Eventful Saturday ends with the Royals making a trade for Randal Grichuk

On Saturday, the Royals split a doubleheader against the Cleveland Guardians. They won the first game after blowing a 2-0 lead. Only Bobby Witt Jr.’s relay throw saved them long enough to get the game to extra innings. Reliever Steven Cruz had a rough 10th inning, loading the bases and allowing the Manfred Man to score, but that was all the damage he conceded. In the bottom of the inning, Jonathan India lined a three-run blast to win the game by a score of 5-3.

In the nightcap…well, more on that in a moment.

The big news from Kauffman on Saturday was that the Royals swung a trade to bring Randal Grichuk from Arizona in exchange for reliever Andrew Hoffmann.

Grichuck’s best season of his career was in 2018, which was his first season in Toronto. That was the case until he landed in Arizona and the Diamondbacks decided to utilize him as a platoon player. With the D-Backs last summer, Grichuck hit a robust .291/.348/.528, good for a 139 OPS+. Check out these platoon splits as he saw the majority of the time in the lineup against left-handed pitchers.

Grichuk parlayed that season into another contract with Arizona. His overall deal for 2025 is for $5 million. It breaks down as $2 million in salary with a $3 million buyout on a mutual option. He also gets a $250,000 assignment bonus for being traded. And he’s 14 plate appearances away from a $250,000 bonus for reaching 200 PA. This contract structure makes me wonder how much money the Royals are taking on. The Royals could be on the hook for nearly $4 million here. I doubt that’s the case, but woof…There’s a lot of money due to Grichuk between now and the end of the year. Someone has to pay it.

The right-handed-hitting Grichuk is an extreme pull hitter with over 42 percent of his batted balls going to left. His production is down from last season at .243/.280/.462 with a 102 OPS+, but his expected stats have outpaced his actual results this year. And they’re fairly impressive.

Those are some good underlying metrics, even if the results haven’t been there for Grichuk the way they were last year.

It should be noted that part of the problem for Grichuk this season is that his platoon splits have not been as sharp in 2025 as they were last summer.

Defensively, Grichuk has played all three outfield positions. Most of his time was logged in either center or right field. For the Diamondbacks, he’s mostly played in right, with a handful of innings in left. Statcast has Grichuk as -2 Outs Above Average this season in right. FanGraphs has him as -2 in Defensive Runs Saved at the position.

While on the surface, this feels like a rather non-descript deal, Grichuk does represent an upgrade at the bat for the Royals offense. To be fair, it would be difficult for the Royals to add someone to the mix who would make the outfield worse. Collectively, Royals outfielders have hit .219/.273/.328 this season. That’s not just bad. It’s crap. Garbage. It’s unbelievably awful. Their OPS+ is 67, which means their outfield produces at a level 33 percent worse than the league average outfield. Yes, 33 percent worse. The next closest outfield to the Royals in lack of production is the Guardians, who have a 79 OPS+. That’s a massive difference between the 29th and 30th-placed teams. It’s almost unreal.

The Royals outfield stinks.

Of course, the fun part of this deal is that both the Royals and the Diamondbacks have records of 51-54. And both teams would need to leapfrog four teams to get into the final Wild Card spot in their respective leagues. The Royals are 4.5 games back, the Diamondbacks are five out. The Diamondbacks, though, are committed sellers. The Royals…I’m not quite sure where the Royals stand.

The key difference between the clubs is that the Diamondbacks have a number of key players on expiring contracts. The Royals simply do not.

Yet the Royals need more than Adam Frazier and now Grichuk to make any kind of noise down the stretch. Those are moves a team makes where they are building out their bench for a playoff push. That is, if their lineup is set and savage. Unfortunately, the Royals lineup is neither.

Are they buyers? Are they sellers? Do they even know what they are?

I am aware that Picollo himself will not classify the Royals as either. His job, as he says, is the make moves that will improve his ballclub. I would argue that while this makes sense, the improvement should be in the future at this point, meaning 2026 and beyond. Time is running out on 2025. Still, the two trades we’ve seen the Royals this month do not point the team in either direction. These are modest deals that make the team moderately better in the short term while doing nothing to impact the long-term.

The reality is this team doesn’t have the prospect capital to bring in a big bat that’s necessary to help anchor this lineup. They also aren’t in a situation where they need to dismantle their roster for a rebuild. They are retooling every winter for another go. That’s how we get these minor deals that are not disruptive.

Losing Hoffmann isn’t a huge deal at all. That’s a fair price for a couple of months of assumed improved performance from the outfield with the presence of Grichuck. General Manager JJ Picollo noted Grichuk’s platoon performance and emphasized that he would be in the lineup against left-handed pitching. If he can get to Kansas City in time, we would expect he’d be in Matt Quatraro’s starting nine as Cleveland will start lefty Joey Cantillo.

On July 8, the Detroit Tigers were running away with the AL Central. They were a whopping 25 games over .500 at 59-34. They held a 14-game lead over the Royals and the Twins and a 15.5-game lead on the Guardians.

Since then? This is what’s happened since then.

One win in 13 games for Detroit. One! The biggest beneficiary has been Cleveland, a team that lost 10 in a row right before the Tigers hit their tailspin and has since recovered to be the hottest team in the Central. And look at Detroit’s runs scored and runs allowed columns. This is happening because both their pitching and their hitting have spit the bit at the exact same time.

Despite hitting what has turned out to be a massive speed bump on their way to the division crown, the Tigers still have a comfortable lead. Just not as comfortable as it had been.

Perhaps this is the reason Picollo won’t commit to either buying or selling. The Royals, through the Tigers largesse, have shaved 5.5 games off their deficit. The Guardians have fared better, though, cutting 8.5 off of theirs.

Still, the overall postseason odds for the Royals remain a bit grim.

At some point, reality will have to rule the decision-making.

The corresponding move to add Grichuk to the roster will be Jac Caglianone going on the 10-day IL with a hamstring strain. Caglianone reportedly felt tightness fielding a ball in the first inning in Game One on Saturday and it continued to bother him as he grounded into a double play an inning later.

Caglianone is hitting .148/.206/.282 with a 35 OPS+ since making his debut last month.

At this point, every time I write Caglianone’s name, I feel obligated to state that while I believe in his future, his present has been rough.

After Kris Bubic was pulled after 66 pitches in his first start after the All-Star Game and with his velocity down, the Royals explained it away as the lefty was recovering from an illness he experienced over the break. Ok. Sure.

Now explain what we saw on Saturday night.

Bubic walked the first four batters he faced. His velocity was down across the board again. His four-seamer was down 2 mph off his average. His maximum velocity for all five pitches he threw on Saturday barely met his average velocity for the season. Something is not right.

I think where Bubic will “go from there” is that he’s going to the IL. I don’t see how the Royals can avoid that. The shoulder stiffness he’s been feeling for “a good portion of the season” has obviously turned into something that’s even more concerning.

While Bubic had his name thrown about in trade rumors (none specific as far as I could tell, only as a valuable trade piece), if the Royals lose him for any stretch of time, I don’t see how they trade Seth Lugo, who is among the most coveted starting pitchers in the game at the moment. Once again, the Royals find themselves in some sort of trade market purgatory. The should be sellers. They should be looking toward 2026. Instead, they’re going to pass on an opportunity.