Kansas City Royals interested in Kendrys Morales

First baseman/designated hitter Kendrys Morales remains a free agent despite a very productive 2013 season with the Seattle Mariners. That is probably at least partially due to the fact that he declined a qualifying offer from Seattle and will therefore cost his new team draft pick compensation.

Still, he is a switch-hitting power hitter who cracked 23 home runs while playing half of his games in Seattle last year. That should eventually garner more interest, and yesterday Jim Duquette reported (with some enthusiasm, I might add) that the Kansas City Royals are a team interested in Morales:

What makes their interest a little confusing, however, is the presence of Billy Butler, who it could be argued is almost the exact same player minus the switch-hitting. Duquette addresses that fact and suggests that if the Royals signed Morales they might look to trade Butler.

In theory that makes a lot of sense, but how much would the Royals actually get for Butler? He batted .289/.374/.412 with 15 home runs and 82 RBI in 2013. Impressively he played in all 162 games; 150 of them were as the designated hitter, however, a factor that would have to impact his trade value.

As it is, teams struggle to get pitching in return in trades. Any team in need of right-handed power might instead look to a guy like Nelson Cruz as a free agent. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where the Royals pursue this route and get more than $.70 on the dollar for the man known as Country Breakfast.

As for Morales, other than the Royals the Baltimore Orioles, New York Mets, and Pittsburgh Pirates have also expressed interest.