A pre-Christmas trade between the Kansas City Royals and Philadelphia Phillies brought veteran reliever Matt Strahm back home to Kauffman Stadium, where it's hoped he'll help the first big league club he pitched for return to the playoffs next season. Strahm broke in with the Royals in 2016, and the 1.23 ERA he posted over 21 games suggested a bright future with the franchise was in the making.
But things didn't work out that way. Instead, the club sacrificed that part of its future when head baseball man Dayton Moore pulled the trigger on a 2017 trade deadline deal with San Diego that involved Strahm.