Royals Replace Perez With Deal for Quintero

It’s been somewhat of a bittersweet spring for the Kansas City Royals.  On one hand, Eric Hosmer and Alex Gordon are off to great starts and look like they’re going to build on last year’s success while Lorenzo Cain has emerged as a strong force both with the glove and the bat.  On the other, you’ve got Salvador Perez down with knee surgery for 12 to 14 weeks and Joakim Soria likely headed for Tommy John surgery…again.  The first hand?  Music to fantasy owners ears.  The second?  Not so much.   The closer situation will be handled in-house so hopefully you handcuffed your Soria pick to the pair of Jonathan Broxton and Greg Holland.  The catching situation, though, forced the Royals to go outside.

The Kansas City Royals trade LHP Kevin Chapman and a player to be named later to the Houston Astros for C  Humberto Quintero and OF Jason Bourgeois

While this deal gives the Royals a satisfactory band-aid for their situation behind the plate and the Astros a middling, southpaw pitching prospect, this deal doesn’t offer a whole lot to fantasy owners.  If you were one of the unfortunate who lost Perez, you’re going to have to look elsewhere for a replacement backstop.  Not only does the light-hitting, 32-yeal old Quintero fall short in comparison to Perez’ potential offensive output, but he won’t even be getting full time work over the three months he’s needed by the Royals.

Quintero will actually be splitting time with back-up Brayan Pena, thus siphoning any potential fantasy value from both.  Not that either was going to make any sort of an impact, but if they were each a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10, they’re now both a 1 as platoon partners.  Neither has anything in the way of power, their batting averages are completely sub par and they would actually do more harm than good in your active lineup.  Individually they are so bad for fantasy that they didn’t even make my Catching Tiers and I even had John Jaso listed.

In addition to Quintero, the Royals picked up Bourgeois who also has a pretty minimal fantasy value.  His speed alone automatically makes him a better option than Mitch Maier, but he’s still nothing more than a fourth outfielder in Kansas City.  With Gordon, Cain and Jeff Francoeur locked in, Bourgeois is nothing more than depth.  Atleast with Houston he had the potential to work his way into a right field platoon with Brian Bogusevic.  Instead though, he is destined to forever sit on your league’s waiver wire.

Going back to the Astros is Chapman who, according to John Sickels, has, “considerable potential with a 90-94 MPH fastball and a slider that varies between average and plus.”  His K/9 over the last year and a half stayed in double digits, but he struggled with his command as evidence by his considerable walk rate and hits allowed.  If he can harness his stuff, then perhaps he will blossom into a solid bullpen option, but he doesn’t really project as anything more than that.  He’ll likely spend the season between Double and Triple-A, depending on his progress, but he’ll get no further than that.  And you’re certainly not looking at an eventual closer, so even dynasty leaguers can leave him be.

Perhaps if you’re in a super-deep AL-only this trade might do something for you.  Maybe Quintero or Pena will step it up and have some value in the first month of the season.  Maybe Bourgeois starts coming off the bench and steals a bunch of bases; that could be some inexpensive help.

Deep NL-only leaguers, maybe the player to be named later is the hidden gem in this bucket of mud.