The following article was published in the Topeka Capital-Journal on June 9, 2018 – you can read it here. As the Royals become further buried in 2018, they are working to reverse the flow of pitchers from their organization, doing so through the draft and trades.

The Royals just drafted a passel of pitchers, including using their first five picks on college arms, to stock their empty farm system. None of the current top seven Royals prospects are pitchers, but they just took a few who might crack that upper echelon.

Immediately thereafter, the Royals added even more pitching prospects by trading rent-a-player Jon Jay.

But why was there such a dearth of arms in their system in the first place?

The problem was created in the summer of 2015 when the Royals traded five minor league pitchers to acquire Ben Zobrist and Johnny Cueto for the World Series run. None of the 800,000 who jammed downtown Kansas City for the parade complained about the price paid to acquire Zobrist and Cueto.

Dayton Moore calls pitching “the currency of baseball,” and he spent it with conviction to gain the crown.

Now, with a flag flying over Kauffman Stadium and no pitching talent in their farm system, it’s time to evaluate the cost.

On July 26, 2015, the Royals traded reliever Brandon Finnegan plus minor league pitchers John Lamb and Cody Reed to Cincinnati for Cueto, the starter they needed to get over the hump.

Then just two days later, to acquire Zobrist, the Royals dealt Sean Manaea, their prized pitching prospect, and Aaron Brooks, a reliever who had seen some time in the Kansas City bullpen.

The price seemed appropriate, but losing Finnegan and Manaea was a bitter pill to swallow. It only grew more distasteful as Manaea became the ace of the Oakland staff.

So when Manaea tossed a no-hitter on April 21 of this year, Royals fans couldn’t help but reflect on which could have been. Considering the failure of Danny Duffy and Ian Kennedy this season, and the struggle of Eric Skoglund to adjust to the big leagues, Manaea would look awfully nice fronting that group.

Manaea said Royals fans shouldn’t view it that way.

“It worked out for both sides. I’m really happy for where I am right now, and really happy for how it worked out for the Royals,” said the 26-year-old lefthander who is scheduled to face the Royals on Sunday. “It was awesome when they won the World Series. I couldn’t have asked for anything better for them. They did a really good job putting it together at the end (of 2015).”

Manaea said he wasn’t excited at the time to be traded away from the team that drafted him in 2013, but knows that it made sense.

“It was weird at the time, but ever since I got (to Oakland), everybody’s been really cool and I kind of eased into being a part of this team. So I was really fortunate that the Royals gave me a chance, and I understand that (being traded) is just a baseball-type of thing.”

Much as the Royals might wish they had Manaea in their rotation today, they didn’t lose much in dealing the other four pitchers.

Three years after the Cueto trade, the Reds aren’t benefitting at all from it. When the Reds come to Kansas City on Tuesday, they’ll bring none of the three former Royals with them.

Finnegan looked like a stud in his stint with the Royals, and trading the 22-year-old probably stung more than the loss of Manaea at the time. But after a solid 2016 in Cincinnati, Finnegan hasn’t accomplished much. He’s currently laboring in the minors, as are Lamb and Reed.

Brooks, meanwhile, hasn’t pitched in Oakland, or anywhere in the majors, since 2015. He was traded that winter and hasn’t resurfaced from the minors.

So the cost of the championship was essentially just Manaea. Unfortunately for Kansas City, however, other pitching prospects have failed to pan out, or have succumbed to injuries, leaving the Royals’ farm system nearly devoid of pitching prospects.

Now one of the worst teams in baseball, the shoe is on the other foot for the Royals. They are in a rebuilding process, with plenty of pieces to trade in Kelvin Herrera, Mike Moustakas, Lucas Duda and Jason Hamel, all of whose contracts are up after this season. The Royals might even decide to make others such as Whit Merrifield and Duffy available if the price is right.

Will any of these trade pieces bring a return like Oakland got in Manaea? One can only hope.