

After two lackluster minor league seasons, the Brewers took Diaz and packaged him in a deal with Jordan Yamamoto, Lewis Brinson, and Monte Harrison for All-Star OF and future MVP Christian Yelich. Long story short, the Brewers turned a two-player acquisition into ten future players which led to three All-Star game selections, two Silver Sluggers and an MVP award. Also, with Yelich struggling to perform as of late, don’t be surprised if he gets traded for prospects soon.

If you want to argue that the only thing that matters from Kansas City's side is that the Royals got a World Series ring, that's fine. With that said, it doesn’t take away the fact the Royals left a lot on the table by not trading away their players. Odorizzi was the only player out of the four acquired from Milwaukee that was traded.

The Royals, instead of going full fire sale in 2017, made the mistake of only going halfway and it ended up costing them big time. Davis was the only core player moved in 2017 and it led to the acquisition of perhaps the most love-hate player in Royals history, Jorge Soler, who led the league in home runs in 2019 and didn’t do much else. This led to him getting dealt for minor leaguer Kasey Kalich. Imagine that instead of shooting for one last ill-fated run at glory, the Royals had flipped Escobar and Cain into something bigger and better.

The Royals got a future HR king for a relief pitcher, so it stands within reason to argue they could’ve received even more value for Cain. At his best, he was arguably a top-5 center fielder in baseball. Escobar could’ve been a solid depth piece or even a free-swinging and smooth-defending starter for a contender. This doesn’t even include the likes of Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, and Alex Gordon, who the Royals clung onto for too long instead of cashing in on their value.

For the Royals, Kalich is the only remaining part of the Zack Greinke trade tree. Unless he becomes a Davis-caliber closer, the return for him will be minimal if there is even the possibility for one. For the Brewers, they could offer Yelich to the Yankees today and probably pull down a mix of five current players or prospects. It is quite obvious that one team has done a much better job at maximizing the long-term value of this trade than the other, and it's not even really that close.

No player on the Royals should be above trading because winning clubs don’t get hung up on sentimental value. Instead, they focus on current and future value and make shrewd business moves based on that. The Royals made two of those shrewd moves before they got sentimental, and it led to back-to-back 100-plus loss seasons and an unnecessarily long scorched earth rebuild. Taking a page out of Milwaukee's book may be the way to go moving forward.