Rumors: Andrew Benintendi still drawing trade interest despite being unvaccinated
Per MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand, Andrew Benintendi remains a trade target to AL East clubs.
28-year-old outfielder Andrew Benintendi found himself in hot water recently when he was one of 10 Kansas City Royals players placed on the restricted list ahead of a series in Toronto to take on the Blue Jays.
Canada’s COVID protocols say that anybody entering the country must be vaccinated and Benintendi was one of a handful of Royals players who chose to not get vaccinated against COVID.
While vaccination status is a sensitive subject to just about anybody, these Royals players, including Benintendi, now are getting some negative publicity and none are expected to be affected more than Benintendi, who is the Royals No. 1 trade chip.
While rumors began to fly that AL East teams were now no longer interested in trading for Benintendi’s services, Mark Feinsand has reported that that is not the case and that his vaccination status is not preventing teams from looking into landing him.
It appears that Andrew Benintendi’s vaccination status is not having an impact on his trade market. According to sources, multiple teams - including some in the AL East - are interested in acquiring the All-Star outfielder from the Royals.
— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) July 22, 2022
Kansas City Royals rumors: Andrew Benintendi’s vaccination status not scaring off teams on trade market
On the year, the left fielder is having arguably his best season in the big leagues, finally putting together some of that high potential the Boston Red Sox knew he had years back before they finally cut bait.
Through 87 games in 2022, “Benny” has just three home runs but the power outage has been made up by his overall production (37 RBI, 124 OPS+, and .317 batting average). His strikeout totals are way down from years past and would be a career-low SO% if the season ended today with 14.1%.
Baseball-Reference has his defense at -0.2 dWAR, a far cry from his 2021 Gold Glove-winning performance, but his oWAR, or Offensive Wins Above Replacement sits at 2.2, the highest on the Royals.
Miami Marlins manager Don Mattingly knows his time is up. dark. Next
The last place Royals are definitely going to welcome the news that teams are still interested in their biggest trade chip. Kansas City is 36-56 entering today and is 13.0 GB of the Twins for first place in the AL Central and 13.5 GB of an AL Wild Card spot, meaning a sell-off is likely coming in the near future. Fortunately for them, Benintendi’s trade interest is back and better than ever and will help them out when a move is made at this year’s deadline.