While not making it their intent this year, the Royals once again have a handful of players they may be interested in flipping this summer. Doing so could fetch some helpful minor leaguers, while clearing the way for younger Royals to gain valuable experience. It’s exactly what happened last season, and it’s the only thing that could salvage this wretched campaign.

The players in the clubhouse know it’s coming. It’s a harsh reality, but one they accept. It affects them professionally – who wouldn’t want to be traded from a cellar-dweller to a playoff contender mid season? But it also affects them professionally – should they move their families for what could be only a couple of months?

“It really doesn’t affect your daily approach to things at all,” said Terrance Gore, who was acquired late in the 2018 campaign by the playoff-bound Chicago Cubs from the Royals. “It more affects your family more than anything. You may have to pack up and leave at any point and time on short notice. But as a player it really doesn’t affect you. You just go out there and play the game the way you’ve been playing.

“If it happens, it happens. Sometimes it’s a good thing. Sometimes it’s a bad thing. But leaving the Royals, because I’ve been with the Royals so long, it’s definitely a bad thing, because I’ll always be a Royal no matter where I go. But if it happens to you, it’s just something you have to live with.”

Major League Baseball set a hard deadline for trades this year – July 31 is the cutoff. So deals may start happening a little earlier than in years past.

Players like Gore understand that deft trades at mid-season can change history. When the Royals won the 2015 World Series, it was in large part due to the trade-deadline acquisitions of Ben Zobrist and Johnny Cueto. And last year, the Royals were on the selling end, shipping Moustakas at the deadline to the Milwaukee Brewers for Jorge Lopez and Brett Phillips.

“Every player does look at it as an opportunity,” Gore said of being traded to a contending team. “It’s a chance to contribute to something special.

“We look at it as a business. Sometimes giving away one player you can get two players in return that will make the team better in the long run. I’m always a Royal, and anything that will help the organization in the long run, I’m cool with it.”

A few one-year flippables on the team might have some value on the trade market. First and foremost is Jake Diekman. While the bullpen has been pretty awful as a whole, the 32-year-old lefty has been tough, with a WHIP barely above 1.00 and more than 13 strikeouts per nine innings. The Royals signed him to a one-year deal knowing he could very well be trade bait.

Sadly neither Wily Peralta nor Brad Boxberger – other relievers on one-year deals – won’t attract similar trade interest.

Homer Bailey’s hot and cold performances might not attract a great haul, but some team in need of a starter might give him a try.

Two one-year position players might bring some prospects, if just the right trade partners can be found.

Martin Maldonado holds tremendous value for any contending team who finds itself in need of a catcher down the stretch. Maldonado is a whiz defensively and has shown he can quickly bond with a pitching staff. He won’t be a difference maker with the bat, but he could save a season for a team in need of a rock behind the plate.

Outfielder Billy Hamilton has failed to provide much offense, but the rest of the league knows what he can do: play great defense and steal bases. A team that could use a late-game pinch runner and defensive replacement could get some real good out of the 28-year-old speed demon. Trading Hamilton would also open a spot for prospect Bubba Starling to finally make his long-awaited debut.

The Royals should do anything and everything necessary to trade all of the players mentioned above. None of them fit the organization’s future plans, and will just be taking up space if they are on the roster after July 31.

And none of them hold any sentimental value to the organization. That cannot be said, however, for Alex Gordon, whose contract runs out after this year as well. Would the Royals actually consider trading the local product, the pillar of the franchise and fixture in the community?

Other teams have traded cornerstone stars at the deadline – Justin Verlander, David Price and Yoenis Cespedes are just a few from recent years. But for a beleaguered club to trade a guy who’s labored faithfully for 13 years is hard to envision.

Other difficult deals to swing could involve guys with more than one year left on their contracts. It was reported (although General Manager Dayton Moore denied it) that the Royals are open to trading nearly everyone on their current roster.

If a deal can be found for Ian Kennedy, the Royals shouldn’t hesitate. He shows some potential as a reliever, but he won’t be with Kansas City past next year, and his contract is an albatross.

Whit Merrifield would probably bring the most in return, and the Royals might be open to dealing him, despite having three very affordable years left on his contract. If Jorge Soler continues to crush home runs, he might also have value on the trade market. And Danny Duffy might be attractive to some team.

Those three players should only be traded for a haul in return, as they each hold value for the ongoing rebuild. But if enough is offered in return, none should be considered untouchable. Gordon might fall in a different category, and it would understandable if the Royals choose to keep him.

Otherwise, let the wheeling and dealing begin!

“It would seem weird now, but back then I sort of see why they did it,” said David Price, a tall lefthander, on how it would feel to be called “the black Clayton Kershaw,” a similar pitcher of the modern era. “We don’t do that now, but without social media and television, that was the way they knew to compare players from the two different leagues. I think today we understand why they did that.”

Here’s the entire section on the topic:

One telling practice of the era – tainted with the ugliness of racism, but indicative of the respect accorded to Negro Leaguers – was that of associating them with comparable white stars. A catcher named Louis Santop was dubbed “the black Babe Ruth,” as was Josh Gibson. Buck Leonard was “the black Lou Gehrig.” An outfielder named Spotswood Poles was “the black Ty Cobb.”

Looking back on being called “the black Bill Terry,” George Giles remarked “I never could figure out why they didn’t call him the white George Giles.”

Such backhanded compliments, however offensive, demonstrate what people of the era believed about the skills of the Negro League stars.

“I am honored to have John (Henry) Lloyd called ‘the Black Wagner,” Honus Wagner himself once said. “It is a privilege to have been compared to him.” (9)

The correlating of a Negro Leaguer with a white star served its purpose in an era when, not only did blacks and whites not play on the same field, but television, which could have provided some opportunity for comparison, had not yet been popularized. Such nicknames, however, also served to remind of the great racist chasm that separated white baseball from black.

“You know, they used to call me ‘the Black Lloyd Waner.’ I used to think about that a lot,” said Negro Leaguer Jimmie Crutchfield. “He was on the other side of town in Pittsburgh, making $12,000 a year, and I didn’t have enough money to go home on… It seemed like there was something wrong there.” (10)

Rather than focus on how politically incorrect the practice of correlating blacks to a white counterpart may seem today, modern major leaguers tend to view it as an honor that fit within the unfortunately segregated context.

“It was the time, and of course the players that they were comparing them to were great players. So it was a compliment,” said Daryl Boston. “I’m sure if I’d lived in that era, I would have taken it as a compliment, because that was the only way you could take it. You just dealt with it. And because there were two separate sides, the black side and the white side, you just had to roll it.”

“It would seem weird now, but back then I sort of see why they did it,” said David Price, a tall lefthander, on how it would feel to be called “the black Clayton Kershaw,” a similar pitcher of the modern era. “We don’t do that now, but without social media and television, that was the way they knew to compare players from the two different leagues. I think today we understand why they did that.”

Excerpts from Legacy: The Enduring Impact of the Negro Leagues on Modern Baseball and American Society

It’s huge to be able to look back at (the great history of Negro League pitching) left by Satchel Paige and those other great pitchers to know the legacy that we have.

It’s huge to be able to look back and remember what they did not just on the baseball field but also how tough it was off the field and how they changed the entire game, and they changed their communities, and they changed people’s lives. For them to go through the struggles they went through definitely sheds a different light on the struggles we have today. If they saw the struggles that we have now, they would probably just laugh at us. So if we get down or go through a rough patch, if you look back on that history, it helps.

He discussed Satchel Paige’s first season in the major leagues, in which he drew enormous crowds and helped Cleveland win the 1948 World Series:

That’s crazy. I can’t imagine what that must have been like. He was able to step up on the biggest stage after spending his whole life waiting for that moment, and to not shy away from that moment, but to shine in that moment.

But he knew the powers that he possessed. He knew his arm, and he knew his whole bag of tricks, and after all he’d been through, he wasn’t scared of anybody.

I’m sure it was a real good feeling, but also probably pretty frustrating, to know that all your life you could have done this. You could have pitched at the highest level and made your family much more money. For him to get that opportunity at 42 must have been (bittersweet). But he didn’t have to do it. He could have said, ‘You didn’t want me before. Now I’m not coming here to entertain for you and make you money.’

Excerpts from Legacy: The Enduring Impact of the Negro Leagues on Modern Baseball and American Society