The Royals are expected to entertain offers for David DeJesus, Jose Guillen and Scott Podsednik, among others. The big steal in that crowd is DeJesus and it appears the Royals won't be going the route of the Cliff Lee trade and moving him weeks before the deadline, according to ESPN's Buster Olney.
Rival teams say they sense the Royals want to wait until closer to the deadline before deciding whether to trade David DeJesus.
What's the point in doing this? Two reasons.
1. Leverage.
The Royals, by many accounts, are content keeping DeJesus, In fact, that's probably their preferred scenario. Absent a mind-blowing offer, that's the result many of us feel might happen.
If the Royals wait longer and longer, teams interested DeJesus that are in a pennant race, will get more and more desperate. The longer they wait, the more they're willing to give up.
So, the Royals will wait. They're fine with that. It'll only increase the offers.
2. Maybe they really are in this thing
If the Royals started selling now, and then continued their team and got within a couple of games of the A.L Central or, hell, if they made it all the way to the top of the Central, they'd be kicking themselves for being sellers.
The Royals are right on the cusp of being good enough to justify not being sellers and trying to make a dent in the division lead this season.
So they'll wait until the end of July and see where they stand.