The Royals upgraded at the trade deadline, but left a glaring hole

This lineup still needs a leadoff hitter.

The trade deadline has passed, and for the first time since 2017, the Royals got to be buyers rather than sellers. It was a busy trade deadline around baseball, with 60 deals made this week. It was a hot market for relievers and a rare trade deadline where no Baseball America top 100 prospects were traded.

Here are the trade the Royals made this month:

• July 14 - Acquired pitcher Hunter Harvey from the Nationals for third baseman Cayden Wallace and the #39 pick in the draft
• July 29 - Acquired pitcher Michael Lorenzen from the Rangers for pitcher Walter Pennington
• July 30 - Acquired pitcher Lucas Erceg from the Athletics for pitchers Mason Barnett and Will Klein and outfielder Jared Dickey
• July 30 - Acquired infielder Paul DeJong from the White Sox for pitcher Jarold Rosado

With Harvey and Erceg, the Royals addressed their biggest need - relievers who can strike hitters out. Combined, the two pitchers have struck out 26 percent of hitters they have faced this year. And the Royals will not just enjoy their services this year - Harvey isn’t a free agent until after next year, and Erceg is under club control through 2029. Now Erceg is already 29 years old, so his age combined with the short shelf life of relievers makes it less likely he will be good that entire time, but the Royals can cut him or non-tender him at any time and not worry about it.

What Erceg gives the Royals right now is velocity. His heater is the ninth-fastest in baseball. But he also features a killer slider that opponents are hitting just .067 against, a change up with a 33 percent whiff rate, and an overall 50 percent groundball rate. He immediately becomes the best reliever the Royals have in their bullpen and the team already views him as a potential future closer.

Harvey has looked a bit shaky in his first few outings in a Royals uniform, but has flashed a terrific splitter that has a whiff rate of nearly 40 percent along with a 97 mph fastball. He’ll need to command that heater better, and his struggles this month both in a Nationals and Royals uniform are a bit concerning, but he has higher upside than any of the other arms the Royals began the season with.

The Michael Lorenzen trade came out of left field, but it makes sense when you think about it. The Royals have a rotation of starters who aren’t exactly workhorses. Seth Lugo will reach a career-high in innings pitched with his next start, Cole Ragans has already pitched more innings than he ever has at the pro level and has two Tommy John surgeries under his belt, and Michael Wacha hasn’t pitched more than 135 innings since 2017. Contenders frequently need six-to-eight starters to get through a year, and Lorenzen gives them another option that can start or relieve.

He does have a low strikeout rate and has been regressing badly the last month - his ERA is 6.20 over his last six games in the last month. I don’t think the Royals are relying on him to do too much, basically he’s a “in a rotation emergency, break glass” option that is better than, say Daniel Lynch IV. With the team seemingly treating Kris Bubic with kid gloves after Tommy John surgery, it's not a bad hedge for this rotation.

If the Lorenzen trade came out of left field, the Paul DeJong trade came from down the Blue Ridge Cutoff and into the Truman Sports Complex parking lot. DeJong has primarily played shortstop - the position Royals star Bobby Witt Jr. plays. But DeJong has been playing some third lately, presumably where he’ll play in Kansas City, with Maikel Garcia moving to second. DeJong has power - his 18 home runs would be right behind the 19 by Witt and Salvador Perez for third-most on the Royals. But he also has a weird reverse split where the right-handed hitter is much worse against lefties than righties. So while he is an upgrade from Nick Loftin, it doesn’t seem like he really complements a roster that already has lefty-hitting infielders like Michael Massey and Adam Frazier.

DeJong also fits the profile of the free-swinging, no-walk hitters that have plagued this organization for decades. His 3.9 percent walk rate this year would make Alcides Escobar blush. What the Royals really needed was someone who could work the count and get on base to set the table for Bobby, Vinnie, and Salvy. Their leadoff hitters collectively have a .269 on-base percentage, by far the worst in baseball.

J.J. Picollo had said he was looking for “on base” as a need earlier this season, and perhaps the right deal wasn’t available. The Guardians paid a steep price to acquire Nationals outfielder Lane Thomas. The Angels stubbornly held on to Luis Rengifo and Taylor Ward because of reasons. But in the veteran “rental” market, the White Sox threw Tommy Pham as a throw-in to the Cardinals (who re-acquired him, dispelling a bit the notion that he was a clubhouse cancer). Tigers outfielder Mark Canha went to the Giants for reliever Eric Silva, who Baseball America ranked #25 in the San Francisco farm system. Would two months of a veteran who can get on base be worth a Tyson Guerrero or Stephen Zobac?

As far as who the Royals did give up, they managed to upgrade the roster without sacrificing much of the already-thin farm system. Mason Barnett seemed like a pretty interesting pitching prospect a year ago and was ranked #11 on Baseball America’s mid-season prospect update. but he has struggled in Double-A and profiles as a fifth starter. Will Klein shows promise as a reliever, but he has really struggled lately in Omaha with 10 walks and 11 runs allowed in his last 10 ¹⁄₃ innings. Jared Dickey has shown good patience at the plate, but profiles as more of a role player. Walter Pennington had some terrific numbers in the minors and I wish he had gotten more of an audition at the big league level, but he doesn’t flash exceptional stuff and his upside is situational lefty. I was never as high on Cayden Wallace as other evaluators - he has yet to develop corner infield power and has been hobbled by an oblique injury. The draft pick hurts a bit for a team trying to rebuild, but it was considered a weak draft this year.

In all, the Royals kept their high-end talent intact. The strength of the farm system seems to be in having a quantity of low-ceiling, high-floor guys that could be contributors but not likely impact players - and they dealt from that strength to address needs. ESPN, MLB.com, and USA Today both listed the Royals as winners at the deadline, and they certainly have improved the team without giving up much.

But I would still argue the Royals should have done more. Fangraphs projects them for 86 wins and a 55 percent chance of making the playoffs. These moves could inch them upward even more, but the team still left a glaring hole unaddressed. Hopefully the team doesn’t look back at today with regret they didn’t do more.