With the trade deadline only a little over a week away and other teams in Major League Baseball looking to compete for the postseason, I used Sky Kalkman's awesome Trade Value Calculator to look at some of the names we keep hearing.  The Royals are not winning this year and next year isn't looking too promising.  So, trading away guys that have value is a great way to address two major problems/excuses we hear for this franchise.

1. Trade MLB players who might not be around by the time the Royals are productive to acquire young baseball talent.  Young baseball talent means CHEAP.  Payroll problem is somewhat addressed.
2. The minors are empty.  Especially the higher levels, trading away MLB players for a couple of prospects is a great way to restock the minor leagues.

All of the information below is from Fangraphs, Sky Kalkman's amazing trade value tool, Baseball Projection, and salary information from Cot's.  A quick disclaimer, I had to estimate some of the future WAR values.  I couldn't find any projections out there other than for pitchers, I used BaseballProjection for Soria and as a base for Bannister.  However, I kept the WAR values similar to the last couple of years for most of these guys. 

Joakim Soria-  Positive $14 million in value.         
               
Year    Sal (M)    WAR    Val (M)    Net (M)
2009    $0.5        1.1       $5.2       $4.7
2010    $3           1.7       $8.1       $5.1
2011    $4            2.1      $9.9       $5.9
2012    $6           1.6       $7.6       $1.6
2013    $8           1.4       $6.7      -$1.3
2014    $8.8        1.5      $7.2      -$1.6                          
Total    $30.3      9.4      $44.5    $14.3

Brian Bannister-   Positive $22.5 million value         
Year    Sal (M)    WAR    Val (M)    Net (M)
2009    $1.7         3        $13.7       $12
2010    $3.8         2        $9.4         $5.6
2011    $5.1       1.8       $8.5         $3.4
2012    $5.7       1.5       $7.2         $1.4
Total    $16.3      8.3      $38.8      $22.5

David DeJesus- Positive $16 million value    
 Year    Sal (M)    WAR    Val (M)    Net (M)
2009    $3.6         2.5        $11.5       $7.9
2010    $4.7         2           $9.4         $4.7
2011    $6            2           $9.4         $3.4               
Total    $14.3       6.5        $30.3       $16

Mark Teahen- Positive $9.7 million value

Year    Sal (M)    WAR    Val (M)    Net (M)
2009    $3.8           2        $9.2       $5.5
2010    $4.3         1.5       $7.2       $2.9
2011    $5.7         1.5       $7.2        $1.4              
Total    $13.8        5         $23.5      $9.7

Billy Butler - Positive $28.4 million value                              
Year    Sal (M)    WAR    Val (M)    Net (M)
2009    $0.4        1.5       $7            $6.6
2010    $0.4        1.8       $8.5         $8.1
2011    $3.8         2         $9.4         $5.6
2012    $5.6         2         $9.4         $3.8
2013    $7.5         2        $9.4          $1.9  
Total    $17.7      9.3     $46.2       $28.4

And for shits and giggles:

Zack Greinke - Positive $94.4 million in value!              
               
Year    Sal (M)    WAR    Val (M)    Net (M)
2009    $3.8        10      $45.2       $41.5
2010    $7.3          6      $27.4       $20.2
2011    $13.5        6      $27.4       $13.9
2012    $13.5        6      $27.4       $13.9 
Total    $38         28      $132.4     $94.4

Ok, if I did everything correctly in the spreadsheet this should be somewhat accurate.  To get an idea for the return on this kind of value for players, read Erik from Beyond the Box Score explaining it here. And a quick explanation from that post:

Divide prospects into different tiers using Baseball America's prospect rankings.


Find what the average player in a talent pool produces during their cost-controlled years.


Find how much money a team would need to spend to acquire the prospect's production on the free-agent market. For this, Victor applied Studes' work on WSAB and its direct relationship to a player's salary.


Find the savings.

For those outside of the Baseball America's 100, Victor applied the same process to prospects graded with B's and C's by John Sickels, only with C prospects he further divided them by age. The grades would be seen in any of his top 20 rankings for a given farm system.

Quick thoughts:  The Royals obviously can't trade away all of these guys, but this is the way to get multiple pieces back for a few.  However, the flip side is that these are also the players and contracts the Royals need in order to compete.  If I thought the Royals were a couple of players away, I wouldn't want any of these guys traded (sadly, I don't have high hopes for next year).  These are the contracts that allow small market teams to compete.  Not the $36 million contract for Jose or the $9 million contract for Farnsworth.

Spreadsheet Here