JULY 31: The Royals announced that Davis has been placed back on the 15-day disabled list with a flexor strain in his right arm. The move is retroactive to July 27, and no timeline has been issued on Davis’ recovery. Lefty Matt Strahm is coming up from Double-A to take his roster spot.
[Related: Updated Kansas City Royals Depth Chart]
JULY 30: Royals closer Wade Davis is flying back to Kansas City to undergo an MRI on his right elbow, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan tweets that the MRI is to examine Davis’ forearm, though regardless of the specific portion of the arm that is being checked out, the test is still an ominous bit of news out of Kansas City. Casey Jones first tweeted that Davis was flying back to K.C. for an examination.
Davis, 30, has seen his name pop up frequently in trade rumors over the past week as the Royals have reportedly begun to consider selling veteran pieces prior to Monday’s non-waiver trade deadline. The uncertainty around his elbow now, however, would seem to all but eliminate the already minimal chances of Davis being moved. Even if the MRI yields positive results, it’d be difficult for a club to meet Kansas City’s exceptionally high asking price just a day or two after the MRI.
Reports over the past week have suggested that the Royals sought names like Lucas Giolito from the Nationals in trade talks or hoped to package Ian Kennedy and the remaining $62.5MM on his contract with Davis in trade talks. That would indicate a daunting asking price even if Davis were healthy and in top form on the mound, but now it looks that neither of those is the case. While Davis has a terrific 1.60 ERA and 21 saves on the season, he’s averaging just 8.6 K/9 and 4.0 BB/9 after averaging 12.1 K/0 and 2.8 BB/9 from 2014-15 with Kansas City. His velocity, while still a strong 94.9 mph, is down a full mile per hour from last season as well.
Davis spent two weeks on the disabled list with a forearm strain earlier this month, making the news of an MRI all the more troubling for the Royals. The two-time All-Star, who has a 1.09 ERA in 173 regular season innings out of the Royals’ bullpen since 2014, is earning $8MM this year and has a $10MM club option for the 2017 season.
Couldn’t the MRI just be the Royals gathering proof that Davis is healthy to finalize a potential trade?
Maybe and Game hasen’t started yet.
I doubt it. If a team wanted to look at his elbow I would expect they would want their doctor to make that evaluation.
Their doctor would get a look as well.Maybe no deal is in place yet.
No, Davis is injured. Teams exchange medicals on players, they don’t put them on a flight to be examined. At worst, he needs TJ. At best, KC will shut him down the rest of the season and hope he can rehab his elbow without surgery. Either way, his season is over.
Oh god….
And this is why you need to sell high on relievers. One slight tweak and you go from getting a 4 prospect package to being a non-tender candidate. Just ask Greg Holland. Speaking as purely a baseball fan, hopefully this is just something relatively minor because Davis has just been filthy the past two years. Who would have thought he would end up as arguably the best piece from the Shields/Myers deal?
The shields-Myers trade really turned into the Davis-odorizzi trade. Mainly because Tampa only turned Myers into Souza
Sounds like TJ
Sounds like tommy john
Could be. Greed kills.
Welp!
That leaves the best reliever in mlb, Andrew Miller, as the only elite reliever left, right?
Best set up man in mlb
Zack Britton, Kenley Janson, Mark Melancon, Aroldis Chapman, and even his teammate Dellin Betances could rival that title. Unless you’re talking about relievers available to acquire before Monday’s trade deadline. Then that’s a completely different story, and can cross out almost every option on the list.
No good news at all. Didn’t Davis complain here just recently about having soreness in his forearm?
Should have sold high while you had the chance KC
You mean when they were going to back to back world series???
Seriously, that makes no sense. The past month-ish is the first time the Royals have been out of the playoff hunt in 2 years. When exactly were they supposed to sell him off before now? It would have made zero sense.
As much as I hate the team, I feel awful (if it turns out to be serious) for Davis and the KC fans, they have one of the best fanbases in baseball, IMO.
KC is a difficult team to hate
They employ Ventura and volquez, they are fairly easy to hate. The fans got really if sprang after last year too
Annoying* wtf
Disappointing. Could have seen a deal sending Davis to Boston and Shaw Buccholz to Kansas City.
I don’t think KC would take that deal even if Davis needs TJ surgery. You do realize they were asking for Giolito for him, right?
Great. Davis and Carson Smith could share the same room.
Guess we won’t see a trade now. I was hoping the Dodgers ended up with him.
Good , Wade is an important part of the 2017 team, pack up top prospects with guys like Chris Young and Ian Kennedy to pitching hungry contenders and get ready for next season
The Chris Young and Ian Kennedy contracts are bad, but I don’t think they’d have to send away any top prospects to get rid of them, probably just a fringe guy. I hope Wade Davis gets healthy quick. He’s fun to watch.